Aviation fails to make its case says Justin Francis

Aviation has failed to articulate how responsible tourism can cut poverty and conserve cultural heritage

It was reported last week that Kwasi Kwarteng, the Conservative MP for Spelthorne, near Heathrow had said he was unaware of British airlines’ green credentials and that the industry could do more to promote their green solutionsn to the public. I would agree that airlines have not yet successfully presented and communicated around sustainability issues in a compelling or convincing way. Writes Justin Francis of Responsible Travel

To date, aviation has focused its CSR programmes around its own environmental efficiency levels, carbon trading and offset schemes. Not only is this focus too narrow but ultimately, until biofuels or some other progressive development radically reforms aviation’s environmental proposition, it’s a no win argument however you present it.

Of course, if we judge aviation on its contribution to global warming; resulting from the transportation of a relatively wealthy few people living in developed countries, then the inevitable conclusion is that its growth will have to be constrained. Indeed, many campaigners have felt it an obvious target because holidays are so apparently ‘frivolous’.

Yet there is another side to this story which in my opinion, the industry should be telling.
Airlines are not in the business of transporting people from A to B. Airlines are in the business of enabling tourism and commerce around the world – and that I think, is potentially far more interesting and valuable to society.

However, the aviation industry has thus far failed to fully understand or articulate the importance of responsible tourism to livelihoods, poverty reduction, the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, and human relations globally. It has failed to engage with the responsible tourism movement and has missed a valuable opportunity in the process.
If you ask local people engaged in or dependent on tourism around the world if they consider responsible tourism ‘frivolous’, they will have a very different answer to that of many campaigners. They will tell you that tourism is how they educate and feed their children; it is how they make ends meet. The aviation industry needs a more holistic and balanced view of tourism. And yes, as Kwarteng implied last week, it needs to be more ‘exciting, forward-looking and sexy’ in order to increase levels of engagement, but that I think, should come from local people in tourist destinations, not from a man in head office with a powerpoint chart on carbon trading.

ABTA is currently planning a cross-industry campaign with the intention of getting the industry to lobby government with one voice. Although this move is perhaps predictable from our leading trade organisation we need to recognise that tourism is a very different industry to the banking or oil sectors where less than ten organisations account for the vast majority of commerce – therefore lending themselves well to a combined and cohesive lobbying movement.

In tourism we don’t need ‘one voice’; we consist of tens of thousands of enterprises with very different views and opinions and this is indeed what makes our industry so unique and special.
Perhaps what is needed instead is for the industry to deluge Government with countless powerful voices advocating the importance of responsible tourism in different ways rather than trying and failing to get one singular voice.

Maybe then we’ll get the attention our industry needs and deserves.

Justin Francis, MD responsibletravel.com

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