Future-proofing Travel
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Future-proofing Travel

How to Create a Resilient and Sustainable Industry

Caroline Bremner
Kogan Page, 2025
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The tourism industry ground to a halt in 2020, then recovered its losses and exploded in an era of post-pandemic travel. However, too much tourism can be bad for a city, as industry consultant Caroline Bremner writes in this study. Top-tier destinations must deal with too many people cramming into too little space. Bremner reports that popular cities, such as Amsterdam and Barcelona, are taking steps to stem the tide. The travel industry is also a major contributor to global warming, she writes, warning that it must attend to its carbon footprint and predicting that the days of energy-hogging cheap flights could soon end.

Summary

The tourism industry has reached a crossroads.

For adventure seekers, travel is a dream. But an influx of visitors can become a nightmare for popular destinations. Tourism is a trillion-dollar industry, and the demand for travel continues to grow as people seek adventure, knowledge, connection, beauty, and happiness by visiting new places. Tourist destinations often benefit, given that visitors’ money drives economic transformations, boosts local incomes, and deepens the population’s links to the rest of the world. That’s why governments across the globe provide public subsidies to fund airport expansions, hotel development, and other tourism-serving projects.

Since the 1990s, travel has become available to more people than ever in the past. Discount airlines and online booking sites have reduced the cost and difficulty of international travel. The danger is that travelers have overrun highly popular places, including Venice, Kyoto, Iceland, Barcelona, the Canary Islands, and Dubrovnik, and all those visitors have an environmental impact as well as an economic one.

Labor shortages and climate change pose risks to the travel sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic...

About the Author

Caroline Bremner advises global travel brands, destinations, and consumer goods firms on the future of travel, consumer trends, digitalization, and sustainability. 

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