“I think what is going to happen is that people are going to be more careful about where they travel, how and why,” says Maita Barrenechea, a partner in Argentinian luxury travel service Mai 10, who notes than many of her clients have rerouted or changed travel plans since the onset of Covid-19. She thinks that if the spread of the virus continues, travel will stop entirely, and that, regardless, years from now people will look back nostalgically on the days when they jumped on a plane for a meeting instead of jumping on a Zoom call or a Google Hangout.

This serves as a stark reminder that there are natural forces at play that are far larger than any one of us, the travel-addicted individuals fuelled by eons of ignorant and irresponsible human behaviour. It’s certainly enough to make one think twice about booking that flight to the Maldives, even if you still opt to take it.

Social Capital

For many of us, travel had become less a privilege than a given right. Air travel specifically had never been more available and more affordable. Some European flight routes on budget carriers were cheaper than an Uber ride from Lower Manhattan to the Upper West Side, even though getting there wasn’t always pretty. With the onset of mass air travel, the inflight experience became increasingly degrading at the economy level.

But so what? What was seven hours of sitting upright overnight, knees to tray table with a cramp in your hip and your seatmate’s bare feet just a pinky toe away in economy, when you awoke and deplaned in Rome, Barcelona, Dubrovnik, wherever? There was always headache wine to dull the pain along the way, and when you got there, everyone would know that you had achieved the semi-glam kind of life when you posted it on social.

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If that’s too shallow a dismissal of the average travel experience, there are still the socioeconomic and cultural benefits of travel to so many people to consider. Tourism boosts local economies, reduces bigotry and allows us to see friends and family. But we weren’t being responsible, leading to a backlash against social media and influencer culture that is undeniable.

Not only does Instagram glamorise an elite portrayal of travel that is unattainable for most, it has also driven people in droves to the most photogenic sites, alarming conservationists and angering locals. For example, Yosemite National Park’s annual firefall phenomenon drew more than 2,200 people on one single night, leading the park to close two of the best vantage points because of overcrowding and pollution. Look at Cinque Terre in Italy, which had to institute crowd-control policies to stem the tide of tourists, or the ‘super bloom’ of Southern California that drew swarms of influencers—all doing it for the ‘gram.

Google “travel shaming” or “flight shaming” and you’ll find loads of articles about the effects that mass global travel has inflicted on the planet. In late 2018, the International Air Transport Association released a 20- year report estimating that the number of air passengers could double to 8.2 billion by 2037. At the time of the study, the Asia-Pacific region was predicted to be the biggest growth driver, with China on track to overtake the US as the number one market for air travel. With those numbers come other numbers. Scary ones. There’s no end to them.

Offsetting the Cost

Of course, travellers’ guilt has led to some measures that are being taken to offset the carbon emissions. Carbon offsetting—the practice of supporting measures to take as much carbon out of the atmosphere as you’re putting in, by planting trees and such—has become a huge business in and of itself.

Everyone is doing it: Amazon, Google, Kering, LVMH, even Sir Elton John, who last year offset the former Duke and Duchess of Sussex Harry and Meghan’s private jet ride to John’s home in the south of France. On a larger scale, under the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, the aviation industry set the goal of achieving carbon-neutral growth from 2020 onwards and cutting CO2 emissions to half of where they were in 2005 by 2050. Do we even buy this?

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Critics, and anyone with a healthy dose of scepticism, are right to wonder if it’s really that easy to justify a hedonistic vacation by planting a tree. Buy some offsets and absolve your carbon sins. I would argue that actions taken to counter carbon emissions require much regulation. After all, every tree planted can be cut down if no one’s looking.

Philippe Lacamp, senior vice president, Americas, of Cathay Pacific, says that other more long-term actions are being made by the aviation industry. Cathay was at the forefront of the Corsia pact, the carbon offsetting and reduction scheme employed by the global airlines industry.

He says it was also the first airline to invest in a biofuel company, Fulcrum Bioenergy, in 2014. It uses a blend of biofuel and regular fuels on certain routes. It’s also “light-weighted” its planes because less weight means less fuel burned, done away with single-use plastics and started making in-flight carpets out of recycled nylon. Electric planes are a long way off. But long-haul electric flights will likely never get here, says Lacamp.

One of the biggest obstacles is that all of this innovation costs a lot of money, and the customer doesn’t want to incur the penalty. “If you say, ‘Do you prefer to fly with a sustainable airline?’ Most customers are like, ‘Oh yeah, I would,’” says Lacamp. “‘Would you pay a hundred bucks more?’ ‘No.’ And I can tell you that—I can tell you that empirically.”

Changing Habits

It’s funny what behaviours people are willing and unwilling to change. Barrenechea says that many of her clients have asked for itineraries that include train travel instead of flights, especially in Europe where the rail system is strong. They don’t want to go to over-travelled areas. They opt for locally sourced food and avoid wasteful hotel buffets. She has more requests for walking tours, bike tours and visits to rural areas because they’re more ecological. She says people are more likely to carry on bags than check them in because that is lighter and burns less fuel. Some customers are even proud to fly economy over business because the carbon impact is lower.

Have any of Barrenechea’s primo customers given up their private jets?

“No, not really,” she says. “I think they don’t feel that guilty because they are usually donating so much money and contributing to so many charities and conservations and so on that they probably feel that they’re already offsetting.”

But back to the question at hand: will I give up travel, knowing what I know now? Were flying private in my personal budget, I would probably give it up and continue to offset as much as I could. I like to think I will pay US$100 for a more sustainable flight if it means I don’t have to give up travel wholesale. I really don’t want to. As it goes for most beautiful, interesting, exciting places in the world, the whole point is being there.

See also: What You Need To Know About Eco-Conscious Travel In Africa—And The Best Sustainable Safari Experiences To Have In 2020

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