ABSTRACT
Tourism is a major contributor to, and is affected by, climate change. Tourism is therefore transforming places, landscape, and people because of its contributions to the climate crisis. However, the answer to the question as to whether tourism is being transformed as part of the response to climate change or whether it will continue in a Business-as-Usual direction currently remains open. Following an initial discussion of the tourism context in the light of COVID-19 and the importance of the sector, the chapter then provides an outline of tourism’s contribution to climate change and how this is developing over time before examining the transformative challenge for tourism and hospitality. Recognition of the multiscalar nature of sustainability is regarded as essential to understanding tourism’s responses to the climate crisis because although shifts to more environmentally and climate friendly forms of tourism and hospitality can occur at the individual, firm, community, and even destination level, their overall contribution to transformation of the global tourism system may be limited. These issues are regarded as being well illustrated by the reaction to COVID-19 and the long-term trajectories of tourism growth.
