Benidorm named the most eco-friendly tourism destination - Car Rental News
Benidorm named the most eco-friendly tourism destination
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Car Rental News - 30/12/2010
Popular destination for Brit sunseekers is officially amongst the most eco-friendly.
Thomson Holidays has officially named Benidorm in Spain as one of the most environmentally-friendly destinations for tourists. Thomson, one of the UK’s main travel firms and a major supplier of the many tourists who flock to the Costa Blanca, revealed its assessment in a new travel study.
The travel study, Sustainable Holiday Futures, has just been published by Thomson. In the detailed study, an in-depth analysis is made of the future trends in mass-market tourism.
One chapter, called ‘The Benidorm Effect’, proposes that holidays in long-haul destinations like low-level luxury hotels and beachside bungelows in the Maldives actually generate higher levels of pollution that travel to mass-market high-rise destinations like Benidorm. This goes against conventional wisdom, which says large-volume, mass-market holidays to places like Benidorm has the most damaging effect on the environment.
This section of the study highlights the fact that many holidaymakers fall prey to a commonly-held misconception in their assessment of their own carbon footprints when they choose holidays. A two-week holiday yachting in the Caribbean, for example, actually generates six times more carbon emissions per person than that created by a package holiday in Benidorm.
The key component in this and other such examples is the distance travelled by plane. A boat holiday off the coast of Britain or hiking in the Yorkshire Dales would be far more environmentally friendly than boating in the Caribbean or hiking in South America, as the latter examples require long trips by air.
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