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Happy 25th Anniversary Rough Guides

he also gave a bit of a rant to the observer yesterday...which is an interesting read...if not slightly paradoxical:
http://travel.guardian.co.uk/article/2007/may/06/travelnews.climatechange

Thanks for pointing out the story, Benji. Indeed, it is a bit paradoxical. I’m also struck that he compares the travel industry to the tobacco industry. I don’t think that’s a fair comparison.

The Observer article was indeed a bit of a rant - but that was the doing of their interviewer, who was determined to writeup the story she had composed before talking to me.
I stand right behind the proposal for a £100 “green tax” on tickets for all flights to Europe and Africa, £250 to the rest of the world; hence discouraging binge-flying, and levelling the playing field somewhat for trains. But the article eliminated an important rider, which is that everyone should have one tax-free voucher for a short-haul flight. I do not think travel – or holidays abroad – should be only for the well-off. I just think we must all fly much less, to reduce CO2 emissions, and that taxing flights is the only way that is going to happen.

I should also correct the article’s assertion that I “compared the damage done by tourism to the impact of the tobacco industry”.  I did not. My comparison related explicitly to information: that the travel industry has a responsibility to address the facts of flights and carbon emissions, and must not (in the mode of the tobacco industry) ignore, deny or belittle the issue.

Finally, the Observer reporter suggested that I had no enthusiasm for ethical travel. That is way off the mark. “Ethical travel” is a complex area, and it is hard to weigh up the very real economic benefits of travel, particularly to the developing world, against the impact of carbon emissions from flying. But I am a huge advocate of ethical and green initiatives in the travel industry. Some of them may be skin-deep but others are inspired – and I salute them.

Mark Ellingham
Publisher, Rough Guides

He has a point about low-cost airlines contributing to ‘binge flying’ - people flying from London to Paris just for a lunch or dinner, and to Prague or Budapest or Riga for a stag night.

Then again, maybe I’m only supporting his idea because I don’t want to share a hostel dorm with a rugby team on a stag night ever again...?