Study Finds Travelers Willing to Pay More for Sustainable Options

A new report from Euromonitor has found travelers are willing to pay more for sustainable travel options. The report discovered nearly 80 percent of travelers surveyed will shell out at least 10 percent more when booking sustainable travel. More than 40 percent of travelers additionally reported they would pay more than 30 percent more specifically for sustainable adventure and eco-tourism experiences.

In addition to looking at traveler attitudes, the Euromonitor report also looked at destinations’ sustainability efforts and how they may appeal to these travelers. While the results showed European countries are in far better shape in terms of sustainable travel than countries on other continents, with European countries taking the top 17 spots in the rankings, other destinations did show great improvement over the last five years. Euromonitor pointed to Egypt and the Maldives as the most improved.

In addition to ranking countries for their sustainable travel offerings, Euromonitor looked at individual cities and found, in this instance, a European destination did not come out on top. Instead, Melbourne, Australia, took the top city spot, with its goal to reach net zero emissions by 2040. Other cities to take top spots included Madrid, Spain; Seville, Spain; Stockholm, Sweden; and Tallinn, Estonia.