HOW WILL CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT YOUR TOURISM BUSINESS?
AUTHOR: Kushla Gale, Tilma Group
This is a tough topic that we hope a couple of recommended resources will help with.
We recently read Destination Think’s article on how decarbonisation will impact tourism as much as the rise of the internet did – and so will inaction on the climate challenge.
We highly encourage you to plan now for how your business will reduce its emissions by 3/4 by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2035 (targets which are essential to achieving the goal of remaining under 2C hotter) and also, to plan now for how climate change is likely to impact your business.
THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE INACTION ON OUR INDUSTRY
We’re all aware of how more intense weather events are already impacting our industry, such as
- The Black Summer bushfires shutting down tourism on the south coast of NSW
- Floods shutting down tourism to Lismore, NSW and other regions across the continent
- The distressing vistas of drought reducing the appeal of regional road trips
- Storms sweeping away the beaches of tourism hotspots like Byron Bay
- Social changes that impact travel, such as the ‘flight shame’ movement
Here’s how a changing climate will impact your corner of the world:
In recent years there have been masses of grants to help our industry respond to the impacts of extreme weather events but for how long can Governments and insurance companies afford to bail us out?
HOW TO BECOME MORE RESILIENT TO EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS
The Queensland Government has developed a simple-to-use and free checklist and action plan for climate change risk assessment and management to help you plan how you can improve your business’ resilience to the impacts of extreme weather events, and other impacts of climate change (such as on the economy and supply chains).
We used this template ourselves to assess and plan for the various impacts of climate change on our business.
HOW TO REDUCE YOUR BUSINESS’ EMISSIONS SIGNIFICANTLY
We also used the free DIY resources of ecoBiz to easily develop an emissions reduction plan for Tilma Group.
Examples of their resources include
- Resources for hospitality businesses (accommodations and eateries)
- A guide to energy efficiency (i.e. saving money)
OVER TO YOU
We’d love to hear about your actions to mitigate (reduce emissions) and adapt (become more resilient) to climate change impacts. Please let us know in the comments.