Rising rents across Europe have been linked to \u201cbooming air tourism\u201d with Ireland set to face the highest absolute rise by 2031, an advocacy group has warned.<\/p>\n
New research has found popular tourist destinations in Spain and Greece face spiralling rents and an increasingly negative environmental impact from air tourism.<\/p>\n
The T&E (Transport & Environment) organisation, Europe\u2019s leading advocacy group for clean transport and energy, has published a new analysis warning that Ireland could face rent hikes of \u20ac250 a year by 2031 linked to air tourism, outside of other rent increases.<\/p>\n
It also highlighted a growing crisis in Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal among other European countries facing an \u201cunaffordable housing crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n
T&E found that despite widespread \u201canti-tourism protests\u201d in some popular destinations, the number of tourists arriving by air continues to rise.<\/p>\n
The study, carried out by the New Economics Foundation, also found that rising rents will \u201cprimarily affect lower-income households\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIreland is expected to see the largest rise, facing a rent increase of \u20ac250 per year,\u201d it found.<\/p>\n
The report looked only at data for formal accommodation, such as hotels, due to limited data available for other tourist accommodations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the rise in nights spent in informal accommodation, such as Airbnb, were considered, the growth rates would likely be higher still,\u201d it warned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe aviation sector is responsible for an estimated 52% of the global tourism industry\u2019s direct emissions and much of the sector\u2019s emissions growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Europe, emissions from international tourist arrivals by air are projected to rise over 60% between 2016 and 2030.\u201d<\/p>\n
T&E has now called for a new EU Sustainable Tourism Strategy to include a focus on reducing international air arrivals in saturated regions and a wider analysis of the air tourism impacts.<\/p>\n
It warned that Ireland and other countries are expanding air travel, with \u20ac12.9bn committed by the Spanish government last year to boost the sector.<\/p>\n
Athens is currently rolling out a \u20ac1.3bn expansion to boost annual passenger capacity by 25%, while terminal expansions are actively underway in Lisbon.<\/p>\n
Denise Auclair, head of T&E\u2019s Travel Smart Campaign, said: \u201cThis study proves we cannot separate the anti-tourism protests on the ground from the surge of flights arriving overhead.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to manage tourism overcrowding while simultaneously expanding airports in Dublin, Barcelona, or Lisbon is a losing battle.\u201d<\/p>\n
She urged governments to put an \u201cimmediate stop\u201d to airport expansions and reconsider strategies for tourism and transport connectivity, if they are serious about affordable housing and climate targets.<\/p>\n
The T&E said most economic impact assessment approaches in aviation fail to consider effects on property and rent prices, even where such consequences are at the very top of the political agenda.<\/p>\n
According to the study, failing to recognise how much air traffic growth drives overtourism and its impacts on communities will result in a narrow and inefficient government response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rising rents across Europe have been linked to \u201cbooming air tourism\u201d with Ireland set to face the highest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11900,807,61,60,43,2738],"class_list":["post-523415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-dublin-airport","tag-housing","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-transport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}