‘The iceberg hit the Titanic even if you were partying’: the travel industry needs to act now on climate change
Carolyn Childs, CEO of mytravelresearch.com, has warned the travel industry that it’s no longer innocent when it comes to climate change.
“We have 10 years to save the planet,” Childs told Mumbrella’s Travel Marketing Summit.
Carolyn Childs
Dubbing climate change as an “ultimate disruptor” for the industry, Childs said that travel marketers are responsible for taking action.
“That can make people feel powerless, but I want you to feel empowered. People are less confident in governments to solve the problem, they are looking to all of you.”
To illuminate the industry’s impact on the environment, she turned to visiting the polar bears in Churchill as an example of good-intentioned eco tourism, pointing out that the taking the trip means you use nearly 80% of the carbon the average UK resident uses in a year.
So while the rich are engaging in what Childs called “last chance tourism” – seeing animals and environments before they die out – because they understand the impact we’re having on the planet, they’re having an enormous impact in the process.
It turns out that seeing the polar bears is hindering, rather than helping, their environment
Childs said that travel marketers must look to roll out sustainable options to customers across the board, and not assume those that are price conscious don’t also want sustainable options, even though eco tourism started in the luxury sector.
“[Luxury travel] has been the canary in the coalmine,” she said, explaining that trends that gain popularity among the rich trickle down to the middle-class, the group that Childs explained supercharged the travel industry’s growth.
She said that, although we’re living in a “world of greater inequality” (“hidden by overall rising levels of wealth”) the wealthiest travellers aren’t slowing down in wanting (and paying for) the most luxurious experiences.
“So that’s a company that will build you your own private island. They will actually build you an island so you’re not seen by other people. Travel is something we use to signal to other people who we are as humans … owning a private island is a great way of doing that,” she said.
Surfing trips aimed at ‘learning and enrichment’ for the top 1%, and family trips acting as luxury gap years, were also discussed.
“In the old days, people used to go and play on a golf course. Now, these tech billionaires will go off with the world’s top surfers and they’ll surf in the morning and talk big picture in the afternoon,” Childs told the crowd.
“There’s a travel agent in the UK who actually organised a million pound trip around the world for a family.”
But she was sure to bluntly emphasise that ignoring the impact of travel on the environment won’t serve the industry well.
“The iceberg hit the Titanic even if you were partying.”
Brittney Rigby was Mumbrella's deputy managing editor - news and analysis. She left Mumbrella in April 2021.
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Oh puh-leeease! Enough with the moral posturing, virtue-signalling nonsense about climate change. Follow the money on that protection racket, and you’ll find your answers. Don’t worry Mumbrella “moderator” – I wrote this just for you to censor, as you always do. Fear not – it will reappear relatively soon in a published collection of Lefty-censorship examples that a group are compiling to ‘out’ this ugly practice of stifling debate. Some people will be named.
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There’s an interesting video on You Tube which points out this climate change idiocy has been going on since the 1800’s. We were going to perish by 1900 due to the coming ice age. Then in the 1930 it was warming and glaciers were melting, then the 70’s we were going into a new ice age and we needed to heat the planet, now were back to warming again.
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Actually Peter… As the person who actually said this (not Mumbrella) I take no pleasure in moral posturing … I’d really much rather have been talking about dark tourism, new hedonism and good old fashing family fun holidays. But there’s a simple answer to all this conspiracy theory stuff that climate change is made up. And yes it follows the money (and the evidence). James Annan who runs the Blue Skies Research Organisation and is a prominent climate scientist has laid a number of bets with climate deniers about whether his or their predictions on certain climate eventuate. So far he has won every ONE of those bets. So the smart money follows this (as does the evidence). You are entitled to take an alternative view but not to dis mine unless you can stump up the evidence to disprove it. As a side note I realise I should have also attributed the inspiration for the quote on the titanic – it comes from the governor of California! It really struck me ….
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Peter, I genuinely feel sad for you.
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“It turns out that seeing the polar bears is hindering, rather than helping, their environment”
-_-
Who’da thunk it.
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