Destinations known | Why ‘sustainable tourism’ is the next tedious travel trend, invoked to alleviate woke wanderers’ guilt

Tired of reading about overtourism? Well, get ready for the next newsfeed-clogging travel trend: sustainable tourism. Of course, the idea itself is not the issue; travellers and the industry that orbits around them must work harder to limit their impact on the Earth and its resources if they wish to continue exploring the world. Rather, the tedium will come from hotels, airlines and other industry players trying to sell their services as “sustainable”. Saying something doesn’t make it so.

A case in point is AirAsia’s new “Sustainable Asean” livery. That’s right, one of the region’s biggest budget carriers, which has played a fundamental role in making air travel more accessible, thus contributing to the harmful carbon emissions associated with aviation as well as overtourism (there’s that term again), is promoting more environmentally friendly ways of moving people en masse with a new design on the side of its newest plane.

And because nothing says sustainability like dirt-cheap air travel, AirAsia announced that it would be celebrating the new livery by offering promotional fares from 39 ringgit (US$9) one-way for members of the airline’s loyalty programme and from 45 ringgit for non-members.

As Malaysia’s biggest airline and a dominant player in Southeast Asia, the carrier is well positioned to lead damage-limitation efforts in the region. “Fuel comprises one of our largest operational costs, and the consumption of fuel by our aircraft is responsible for most of our carbon emissions,” noted AirAsia in its 2017 Sustainability Report, before detailing the initiatives it had implemented to keep its costs and carbon footprint down.