Fear of flying - it's not easy being green

We are frequently challenged along the lines "yes - but you are encouraging flying..." My stock response is to point out that low-cost flights are a recent phenomenon and not of our making. The books preceded them. We encourage people to support rural economies, get to know the locals and avoid the excesses of mass-tourism/corporate hotellery. How they get there is slightly beyond our remit. So, if we generate about a million bed nights a year in continental Europe with our books, the net impact will be considerable - and beneficial. Might that be, say, 500,000 cafe/restaurant meals in a year? Similarly, we reckon that we generate about half a million breakfasts in the UK, most of them using local and/or organic produce. That is a shot in the arm for local agriculture and local businesses. And there must be about 200,000 pub meals generated over a year.

So I reckon we do our bit for the local economies of the countries for which we publish books.

How you calculate the net benefit - disbenefit of all this Heaven knows! How many of our readers take ferries and trains? No idea. Many of them share cars, that I know. A calculation would have to set off the total carbon emissions from flying (and, of course, driving and training) against the carbon emission saved by avoiding the wrong places (ref above) and the environmental and social benefits of the way we encourage readers to be in these places. How do you calculate the net effect of a philanthropist flying to Africa to set up an AIDS programme, or to introduce a wind--turbine generation system?

For our long--haul places, of which many will be, ironically, in our Green Places To Stay book, out September 28 buy it here! the arguments take on an extra edge, I know. But some of the points I make in the long para above still stand, and we feel that while people ARE travelling we must tell them how to avoid making things worse. If we ARE persuading people to fly long-haul then we have to do some hard thinking.

But, again, the arguments are complex. I am, for example, dead keen on farm-gate shops, even if one has to drive to them. I have not calculated the overall carbon/social costs and benefits.

However, what if we were NOT publishing our sort of books? Then the only major influences out there would be malign - encouraging mass tourism and swanky travel consumerism. Should we not work hard to get the message out there?

I would be happy with a reversion to domestic tourism: the Brits, French and Italians etc all staying at home. We would just focus more on those countries and sell into the domestic markets more. And for what it is worth, I am signed up to the Stop Bristol Airport expansion programme and am prepared to be actively involved. (I wonder if that cancels out that flight I took to Sark last year??)
The only places that will have solved the problem are those that have made Herculean efforts socially and environmentally, off-set all flights to get there, and calculate every last carbon emission they are responsible for in order finally to over-offset that as well. And I don't where they are. Unless you count the Peruvian hotel that encourages guests to distribute low-carbon stoves. Or Strattons Hotel's discount of 10% to those who arrive by public transport. Or the B&B in Herefordshire that only takes guests who come by bike or foot - Corner House 01981 510283.