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Journal of Sustainable Tourism
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Towards a low carbon future the
development and application of REAP
Tourism, a destination footprint and
scenario tool
Emma Rachel Whittlesea
a
& Anne Owen
b
a
Earth and Environmental Sciences, School of Geography,
University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK
b
Faculty of Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
Version of record first published: 08 May 2012.
To cite this article: Emma Rachel Whittlesea & Anne Owen (2012): Towards a low carbon future
the development and application of REAP Tourism, a destination footprint and scenario tool,
Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 20:6, 845-865
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism
Vol. 20, No. 6, July 2012, 845865
Towards a low carbon future the development and application
of REAP Tourism, a destination footprint and scenario tool
Emma Rachel Whittlesea
a
and Anne Owen
b
a
Earth and Environmental Sciences, School of Geography, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK;
b
Faculty of Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
(Received 24 December 2010; nal version received 22 March 2012)
This paper explores the development and application of a bespoke modelling and sce-
nario tool to quantify the full greenhouse gas (CO
2
e) footprint associated with visitor
activity and consumption. Designed for use by destination decision-makers, it helps
understand the full CO
2
e impact of visitors, explores potential mitigation strategies
and identies emissions reduction possibilities. REAP Tourism can calculate direct and
indirect supply chain emissions related to accommodation, travel, food, shopping, ser-
vices, attractions, activities and events. This paper demonstrates the tool at a range of
different geographic levels in South West England. Initial results show overseas visitors
to have an impact of 196 kg CO
2
e per day, domestic overnight visitors having 49 kg
and day visitors 48 kg. Further exploration shows the tools ability to show the impact
of different marketing/development scenarios on CO
2
e emissions including holidaying
locally strategies, encouraging longer stays, buying local goods and encouraging low
meat diets. Comparisons show that luxury weekend visitors have ve times the daily
impact of family holiday visitors and ten times those of back-packers. The strengths and
weaknesses of the tools methodologies and its range of outputs able to inform tourism
policy and decision-making are discussed.
Keywords: greenhouse gas; climate change; scenario analysis; policy-making; strategy
planning; tourism destinations
Introduction
The tourism industrys success is measured primarily by economic and growth-related in-
dicators including tourist arrivals, spend per head, employment levels and the monetary
value of its services. This practice is present from global to local measurement and informs
strategic frameworks for the tourism sector. However, the tourism economy and associated
growth is heavily reliant on fossil fuels emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs), now increas-
ingly important for countries to measure, manage and minimise in line with international
reduction targets. Under the Kyoto Protocol (United Nations, 1998) these emissions have
to be monitored and reported annually. The second International Conference on Climate
Change and Tourism held in 2007 recognised the importance of this: the resulting Davos
Declaration urged the entire tourism sector to progressively reduce its greenhouse gas
emissions (UNWTO, 2007, p. 2). The tourism industry and its destinations were clearly
identied as a key delivery and action agent for change.

Corresponding author. Email: emma.r.whittlesea@plymouth.ac.uk

ISSN 0966-9582 print / ISSN 1747-7646 online
C
2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2012.680699
http://www.tandfonline.com
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846 E.R. Whittlesea and A. Owen
Tourisms contribution to global GHGs is calculated as between 5% and 14%, with
transport generating around 75% of that share (UNWTO-UNEP-WMO, 2008). Numerous
approaches and methodologies have been used to explore the potential contribution of
tourism and tourist activity to GHGs internationally (Howitt, Revol, Smith, & Roger, 2010;
Peeters &Dubois, 2010; Scott, Peeters, &G ossling, 2010), nationally (Becken &Patterson,
2006; Dwyer, Forsyth, Spurr, & Hoque, 2010; Jackson, Kotsovos, & Morissette, 2008;
Jones & Munday, 2007; Patterson & McDonald, 2004), and at regional level (G ossling &
Schumacher, 2010; Kelly & Williams, 2007; Konan & Chan, 2010; Kuo & Chen, 2009;
Walz et al., 2008). Research into the relationship between emissions and tourismat regional
and sub-regional levels is growing with input from both practitioners and academics. Most
studies focus on the direct carbon dioxide emissions of the tourism industry, as data and
methods are more readily available. A more comprehensive approach, which also aligns
with international policy and targets (United Nations, 1998), considers the full GHGs
associated with all visitor activity, including emissions from both the burning of fossil fuels
and those embedded within supply chains.
The rst challenge is quantifying and interpreting the destination baseline and under-
standing the construction of the CO
2
e footprint. Once this has been examined the areas of
highest impact can be identied and future scenarios can be explored to investigate how
tourism emissions can be reduced. This can help regions and destinations inform their
strategic plans and set realistic targets and actions to manage and minimise GHGs.
This paper presents REAP Tourism (Resource Energy Analysis Programme for
Tourism), a bespoke tourism footprinting and scenario tool designed and produced in
2009 by South West Tourism
1
in the UK in partnership with the Stockholm Environment
Institute (SEI). It combines day and overnight visitor volume data with data on visitor ex-
penditure, accommodation choices and recreational behaviour, multiplied by environmental
impact conversion factors. The model was developed for use by regional and destination
decision-makers to help understand the full CO
2
e impact of visitors. It can be used to ex-
plore potential mitigation strategies and identify where to focus emissions reduction efforts
in tourism at a regional and destination level. The model builds on work undertaken by
G ossling (2002) and Becken and Simmons (2002) and responds to a research gap identied
in a report for the UK government department DEFRA.
2
The report on mapping evidence
and trends in sustainable tourism( SQWConsulting, 2007) suggested that a model be devel-
oped to measure and investigate the environmental footprint of the UKs tourism industry,
by different visitor types and sector components.
The tool provides baseline emissions for a region and its subsequent administrative
areas and has been designed to be user friendly, transparent and meaningful for use
by tourism practitioners. In addition to quantifying the baseline, the tool can also prole
scenarios, visitor types and events.
This paper describes the methodology behind REAP Tourism and demonstrates its
functionality using the South West region of the UK to explore the CO
2
e impact of tourism.
REAP Tourism: its design and scope
The open and complex nature of tourism means it is crucial to dene what we mean by
tourismand the boundaries of impact for the REAP Tourismtool. G ossling (2009) reiterates
the importance of transparency when describing system boundaries: boundary changes can
play as much a part in the quantity of emissions as carbon reduction strategies.
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 847
Dening visitor impact
Initial tourism impact studies assigned visitors an impact equal to that of residents in the
host country or their country of origin (Cole & Sinclair, 2002; Patterson, Niccolucci, &
Bastianoni, 2007, Wackernagel and Rees, 1996) but limitations were recognised; visitors
have a unique set of behaviours and demands that are different to residents and their activities
need to be measured separately (G ossling, Borgstr omHansson, H orstmeier, &Saggel, 2002;
Hunter, 2002). In attempting to measure visitors unique impacts, other studies measured
the energy used by accommodation providers and tourist attractions (Becken, Simmons,
& Frampton, 2003), converting energy use into CO
2
estimates (Becken, 2005; Dickinson,
Robbins, & Lumsdon, 2010) and CO
2
e (Byrnes & Warnken, 2006; G ossling 2002; Konan
&Chan, 2010). The most comprehensive work to date is presented in the WTO/UNEP 2008
Climate Change and Tourism report (UNWTO-UNEP-WMO, 2008), using 2005 data, the
rst attempt to calculate global CO
2
emissions from the three main tourism sub-sectors.
The measurement of emissions from direct energy use allows comparison of those
activities that require energy but does not encompass the impacts associated with the
production of goods and services consumed by visitors. For this study we followWeidmann
and Minxs (2008) work on footprinting which uses a consumption accounting methodology
that denes impact as the total set of greenhouse gas (CO
2
e) emissions caused by an
organisation, event, product or person. By choosing a consumption approach and CO
2
e as
REAP Tourisms measure of impact, the tool goes beyond the scope of other visitor impact
studies where impact is often limited to the direct energy use of accommodation, activity
providers and visitor travel (Becken 2005; Becken &Patterson, 2006). When accounting for
emissions, REAP Tourisms CO
2
e Footprint not only measures the direct energy but also
includes the indirect supply chain emissions involved in the production of food, consumable
goods and services. The only other study found to date which accounts for a full CO
2
e
footprint of visitors, including food and consumer items, is Konan and Chans (2010) study
in Hawaii.
Most footprint studies and models describe the impact of their given population over a
year but this can restrict investigations. Becken and Patterson (2006) compared the energy
uses of visitor types in New Zealand, and found that meaningful comparisons between
visitor types are only possible when trip lengths are equivalent. Taking this into account,
REAP Tourism allows measurement of visitors impact on a total and per visitor night
metric as used by Becken and Simmons (2008). This means the volume of impact can be
compared as well as a measure of impact intensity, and the user can prole the relative
impacts of different holidays and choices. Cole and Sinclair (2002) highlight the importance
of considering seasonality of impacts and REAP Tourism can be used to consider impact
over timeframes shorter than a year so that the effects of events, peak season and public
holidays can be explored.
Measuring visitor activity or the tourism sector?
There is a distinction between measuring the impact of the tourism sector and measuring
the impact of tourists themselves. G ossling et al. (2005) measure the eco-efciency of the
tourism sector in various locations and the comprehensive UNWTO-UNEP-WMO (2008)
study attempts to measure global emissions from all tourism. One of the difculties associ-
ated with measuring the impact of the tourismsector is accounting for services such as cater-
ing and transportation which are used by tourists and local residents alike (Hunter, 2002).
This issue is removed when impact is assigned to the tourists themselves.
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848 E.R. Whittlesea and A. Owen
Bearing this in mind we used the IPAT equation (Ehrlich & Holden, 1971) as a starting
point to consider the impacts of tourism, which describes environmental impact (I) being
directly related to a combination of population (P), afuence (A) and technology (T)
I = PAT.
To understand the full impact of tourism (I), we must therefore consider the volume of
visitors (P), the activities they take part in and the products they consume (A) alongside the
energy intensities of the tourism activities and the way the products are produced (T). With
this framework in mind, a methodology and tool was developed which measures the impact
of visitor activity rather than the impact of the tourism sector. Many authors (Becken &
Patterson, 2006; Cole & Sinclair, 2002; G ossling et al., 2002; Hunter, 2002) recognise the
importance of taking a visitor focus rather than an industry focus but there is variation
in the literature about how wide a scope to take. Hunter and Shaw (2006) suggest that a
calculation of net impact needs to be considered, recognising that when visitors are abroad,
they are not generating impact in their own country. This is not relevant for REAP Tourism
which has been designed to aid destination managers to investigate, manage and minimise
the full impact of their tourism products and visitors to the destination itself.
Dening visitors and visitor impacts
REAP Tourism takes the recommendations from the UKs Department for Culture, Media
and Sport (DCMS, 1998) dening a visitor as anyone on an irregular visit to the region
spending more than three hours there. This means local residents can be day visitors, but
if they are attending their regular place of work or making a regular shopping trip they are
excluded. Overnight visitors are those staying overnight in the region in both paid for and
free accommodation.
There is much debate about what activities and spends to include in the visitor footprint.
Becken et al. (2003) argue exclusion of the impact of air travel because the international
ight becomes the centre of attention around which other holiday components are less
signicant. In later work, discussing CO
2
assessments at the global scale, Becken and
Patterson (2006) make the case for excluding air travel to reduce the risk of double counting;
they drawa boundary of impact around national borders. Air travel is a contentious issue and
is signicant in its exclusion from the Kyoto agreement, however, if it were excluded from
the tool we would not be assessing the full impact of visitors travelling to the destination.
We argue that a region should measure the air travel impact of its visitors because the
choice of destination and transport mode are areas where a region has some inuence
particularly in the way it markets itself. In addition, radiative forcing should be taken into
account for air travel (UNWTO-UNEP-WMO, 2008) and REAP Tourism complies with
this by increasing the impacts from air travel by a factor of 1.9 (DEFRA, 2010).
Dening other spends is even more problematic. Clearly accommodation and tourist
attraction impacts are part of visitor footprints, but supermarket shopping or holiday prod-
ucts such as sun cream bought in the country of origin are not so clear (Hunter, 2002).
REAP Tourisms approach is to only include spend by visitors whilst at their destination.
This means the net impact, where reductions are made to account for a visitors absence
of impact in their home country, is not considered. The impact visitors have by using
government-provided services is absent from current value of tourism economic data sets
but was seen as an important consideration for the tool. Converting the county of Cornwalls
annual visitor nights into a metric equivalent to visitor years, yields a gure (528,000) that
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 849
Table 1. Description of REAP Tourisms eight themes.
Eight themes Description of what is included in the REAP Tourism CO
2
e footprint
Accommodation The direct and indirect impact of the energy used in caravans, campsites,
campuses, holiday villages, hostels, self catered properties, guest
accommodation, hotels, inns, second homes and the homes of visitors friends
and relatives
Food The indirect supply chain impacts of food production for catered food from pubs,
cafes, restaurants, takeaways and snack shops and non-catered food spend from
supermarkets
Travel The direct and indirect impacts of arrival and return travel and travel whilst
staying in the region by different travel modes such as cars, motorbikes, trains,
buses, coaches, planes, boats and by foot
Shopping The indirect supply chain impacts of the production of various goods such as
recreational items, clothing, furniture, household appliances, personal
electronic equipment, jewellery and toys
Activities The indirect supply chain impacts of a visit to take part in tourist activities such
as exploring nature, powered and non-powered water sports, adventure sports
and leisure activities
Attractions The indirect supply chain impacts of trips to tourist attractions such as castles,
gardens, churches, theme parks, museums, farms, zoos and views
Events The indirect supply chain impacts of a visit to a tourist event such as a carnival,
circus, sports or religious event, concert, festival, fete or conference
Services The indirect supply chain impacts of services such as tourist information,
insurance, vehicle hire, cleaning, emergency, breakdown and hospital services,
car parking and communication
is greater than Cornwalls resident population (524,000). The corresponding visitor de-
mand on the hospital, local police, water supply, waste treatment, street cleansing, parking,
beach cleaning and tourist information ofces will have an impact in the local area but will
not show up on expenditure data. REAP Tourism attempts to quantify and recognise this
impact under the category of services using a South West residents daily impact as a
proxy (REAP, 2006). Table 1 describes what is included in the REAP Tourism visitor CO
2
e
footprint categorised into eight broad themes of accommodation, food, travel, shopping,
activities, attractions, events and services.
The sub-categories are largely inuenced by existing data collection systems. Accom-
modation breakdowns from the UK Tourism Survey (UKTS), the UNs COICOP (Clas-
sication of Individual Consumption according to Purpose) classication of households
food and goods expenditure and the classications used in the Visitor Attraction Survey
(Visit Britain, 2007) are used. The activities sub-classication was inspired by Becken and
Simmons (2002) classication system and informed by the existing structures of tourism
data sets.
Geographic boundaries
REAP Tourism has the ability to model the visitor impact for any geographic area but to
demonstrate the tool we explore the UKs South West Region, which attracts more UK
visitors than any other English region (UKTS, 2009). The South West attracts around 23
million overnight visitors and 97 million day visitors per annum, contributing around 9.4
billion to the economy and supporting 198,000 FTE jobs (South West Tourism, 2010).
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850 E.R. Whittlesea and A. Owen
Visitor data are collected for the seven counties and former counties and other key
local authority areas within the South West. The model utilises this and takes a consistent
approach to measuring visitor impact at multiple scales, using the same methods and
datasets, so that comparisons can be made between areas.
Method of tool development and construction
Visitor impact is a combination of the volume of visitors, their demands for activities and
the conversion factors which convert the unit spend into CO
2
e. Conversion factors are
required for both the direct emissions caused from burning fuel and the indirect emissions
embedded in the goods and services supply chain.
Indirect impact factors for spend on goods and services
The indirect impacts associated with visitors are emissions released within the production
supply chain of the product, goods or services consumed by visitors. This means that
the sum of all the production stage emissions must be calculated and reallocated to the
consumer.
There are two main methods for allocating indirect impacts to the nal consumer:
Process Life Cycle Analysis (PLCA) and Environmentally Extended Input Output Analysis
(EEIO) (Weidmann, 2009). Process Life Cycle Analysis (PLCA) can be described as a
bottom up approach that starts from a single product and attempts to measure impacts
generated at each stage of the products supply chain. To measure the impacts associated
with a visitors total consumption of all goods and services using the PLCA method would
be extremely time-consuming and data intensive. There are far too many different products
to examine and maintaining a consistent approach across all of them would be challenging.
Calculating impacts embedded in the consumption of goods and services of a whole
country or region is better suited to a top down approach provided by Environmentally
Extended Input-Output (EEIO) methods (Miller & Blair, 2009). This is a macro-economic
modelling technique that combines an economic modelling framework with data from
environmental accounts. Appendix 1 shows the economic component as a matrix showing
how industrial sectors buy from other industrial sectors (the appendices to this work can
only be found in the online version of the paper, at www.tandfonline.com/JOST). Added to
the base of this matrix is additional data about the total impacts associated with each sector
of the economy. This can include the emissions reported in National Accounts, details about
the resource use of each industry or employment numbers in each industry.
Alongside the economic matrix is a column showing nal demand the amount of
products bought from each sector. In its initial state, the model can demonstrate push
through events such as how increases in production could make available more products.
In the 1930s, the economist Leontief (1970) demonstrated that if the matrix was mathe-
matically inverted it could be used to explore pull through events. Leontief showed how
an increase in spend on products, reected in the nal demand column, alters the industrial
sectors associated with the product and thus how employment in each sector would have
to alter to meet this change in demand. This technique can be used to show how emissions
change with a unit (one GBP) increase in spend on each product. This, in effect, is the
conversion factor showing impact on CO
2
e per pound spent.
This technique, described in detail by Minx et al. (2009), Weidmann (2009) and Wei-
dmann, Minx, Barrett and Wackernagel (2006), underpins the Resource Energy Analysis
Programme (REAP) suite of tools developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 851
(Dawkins, Owen, & Roelich, 2011; REAP, 2010). A similar Input-Output (IO) approach is
also used by Konan and Chan (2010) to measure CO
2
e emissions of visitors to Hawaii.
Appendix 2 gives examples of some of the indirect conversion factors used in the tool
which are produced from the IO analysis.
Direct and indirect impact factors for accommodation and travel
The UKs DEFRA publishes emission conversion factors to convert existing data sources
(e.g. utility bills, car mileage, refrigeration and fuel consumption) into CO
2
e emissions.
These conversion factors include the emissions from both fuel burning and supply chain
emissions associated with producing the fuel. For accommodation, we additionally need
gas, oil and electricity usage per visitor night for different accommodation types. The
data were provided by South West Tourism from business advisory visits carried out by
environmental consultancies including the Green Tourism Business Scheme. For travel
a CO
2
e per km travelled is assigned for various transport modes. Appendix 3 provides
examples of the conversion factors (DEFRA, 2010).
Visitor spends and demands
The REAP Tourism model needs the conversion factors, volume of visitors and the spend
and demand characteristics of visitors across the region. Appendix 4 summarises
3
what
data was collected and where it was sourced from for each of the eight themes.
Tool functions
The tool is designed around a two-layered tab system. The top layer contains two tabs;
one allows the user to view or enter data for a single area or year and the second allows
graphical comparisons of each of the entries. The second layer of tabs corresponds to each
of the eight data themes so that data can be viewed, entered and compared. REAP Tourism
has four ways of investigating data about visitors:
Baseline data on the impact by geographic area can be viewed and compared
Future scenarios can be run on the baseline year
Visitor proles can be created and compared
Event proles can be created and compared.
The input requirements, xed elements and outputs of these four pathways are sum-
marised in Figure 1. When viewing the baseline section, users can select a geographic area
of interest and view the input data by theme. The impact results are displayed at the base
of the screen and can be changed from totals to per visitor day.
The scenario section is based on the IPAT equation (Ehrlich & Holden, 1971), allowing
the user to alter the volume of visitors, their expenditure or demands in relation to the eight
themes and nally the impact intensity of the conversion factors. The visitor and event
prole sections allow the user to describe the character of spends of particular visitor types
and the impact of visitors, operations and staff involved in a particular event.
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852 E.R. Whittlesea and A. Owen
Figure 1. A workow diagram of REAP Tourism.
User engagement
The conception stage of design identied that the model should be user-led and informed,
to ensure appropriateness and accessibility for tourism practitioners involved in decision-
making, strategy formulation and destination management. Once initial specications had
been determined stakeholder workshops were held to gain feedback before and throughout
the tools development.
REAP Tourism (Version 1) was made available in July 2009 for 12 months testing and
review by over 100 tourism professionals. Feedback was gained through workshops, direct
application and user evaluation. Users particularly liked the ability to explore the impact of
different tourism components, the exibility to add their own data, the localised reporting
and district level comparisons. They also found it useful to apply the modelling to particular
events and scenarios (see the potential effects of actions and changes and the variety of
applications). The tool was well received and described as a very useful, well thought
out tool. This paper uses Version 2 released in December 2010, with data and conversion
factors from 2006 and incorporates improvements to the structure and functionality.
Results
Here we present the outputs from REAP Tourism, exploring the 2006 CO
2
e footprint of
overseas, domestic and day visitors to the South West of England, and smaller geographies
within the region. We demonstrate how the tool can help identify determinants of a high
footprint and allow the user to explore these in more detail by interrogating the baseline
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 853
Table 2. South West visitor total and per visitor day CO
2
e footprint.
2006 Total annual CO
2
e (tonnes) CO
2
e per visitor day (kg)
Overseas staying visitor 33,928,324 196.42
Domestic staying visitor 3,846,599 49.15
Day visitor 4,511,130 47.76
All visitors 12,286,053 63.75
South West residents
a
85,144,585 45.52
a
Source: REAP Model, SEI, 2006.
dataset. Through the prole functions of the tool we provide examples of how the tool
can be used to examine in detail the impacts of different visitors and scenarios. The visitor
prole function is used to demonstrate the impacts of different visitor types and behaviours,
for example the impact of buying local. The scenario prole function is used to examine
different growth scenarios and consider the impact of actions to reduce emissions. We start
with an interpretation of the baseline data outputs.
Variation by visitor type
Table 2 shows the total visitor CO
2
e impact in South West (SW) England to be 12.3 million
tonnes CO
2
e set in a context of 85.1 million tonnes for SW residents. Overseas visitors
account for 20% of the total visitor nights spent in the SW, yet are responsible for 51% of
visitor emissions.
The average impact of a SW visitor is 63.8 kg CO
2
e per day but this gure varies
by visitor type. Thus the average overseas overnight visitor has a daily impact of
196.4 kg CO
2
e almost four times the impact of a domestic overnight visitor (49.2 kg
CO
2
e). The impact of day visitors and domestic overnight visitors are closer in comparison
to the average SW residents footprint of 45.52 kg CO
2
e per day.
Variation by location
Appendix 5 further explores the regions total CO
2
e impact by sub-region. In addition
to information on visitor volume by sub-region, the accommodation choice, average dis-
tance travelled by mode, the average number of visits to attractions and the total average
expenditure of visitors to each sub-region are used as model inputs. The results illustrate
differences between counties in terms of the size and constitution of their visitor CO
2
e
footprints. Devon has the highest and Wiltshire the lowest total impact and this reects the
volume and character of visitors, illustrating the need for destination level footprinting to
inform local strategies and action plans. For example, the majority of Cornwalls visitor
impact is from domestic visitors (53%), whereas in Avon County, the largest proportion of
impact is from overseas visitors (50%).
Reviewing the average footprint per visitor day (Figure 2) allows direct comparison
of the visitor characteristics. Overseas visitors have consistently higher CO
2
e impacts,
but on a per visitor day basis Somerset countys overseas visitors have almost twice the
impact of those in Dorset. Closer investigation reveals that the origin of overseas visitors
to Somerset tends to be further away than Dorsets and therefore the transport impact is
considerably higher. There is less variation between domestic overnight and day visitor
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854 E.R. Whittlesea and A. Owen
Figure 2. 2006 daily sub-regional visitor CO
2
e footprint for the South West.
footprints. Understanding the relative footprint proles of the SWs sub-regions would
allow investigation into disproportionate growth in certain areas.
Variation by theme
Figure 3 illustrates the contributions from each of the eight themes (combining activities,
attractions and events) and provides an insight into why impacts vary in size between visitor
types. The overseas per visitor day footprint is nearly four times the impact of a domestic
overnight or day visitor to the region. Alarge proportion (82%) of the footprint is attributable
to travel, followed by food (8%) and accommodation (4%). Many previous studies conrm
that travel contributes the majority of the impact of an overseas visitor (Konan & Chan,
2010; Patterson et al., 2007; Peeters & Schouten, 2006; UNWTO-UNEP-WMO, 2008). For
domestic overnight visitors the largest proportion of the footprint is food (36%), followed by
transport (33%) and accommodation (16%). The balance for day visitors is quite different;
most emissions link to food (57%) and shopping (17%), with travel at just 12%. More
detailed survey data might reveal why day visitors have a higher impact per day on food and
shopping than overnight visitors, for example the type and amount of products consumed.
Currently we can only observe the differences. An average SW resident CO
2
e footprint
(REAP, 2006) is slightly lower than the average domestic overnight and day visitor. Further
exploration is needed but holidaying locally, rather than abroad, could be part of a national
strategy to reduce CO
2
e.
Bath and North East Somerset a transport case study
The unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) has the largest average
visitor CO
2
e footprint in the SW(122 kg CO
2
e) while rural East Dorset has the lowest (54 kg
CO
2
e). Considering both the types of visitors and themes of impact (Appendix 6) helps
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 855
Figure 3. Construction of the South West per visitor day CO
2
e footprint by theme.
illustrate the variation, showing the travel impact of BANES overseas visitors to be the
main cause of differing impact size.
Table 3 reveals overseas visitors to BANES contribute 20% of visitor days spent but
account for over 60% of emissions. When we isolate transport, BANES overseas visitors
account for over 90% of emissions associated with transport. Looking in detail at the
sub components of each theme can help further with mitigation and future planning. We
discover that 88% of the kilometres travelled to and from the destination by all BANES
visitors is by air. Appendix 3 shows the impact per passenger kilometre for international
planes is not the highest conversion factor, so high impacts associated with overseas visitors
is not necessarily a function of their travel mode, rather the volume of kilometres travelled.
This type of analysis could inform future marketing strategy towards the domestic and
short haul European markets rather than long haul abroad to help reduce absolute transport
impact. Further strategies to reduce per visitor day transport impact could be to increase
length of stay: the impact of this and other mitigation strategies can be investigated using
the tool.
Transport length of stay case study
The average length of stay in 2006 in the SW was 8.97 days for overseas and 3.85 days for
domestic visitors. Using the scenario function we explore the impact on transport emissions
of increasing length of stay of overnight visitors.
Table 3. Contribution to BANEs impact by visitor type.
Overseas staying Domestic staying Day
% of BANES total visitor days 20.1% 26.8% 53.1%
% of BANES total impact of CO
2
e 51.1% 19.0% 29.9%
% of BANES total travel impact 84.7% 9.0% 6.3%
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856 E.R. Whittlesea and A. Owen
Figure 4. South West day visitor shopping proles showing the baseline, buying 100% local and
buying 100% from abroad.
The total distance travelled to and from the region is a function of the average distance
travelled by each visitor and visitor numbers. If visitors stay longer, the total number of
unique visitors will reduce due to the baseline number of visitor nights remaining constant.
Overall, the total distance travelled by all visitors will drop by the same proportion as the
number of unique visitors. If visitors stay for twice as long, the number of unique visitors
and total distance associated with travelling to and from the destination is halved.
The revised kilometres travelled (by mode) corresponding to a one and two day increase
in length of stay was entered into REAP Tourism to examine the impact on emissions.
Appendix 7 shows that increasing the average length of stay by one or two days reduces
the transport component of the CO
2
e footprint for overnight visitors by 581,000 tonnes
CO
2
e (13%) or 1 million tonnes CO
2
e (22%), respectively. Overseas visitors account for
only 20% of those visitors staying overnight, but the absolute reduction in emissions is
higher than domestic visitors by 21% for a one-day increase and 28% for two days. This
is due to the much higher per visitor day transport footprint of 160.93 kg CO
2
e over
the domestic 16.02 kg CO
2
e. This suggests that marketing strategies should encourage
overnight visitors to stay longer to reduce impact, especially those travelling from overseas,
and revised accommodation offers might assist that.
Shopping buy local case study
The shopping impact of day visitors to the SW is 7.98 kg CO
2
e per visitor day. Using
the prole function of the tool we can compare shopping behaviours of visitors, between
those who buy exactly the same goods, but are made locally, made in UK, or are imported.
Figure 4 shows the impact could almost be halved if a day visitor bought entirely UK-made
products.
Whilst this switch to 100% buy local is a highly unrealistic scenario, it demonstrates
the ability of REAP Tourism to not only calculate supply chain emissions from goods
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 857
Table 4. Information used to compare three different visitor proles.
Theme Back-packer Luxury break Family holiday
Initial Information Visits Cornwall for 14 days Visits Bath for 3 days Visits Dorset for 7 days
Accommodation Spends 7 nights camping
and 7 nights in a hostel
3 nights in a hotel 7 nights self-catering
Food Meals in pub and caf es.
Buys groceries for
self-catering
a
Meals in pubs,
restaurants and
cafes
b
Buys groceries for
self-catering
c
Travel Travels to Cornwall from
Yorkshire by train. Once
there, walks and cycles
around 10 miles per day
d
Flies to Bristol from
Edinburgh. Once
there, uses public
transport and taxis
to get around Bath
e
Uses their own car to
travel to Dorset from
Wales. Once there,
travels about 20 km a
day on excursions
f
Shopping Buys a few t-shirts and
some soap
g
Buys jewellery and
art
h
Buys a surf board and
some beach toys
i
Activities Goes to the beach most
days
Goes climbing Days out to the beach
and nature reserves
Attractions Two trips to the cinema Two art galleries Gardens, the zoo,
historic houses, a fort,
a theme park
Events A concert A football match The fair
a
Assume total spends of 20 on pub food, 20 on caf e food, 10 on meat, 10 on fruit and vegetables, 5 on dairy,
5 on cereals and pasta, 5 on non-alcoholic drinks and 5 on alcoholic drinks.
b
Assume total spends of 10 on pub food, 10 on caf e food and 60 on restaurant food.
c
Assume total spends of, 5 on meat, 5 on fruit and vegetables, 3 on dairy, 3 on cereals and pasta, 3 on
non-alcoholic drinks and 3 on alcoholic drinks.
d
Assume total train distance of 1000 km.
e
Assume total domestic plane distance of 1000 km, local bus distance of 20 km and taxi distance of 40 km.
f
Assume total car distance of 820 km.
g
Assume total spends of 20 on clothes and shoes and 5 on medicine and personal care.
h
Assume total spends of 300 on jewellery and 200 on art.
i
Assume total spends of 200 on large recreational items and 20 on toys.
produced in the UK and elsewhere, but also the usefulness of the prole function in
exploring visitor behaviour and choice. Similar investigations can show the impacts of
buying local food or of visitors choosing a low meat diet.
Proling different visitor types
The visitor prole function can also demonstrate the impact of different visitor typologies.
Consider three visitors on three very different types of holiday: a back-packer, a visitor on
a luxury weekend break and a visitor on a family holiday. Table 4 shows key information
on how long visitors stay, what accommodation, travel, activity and spending choices they
make, and examples of the data that could be entered into the tool to compare the visitors
relative impacts. Appendix 8 demonstrates the modelled results of the three visitor proles,
revealing the luxury weekend visitor to have ve times the daily impact of a family holiday
visitor and ten times that of a back-packer.
This type of visitor proling could enable market research to understand, predict and
interpret visitor behaviour, and inform the development of low carbon tourism products,
campaigns and target marketing.
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858 E.R. Whittlesea and A. Owen
Proling an event
The event prole function can be used to demonstrate and explore the emissions impact of
visitors to an event as well as the operations of the event itself. Data is entered into the tool
on visitor and staff numbers, length of stay, spending, accommodation and travel behaviour.
Alongside this, operational data can be entered which includes the waste produced, and the
water and fuel used.
Investigation of the Bournemouth Air Show (Air Festival Symposium, 2010) and Corn-
walls Boardmasters Festival (Cornwall Development Company, 2011) shows the impact of
operations to be small (less than 5%) in relation to the overall impact of the visitors and
staff attending the event. This function of the tool can help event organisers identify areas
of high impact, which can be reviewed annually, as well as assisting destination managers
with strategy development.
Proling growth and changes in visitor numbers
REAP Tourism can also explore different growth scenarios. To demonstrate, a future
increase in visitor arrivals is considered; a reasonable assumption in light of international
and national trend reports (UNWTO, 2001). The Visit England Strategic Framework for
Tourism(Visit England, 2010) and the Principles for Success for tourismin the South West
(South West Tourism Alliance, 2011) set out a headline ambition of 3% (plus ination)
annual growth in value to 2020. This example assumes growth is achieved through a
corresponding increase in visitor nights, with no change to the baseline spend per day,
behaviour or conversion factors.
Appendix 9 presents four different growth scenarios based on an exponential growth
rate of visitor nights per annum. Scenario 1 applies a growth rate to visitor nights of 3%
per annum for all visitor types in line with the Visit England forecasts. Scenario 2 applies
a lower growth rate of 1.5% per annum. Scenario 3 applies a higher growth rate of 4.4% to
overseas visitor nights and a reduced rate of 2.6% for domestic visitor nights reecting the
associated changes in spend forecast by Deloitte (Deloitte and Oxford Economics, 2010).
A3%growth rate is applied to day visitors. Scenario 4 applies a 3%growth rate to domestic
and day visitor nights and replaces the 3%overseas growth with equivalent domestic market
growth. Overseas visitor nights remain at 2006 levels in this scenario.
The increase in nights was calculated from the 2006 baseline through to 2020. Figure 5
presents the results. Unsurprisingly halving the forecast level of growth has the biggest
reduction in emissions but changing the proportions of visitor types also has an effect.
Scenario 4 retains the same visitor night growth levels as Scenario 1 but CO
2
e is 8%
lower due to the increase in overseas visitors being shifted to domestic. The results present
signicant challenges to destination managers seeking to grow business and reduce CO
2
e
emissions. REAP Tourism can also explore growth scenarios alongside the impact of
different mitigation policies, allowing for a more considered and informed approach to
reducing emissions.
Discussion
Strengths of the tool
At the time of writing, REAP Tourism appears to be the only visitor impact tool available
with preloaded data and scenario functionality for use by tourism practitioners at a regional
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 859
Figure 5. Total CO
2
e footprint for the four alternative 2020 growth scenarios.
level, so comparison with other tools is difcult. REAPTourismprovides baseline emissions
for overseas, domestic and day visitors, for the region and its administrative areas, and
can contribute to understanding and developing low carbon tourism development. The
relative comparison to a residents footprint is only possible because of the consistent
methodological approach used by the REAP tool for residents in the UK and the REAP
Tourism tool. In addition the tool explores a wider scope of visitor activities than other
studies and attempts a consistent methodological approach at different spatial scales. Konan
and Chan (2010) identify their treatment of imports as one of the limitations in their
approach to measuring visitor impact; they use a single region IO table which does not
consider the composition and differing energy intensity of production practices abroad.
REAP methodology can attribute different impact to products sourced in the UK and
elsewhere.
Several authors have modelled future tourism CO
2
e scenarios (Dickinson et al., 2010;
G ossling & Hall, 2008; G ossling et al., 2005; Peeters & Dubois, 2010; UNWTO-UNEP-
WMO, 2008) but REAP Tourism appears to be the rst to provide a consistent modelling
framework for scenario development for different geographic levels. The scenario function
allows the user to run basic investigations into how future tourism impacts might change.
To model a change in behaviour, the user must manipulate the demands (spends) on food
and goods or kilometres travelled by mode. Future scenarios also need to take into account
technology improvements; this can be modelled by adjusting the intensity of the conversion
factor to the desired setting.
The REAP Tourism tool also calculates ecological, direct waste and direct water use
footprints which should also be considered alongside social and economic indicators for
broader investigations into sustainable tourism.
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860 E.R. Whittlesea and A. Owen
Weaknesses
Data uncertainty
Because REAP Tourism explores a wider scope of visitor activities than other studies and
attempts a consistent methodological approach at different spatial scales, it is inevitable
that some data types, timeframes and sources will be more accurate and robust than others.
The REAPTourismmetadata document (REAP, 2010) identies data sources and spatial
resolution and attempts to provide transparency about the reliability of both the demand
(spend) data and the conversion factor for each variable. Many of the reliability issues in
REAP Tourism occur from assumptions made in disaggregation of high level spends to
lower level categories. For example, food and shopping spends by district are proportioned
to meat or clothing based on an average UK residents expenditure prole, assuming no
differences in resident and visitors consumption. Similarly, total kilometres travelled by
mode is available at county level and is proportioned to district level based on visitor
numbers rather than investigating the unique travel behaviours present in smaller areas.
Improvements would need detailed visitor survey data at destination level, perhaps through
travel diaries. A user could easily update the baseline spend data with improved gures.
It is difcult to ascertain the impact of changes in technology on average emissions,
and the use of national conversion factors cannot pick up on variation locally, for example
in local transport vehicles (the SW has no electric trains) and the local energy mix. DEFRA
(2010) have reported the limitations and assumptions made with the fuel and transport
conversion factors but these are the best available to date. Furthermore, Defras indirect
emissions associated with fuel burning and transport are based on data from the JEC
Well-To-Wheels study (DEFRA, 2010) and include emissions associated with extraction
and transporting of primary fuels, as well as the rening, distribution storage and retail of
nished fuels. This is a different methodology to the EEIO approach used for the food,
goods and services conversion factors.
Weidmann et al. (2006) have detailed the assumptions and limitations behind Input-
Output methodology, which include assigning a global average impact to imported goods
and lack of details within certain product groups. However, given the nature of the demand
(spend) data it would be very difcult to distinguish what proportion of goods bought by
visitors were sourced from China rather than India. In REAP Tourism, many of the data
categories, such as art and furnishing have the same conversion factor because art
and furnishing were part of the same category in the input-output model. Their separation
in this tool is in anticipation of IO models one day being able to distinguish the impacts of
more categories.
Tool and modelling limitations
REAP Tourism is a snapshot of 2006; it could now be updated with 2008 data sets and
conversion factors. Care should be taken using data and conversion factors for forecasting
and scenario development that are more than two to three years in age. Current climate
change literature works with cumulative carbon budgets detailing the global allowance of
CO
2
e between now and 2050 (Meinshausen et al., 2009). At present, measuring cumulative
impact within REAP Tourism is problematic because impact is shown per year rather than
over longer time periods such as decades.
REAP Tourism assigns environmental impact to visitors demand for food, goods and
services based on visitor spends. This approach makes the assumption that for the same
product type, a higher-priced version has greater impact. In fact, buying higher costing,
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Journal of Sustainable Tourism 861
higher quality items may mean that the consumer has less disposable income available and
buys fewer items. Moving towards measuring impact per unit or impact per kilogram of
product would help with this issue, but IO tables based on physical units are still in early
stages of development (Girod & de Haan, 2009).
User error is a consideration surrounding the wider use and application of REAP
Tourism by a range of practitioners. Although training and support can help minimise this,
there could still be potential for misinterpretation of data, and / or mistakes in data entry.
Opportunities for improvement
The REAP Tourism approach could be rolled out to all regions of the UK and can be
extended to other world regions if spend and emissions data is available. This would allow
tourisms full contribution to the Global CO
2
e budget debate to be explored consistently
at all levels worldwide. It could also assist destinations with ambitions to become carbon
neutral to explore and develop strategies to achieve the three step approach proposed by
G ossling and Schumacher (2010).
This research has identied priority areas of underlying data, conversion factors and
functionality that could be improved:
Visitor surveys to better understand the difference in visitor consumption
Visitor surveys to gain insight into the travel behaviour at the local scale
Develop a new set of conversion factor intensities linked to future energy policy
scenarios
Measure demand for goods in terms of their weight rather than price.
The more the tool is used and applied by practitioners in the eld, the more information
can be gleaned for its improvement to ensure it is relevant, robust and easy to use.
Interpreting visitor CO
2
e impacts
There are distinct differences between geographic areas in terms of the size and constitution
of their visitor CO
2
e footprints, whether looking at absolute or relative values, type of
visitors or by thematic components of the footprint. Absolute values are helpful for scenario
planning and exploring overall reductions in emissions, but the relative per day values
are crucial in understanding the makeup of the footprints and the variation in visitor impact
for different areas.
The breakdown of the footprints thematic prole can inform mitigation policy and
allow investigation of impact and areas for priority. Different visitor types may require
different mitigation policies and strategies. For example, the largest proportion of the
overseas footprint is attributable to travel (82%), for domestic overnight visitors it is food
(36%), followed by travel (33%), and for day visitors the most emissions are caused by
food (57%) and shopping (17%).
The latest climate change literature attempts to quantify a carbon budget between
now and 2050 and discusses the most appropriate means of allocating budgets to world
regions (Meinshausen et al., 2009). The next step of this type of research will be to gather
more detailed data on visitor consumption and the impacts of different visitor proles and
holidays, to understand the relative impacts of different holiday practices such as slow
travel (Dickinson et al., 2010). Further work needs to be done to identify those visitors
and products that are high value but low CO
2
e impact and to explore whether people can
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862 E.R. Whittlesea and A. Owen
be more indulgent on holiday if sufcient CO
2
e savings are being made elsewhere in their
lifestyle.
Reducing the CO
2
e impact of tourism is an environmental, technical, management and
governance challenge, and a social and behavioural change issue. Visitor choices on travel,
eating out, accommodation and activities all directly affect the size of the CO
2
e footprint.
These are complex and major questions. Understanding successful emissions reduction will
in part depend on CO
2
e measurement and monitoring and how this can be used to improve
tourism policy and strategic decision-making, and to inuence visitor behaviour.
Further considerations
There are further complexities. A reduction in long haul visitors to the South West does
not necessarily mean a global CO
2
e reduction if they are displaced to another destination.
A focus on local and domestic visitor markets to reduce CO
2
e in the South West may
have the co-benet of reducing visitor impacts in other countries if UK residents choose
domestic holidays. Tourism growth targets can be in conict with CO
2
e reduction targets,
but the scenario planning function could help decouple projected growth from rising CO
2
e
impacts. CO
2
e reductions can also improve resilience to increasing fuel costs which are
predicted to double by 2020 (Smithers, 2010). This is an area for further investigation, to
analyse growth scenarios alongside mitigation strategies and to consider the relationship
between the economic impact and CO
2
e footprint of different combinations.
Delivering a reduction in CO
2
e requires investment of time, resources and innovation
across the tourism sector, and needs clear leadership from government identifying who is
responsible for delivery and accountability. At the time of writing, the UK has no national
tourism CO
2
e measurement, reporting or reduction targets that sit alongside economic
measures for the sector. Measuring, managing and minimising CO
2
e should form a key
part of tourism strategy at macro, meso and micro scales but this requires both easy access
to the data and tools, and effective governance systems.
The South West Tourism Alliance (2011) Principles for Success was produced to
help guide the tourism industry in the region. It promotes an overarching commitment to
sustainable low carbon growth and REAP Tourism was used to model and explore the
carbon impacts. The document includes carbon emissions as a core indicator alongside
visitor expenditure, setting an emissions reduction target for tourism to support the national
2020 target set out in the Climate Change Act (Crown, 2008). There is recognition that
there will need to be signicant changes in both the visit characteristics and the tourism
offer to achieve low carbon growth (South West Tourism Alliance, 2011, p. 10).
Conclusion
This study shows it is possible to develop a model that produces baseline emissions data
for visitors at multiple scales and in a consistent way. It allows the user to measure but
also investigate the data and has the potential to help sub-regional destinations manage and
minimise emissions by exploring a low carbon future for tourism. The next steps should
explore further the impact of mitigation policies and seek feedback and empirical evidence
from destinations to demonstrate the tools value, and if it can or has led to changes in policy
or planning at destination level.
There is a clear need to engage tourism managers and decision-makers in understand-
ing the relationship between growth (in revenue and/or visitor numbers) and CO
2
e so
government targets for both indicators can be fully understood and aligned, and supporting
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mitigation policies and actions developed to facilitate low carbon growth. The development
of REAP Tourism as an accessible modelling tool for tourism decision-makers will hope-
fully enable this to happen and encourage regular monitoring, reporting and management.
Full information on the tool and its availability can be had at http://www.resource-
accounting.org.uk/.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank their employers for allowing themto work on this project and paper and specically
thank South West Tourism for funding and supporting the development of REAP Tourism. They are
also very grateful to their colleagues who have provided data, feedback and support to enable them to
produce and distribute the tool. Thanks are also due to Martin Mowforth, Ian Bailey, Katy Roelich,
Neil Warren and Paul Haydon for their support and constructive comments on the paper.
Notes
1. South West Tourism was the state funded regional tourist board for South West England: abol-
ished in March 2011, its work is carried on by the South West Tourism Alliance http://www.
swtourismalliance.org.uk/
2. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
3. The full detail is available in the REAP Tourism metadata document which can be downloaded
from http://resource-accounting.org.uk/reap-tourism
Notes on contributors
Emma Whittlesea was a Sustainability Strategist for South West Tourism and worked in the Low
Carbon Team for the Cornwall Development Company. She chaired the Climate South West Tourism
Group and is undertaking PhD research at the University of Plymouth, UK. Her research explores
the relationship between tourism and climate change and has a particular focus on the CO
2
e impact
of visitors.
Anne Owen was a Research Associate at the Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York,
specialising in Sustainable Consumption and Production. She is undertaking PhD research at the
University of Leeds, UK. Annes areas of interest include the development of new methods and tools
to help bridge science and policy and the provision of robust evidence to support communities, local
government and businesses in moving towards sustainable futures.
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