ABSTRACT
Tourism emits 5 per cent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions of which about 75 per cent is caused by tourism transport (Scott et al., 2010). If historic developments continue, it will be very difficult for tourism to significantly reduce its emissions to a sustainable level (Scott et al., 2010). Technology-based efficiency improvements have so far been outpaced by volume and demand growth (Ch’eze et al., 2011; Owen et al., 2010; Sgouridis et al., 2010). Therefore, changes in demand and travel behaviour will be inevitable to achieve sustainable tourism development with respect to climate change. Further, most current tourism studies cover only international trips, just 16 per cent of all global tourism trips (Peeters and Dubois, 2010). Finally, a long-term horizon is needed, up to at least the year 2100 in most climate scenarios (Girod et al., 2009; Girod et al., 2012; IPCC, 2000; Rogelj et al., 2011) and even up to 2300 (Moss et al., 2010). The main reasons for such a long-term focus in climate change scenarios are the “long-term (decades to centuries) trends in energy- and land- use patterns” and because of “the slow response of the climate system (centuries) to changing concentrations of greenhouse gases” (Moss et al., 2010, p. 748). Most existing tourism demand models (Lim, 1997) and many tourism scenario studies cover only time horizons of 15–20 years (e.g. Forum for the Future, 2009; Schwaninger, 1984; UNWTO, 2011; WTO, 1998). Only a few studies take wider horizons, all dedicated to tourism and climate change (Ceron and Dubois, 2007; Mayor and Tol, 2010; Müller and Weber, 2007). Suitable system- based models for global tourism do not exist. Econometric models find increasing validity problems when describing longer-term futures; the coefficients defining such models are statistically derived, but not necessarily founded in the real world mechanisms of behaviour.
