Monday, June 16, 2008

The end of cheap flights?

posted by Toby Sawday

News would have it that the US airline industry, the world's largest, is struggling to stay afloat as the new price of oil adds $30 billion to their total annual fuel bill. Airline closures are predicted and industry analysts forecast major economic ripples across a country that relies heavily on air travel to connect its disparate towns and sprawling economy.

Are these the first signs of the unravelling of the aviation industry as we know it? What starts in America will, no doubt, spread across the pond and we can expect to see climbing prices for flights and, perhaps, a shift in travel and tourism patterns.

There had always been a whiff of madness about the sort of short-haul, pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap tourism that had been driven by low-cost flights. It was so dependent on a source of energy that was being devoured like never before by the emerging middle classes in Indian, China et al, but which had also reached its peak of production.

Tourism that is 'light' on energy use is more insulated from spikes in energy prices or changes in exchange rates. So, fostering a healthy domestic tourism scene that doesn't rely on air travel not only avoids the carbon emissions associated with long-haul voyages, but goes some way to avoiding the risk attached to relying on a single energy source whose price is so fickle.

We made a decision in recent months not to promote any more long haul destinations, but to focus instead on European places to stay. And we plan to work hard to promote those places to which you can travel by train. We made this decision for environmental reasons, but it now looks to have been a prudent decision for other reasons too. Let's just hope the dreary British summer doesn't drive people onto planes in spite of the new prices.

1 Comments:

At 3:43 pm, Blogger AmaryR said...

We have had a few brave guests through our B&B recently making the trip to our country, tho' not all that remote, home, who have used trains and buses. It can be done, but only with the sort of planning ahead of time seen in Victorian times! Until the powers that be get the trains to run (on time, enough of them, and at all!) and the buses to stops so a proper joined up journey can be taken, folk will have to go on using cars. As hosts we have had to do our bit in this and get the car out to take them to stations though. Doing the shopping on the way back makes the trip 'greener'.

The saddest thing of all is that if your predictions come true, the people travelling will be the wealthy, leaving the rest of us unable to afford to see the world. Will this mean a decrease in understanding how other nations live? Come to think of it, I haven't noticed a decrease in wars as a result of more familiarity with foreign climes. Or is the cliche true, that most tourists from the UK want destinations that are Little Britains with chips n' beer? Hope not.

Is it too much to hope that manufacturers will start investing the sort of sums in R & D of non-fossil fuels engines - cars and planes - that have been put into fossil energy. Then we all might indeed be free to roam, non-polluting, as free as birds. Birds? Sure I saw an article that said they emitted far too much CO2! Anyway, if all the trees are cut down - see previous blog - they'll be short of perches so the problem will go away. Won't it?

 

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