Initiative: Climate Change and Youth Travel

The Unique Carbon Footprint of Youth Travellers

We all know that young people travel to discover new cultures and to truly experience the local communities they visit—essentially resulting in staying longer and experiencing more. Youth travel habits differ from mainstream travel; likewise, youth travel’s measurable impact on the environment—its carbon footprint—is indeed also unique.

Using information from the Travel Industry of America, the average business traveller spends 3.3 days at a destination per business trip. A business traveller’s carbon footprint per travel day for a round trip to New York (JFK) and London (LHR) could be therefore illustrated as the following:

Using data from the 2007 “New Horizons II – The Young Independent Traveller” survey, a youth traveller’s carbon footprint per travel day is calculated as nine percent of a mainstream traveller’s (even when factoring in several potential short-haul flights during a youth traveller’s trip). The chart below shows the daily CO2 footprint of a long-haul youth traveller who chooses to add several short-haul flights to his or her travel itinerary.

In addition, youth travellers generally stay in local accommodation (hostels, guest houses, or with friends or relatives), and use public transportation during their trips. This type of travel emits less carbon than business travel, which usually involves accommodation in large hotel chains, and the use of taxis or rental cars upon arrival.

While not erasing the impacts of youth travel on the environment, these facts do help us put the environmental costs of young travellers in perspective.

However, there is much we can do to make youth travel even more environmentally sustainable.

By encouraging young travellers to think critically about their actions while travelling—giving them the knowledge to adopt responsible travel habits before, during, and after their trips—we make them better travellers and better global citizens.