Hi everyone! We’ve come to the end of our series on air pollution and tourism, and we hope you’ve enjoyed following us on our journey in the skies. In the past two weeks, we covered more ‘discreet’ forms of air pollution related to tourism, as well as the effect that pollution, in turn, has on tourism. Just like our series on aquatic pollution, here’s a little recap on what we discussed…
A brief summary
We began our flight into air pollution with the introduction to the different pollutants in the air – like PM2.5 and Ozone – as well as the ways in which it can be measured, and we gave a little teaser on the two-way relationship that air pollution and tourism have with each other.
The subsequent posts breezed into the less-thought-of pollution related to tourism – firstly, we discussed the ways in which airlines contribute to air pollution as well as the devastating effects it can have on both the health of the planet as well as the health of humans; following that, we delved into indoor air pollution in hotels that we normally fail to consider as guests. We then moved on to a discussion of how air pollution affects tourism in two ways – first by simply dissuading visitation, and secondly by negatively affecting the psychology of tourists.
To wrap up the series on air pollution, we headed on to discuss (yet another) two possible solutions to air pollution from tourism. We first discussed the cutting-edge technology used by AIR-INK, an MIT invention recently launched on funding platform Kickstarter, before moving on to the prospect of having “flights to nowhere” and airline cafes as a future method of appeasing our wanderlust.
Tailwinds ahead?
So, what’s next for air pollution and tourism?
For one, we’re thankful that COVID-19 has brought the issue of air pollution by airplanes to light, especially the voices that raised the environmental impacts of having “flights to nowhere” (which ultimately resulted in SIA scrapping the idea); usually, when one thinks about air pollution by tourism, one normally thinks of tourist activities at the destination instead of considering the effects of the journey in the first place.
More than that, as we consider the impacts that air pollution can have on tourism as well as human health in general, we’re greatly heartened by the progress made and the technologies that are being constantly developed – like AIR-INK and the bringing of the holiday experience to people (through airline cafes) – to reduce the overall carbon footprint and air pollution (all other pollutions, actually, since entire trips will be cancelled) by tourism.
Yet, while more research show the links between air pollution and worsened tourism, tailwinds might emerge amid all of these efforts to try and stem air pollution by and within tourism:
- The aviation industry has to continue running one way or another, and the replacement of holiday flights by other experiences that will inevitably cut their profits might not be welcomed by airline operators, especially carriers that depend heavily on passenger load and not cargo.
2. The cost of being environmentally friendly might turn tourism operators away – strategies like using cleaner energy and less toxic materials, subscribing to cutting-edge technology to ameliorate generated pollution and changing large-scale practices to be greener all require the injection of more capital, which might seem like a thankless task.
Time to hit the road
Nevertheless, we’re still encouraged by the way that COVID-19 has enabled the tourism industry as a whole to rethink what they’ve been doing, and perhaps this “restart button” forced upon us will allow for clearer skies in the future.
In our next series, we’ll be discussing land pollution and how it relates to tourism – get in the car and hit the road with us!