Growing pressure on nature The sector’s relationship with ecosystems is paradoxical: nature attracts travellers, yet tourism can degrade natural environments. This tension intensifies with sector expansion, creating urgent imperatives for sustainable development and management and changes in travellers’ behaviour (even if increased awareness is already present).56 T&T accounts for 8% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,57 with transportation representing around 40%.58 With projected expansion this could reach between 11% and 15%, depending on global emissions trends. The sector currently represents approximately 10%59 of global energy consumption but could reach more than 12%60 by 2034, implying 26 million terajoules. This emphasizes the importance of clean energy transitions and improved efficiency. Tourist waste generation averages 1.6kg per person daily61 – double the global average.62 Without intervention and based on trip projections, tourist waste could reach 205 million tonnes annually by 2034 (7% of global solid waste), creating significant management challenges – particularly in destinations with limited processing infrastructure. Waste generated by tourism and hospitality is estimated to be composed primarily of organic waste (37–72%), followed by paper and cardboard (6–40%) and plastic (5–15%).63 Water consumption shows similar patterns, as the sector currently accounts for 6% of total usage.64 These pressures are concentrated in coastal ecosystems, where 50–80% of tourism occurs.65 More than a third of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) natural World Heritage sites face significant or critical pressure, with a slight increase compared to the last assessment in 2017.66 Although climate change continues to be the major factor affecting these sites, tourist visits continue to increase vs. 2014 and 2017, and it now ranks as the third most common threat. This highlights the need to change traveller behaviour towards the environment but also the necessity for collective action from operators, authorities and destination managers to ensure these sites can absorb projected growth sustainably. The growing environmental pressure creates critical challenges for sustainability. As tourism intensifies and expands, the contribution to climate change might increase without significant intervention, creating a feedback loop that threatens many destinations through sea-level rise, extreme weather and changing seasonal patterns. Tourism development and visitor pressure can contribute to habitat degradation and species decline, undermining the natural assets upon which many destinations depend. T&T can also compete with local communities for limited resources, creating potential conflicts or trade-offs that require careful management. Many destinations lack the infrastructure and systems required to manage the waste volumes generated by tourism, leading in the best-case scenario to comprehensive waste management systems development (e.g. Bora Bora and Maldives) or in the worst case to pollution and ecosystem degradation that affect both environmental and human health (at Maya Bay on Koh Phi Phi Leh in Thailand, for example, excessive tourism led to severe coral damage before the beach’s closure).67 Addressing these challenges requires moving beyond impact minimization towards approaches that actively restore and enhance natural systems, transforming the relationship with nature from extraction to stewardship. This transformation is not merely an ethical imperative but a business necessity for the long-term viability of the sector.6 Caption: Hot air balloons flying in sunset sky Cappadocia, Türkiye Travel and Tourism at a Turning Point: Principles for Transformative Growth 15

Travel and Tourism at a Turning Point 2025