Slow travel : is it sustainable tourism?

In the collective imagination, slow travel is often treated like a mood.
Picnics in long grass, sourdough, vintage bikes.

But in the academic literature, slow travel is not an aesthetic.
It’s a consumption posture.

So here’s the real question: is it sustainable tourism?

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What research actually says

Slow tourism emerges in the 1990s inside the wider “slow” movement (Petrini, 2003).
It was born as a counter-weight to acceleration.

Dickinson & Lumsdon (2010) define it as:

“moving more slowly, staying longer, visiting fewer places, but more deeply.”

Meng & Choi (2016) show that the intention to travel slow doesn’t come from distance…
but from felt authenticity.

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So: sustainable or not?

Slow has clear intersections with sustainability:

• gentler modes of transport (Fullagar et al., 2012)
• attention to local resources
• desire to connect with locals (Caffyn, 2012)

BUT → it is not the same thing.

Sustainable tourism is a policy (UNWTO, 2007):
preserve, measure, regulate impacts (environmental / social / economic).
= finding balance between economic, social and environmental interests.

Slow is a way of inhabiting the trip:
valuing time, craft, human connection.

Slow tourism is adjacent to ecotourism (conservation / education / local benefits) and to fair tourism (improving local income), but it is not “solidarity tourism” (participation in projects) nor “social tourism” (making holidays accessible for all).

Balance between economic, social and environmental interests. (Source: Atout-France)

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The key point

Slow can lead to sustainable.
But slow is not automatically sustainable.

You can travel very slowly… and consume 100% imported products.
You can fly Paris–Rio in business class… to “rest”.

Slow is not a speed.
Slow is an intention.

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Slow is a potential pathway into sustainable.
if it stays connected to the planet, and to the people who make it.