THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN tourism and global warming is a paradoxical one: global warming has become a threat to tourism, yet tourism remains a major cause of global warming. This vicious circle is well known to all stakeholders of the tourism indus-try, but implementing meaningful change has proven difficult because of three types of resistance: politico-economic resistance (from policymakers in regions and countries that rely heavily on tourism as a source of income), commercial resistance (from the tourism industry itself), and sociocultural resistance (from tourists who are not ready to change their behavior).

Several factors account for the considerable development of tourism since World War II: growing affluence, longer holidays, cheaper transportation, the availability of preorganized packaged tours, and the development of an industry catering both to ...