\u201cWhere shall we go on holiday?\u201d would not, ideally, be a stressful question.<\/p>\n
But the world in 2025 is far from ideal, and summer breaks in Europe<\/a> and North America are no exception. Holiday hotspots are being ravaged by heat, fire, floods and drought as fossil fuel pollution warps the climate \u2013 and travelling to reach them in planes or on cruise ships spews far more planet-heating gas than anything else you and I are likely to do. (Rocket enthusiasts such as Katy Perry and Jeff Bezos, I assume, have not yet subscribed to Down to Earth.)<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to relax by the beach in 40C heat with the stench of smoke fouling the air. For some travellers, a nagging sense of guilt will further sully what they hoped would be a break of mindless bliss.<\/p>\n \u2018We have already entered the beginning of the age of non-tourism\u2019Daily temperatures reaching 45C have caused destructive wildfires throughout Spain\u2019s Ourense province. Photograph: Pablo Bl\u00e1zquez Dom\u00ednguez\/Getty Images<\/p>\n It was a dizzying array of dream destinations. Smooth-talking salespeople at the world\u2019s largest tourism trade fair stood ready to whisk you out of a dreary German conference hall and take you to far-flung lands that seemed too perfect to be real. High mountains, white beaches, jaw-dropping deserts \u2013 the options were endless, and all too available.<\/p>\n I had gone to the ITB Berlin to hear how the holiday industry was feeling about its future and the answer, for the most part, was unflinchingly cheery. The Swedish concept of flygskam, or flight shame, has failed to gain traction beyond a small share of climate-concerned tourists. Covid lockdowns brought only temporary pain to the aviation sector, which was bailed out with vast sums of public money when its planes were grounded. Traveller numbers in 2024 had returned to pre-pandemic highs. It had been a bad few years, everyone agreed, but things were finally looking up.<\/p>\n One talk, however, struck a noticeably different tone. In a speech that the conference organisers billed as a \u201cmust-hear session for anyone who cares about the future of travel and our planet\u201d, Stefan G\u00f6ssling, one of the most-cited travel researchers in the world, calmly declared the approaching demise of the era of mass tourism.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have already entered the beginning of the age of non-tourism,\u201d said G\u00f6ssling, a business professor at Linnaeus University who has consulted for the UN and World Bank, to an uneasy audience of travel agencies, car rental companies, cruise operators and hoteliers.<\/p>\n G\u00f6ssling argues that worsening weather is raising the cost of travel to levels that consumers\u2019 wallets will soon be unable to sustain. It\u2019s not just the odd heatwave here or wildfire there, he said, when I spoke with him after the talk, but the mounting cost of everything from food to insurance that will render travel as we know it unaffordable.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a big claim. The rising costs of extreme weather would have to outpace expected growth in global incomes by a large margin for his thesis to hold. That seems plausible if global heating reaches civilisation-threatening temperature levels that are 4C or 5C above the preindustrial average \u2013 in which case prepper bunkers will hold more appeal to me than all-inclusive resorts \u2013 but I find it hard to imagine at 1.5C or 2C, the levels to which world leaders have promised to reach.<\/p>\n And yet. Europe experienced its worst wildfires on record this summer, on the back of a year in which political enthusiasm for climate action has plunged. Even \u201ccoolcation\u201d destinations \u2013 popularised to beat the heat \u2013 such as Norway and Canada have been hit by staggering temperature extremes in recent weeks.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Nor is it just the worsening weather that puts tourism at risk. Flying is one of the hardest activities to clean up with technological solutions and efforts to keep disasters from spiralling will add to that cost. The price of a plane ticket is likely to balloon if it includes the cost of making planes greener or sucking carbon pollution back out of the atmosphere.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t paint a pretty picture for tourism industry executives. In blunt terms, they can either go green and raise prices or let the planet burn and raise prices. Either way, it may be time for the long-overlooked domestic holiday \u2013 cheap, convenient and often more relaxing \u2013 to finally make a comeback.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/p>\n