The topic examined how the tourism sector can respond to a turning point: as climate change intensifies and travelers increasingly seek low-carbon experiences, the industry faces both growing pressure and growing opportunity. Building on the monthly article “How Destinations and Businesses Can Lead the Transition to Climate-Neutral Travel” and the online discussion “How Is Your Destination or Business Becoming Climate-Smart?” in May 2026, it focused on climate-smart tourism and on how destinations and businesses can measure, reduce, and communicate their climate impact while building resilience to climate-related disruptions.

Key themes included:

• The growing need for tourism to adapt to increasing climate-related disruptions affecting traditional models
• Practical approaches to operationalising climate-smart tourism at destination and business level
• The central role of DMOs in enabling coordination and destination-wide transformation
• The importance of making climate action accessible to all tourism actors, especially SMEs
• The benefits of climate action, including cost savings, competitiveness, regulatory readiness, and enhanced resilience

The initiatives showcased illustrate how climate-smart tourism is scaled through coordinated action, practical tools and multi-stakeholder collaboration, including:

• “Tallinn 2035" development strategy: integrating green tourism in the broader vision of city of Tallinn, balancing the needs of visitors and residents while supporting green transformation
• "Towards Climate-Neutral Tourism" roadmap, Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions (NBTC): a multi-stakeholder joint effort to map challenges, opportunities and concrete action demonstrating how climate action can scale beyond businesses and reshape entire destinations
• CliNeDest project: developing a Climate Smart Business Toolkit offering guidance for businesses to transition towards climate neutral business across eight Baltic Sea destinations
• Sustainability network by Bremen Tourism: for peer learning and incentivising sustainable travel to the city

Stakeholder stories highlight how coordinated action, data-driven approaches and sustainability practices are driving the transition to climate-smart tourism at scale. 

Key conclusions and emerging trends include: 

• Climate action is becoming a source of competitive advantage in tourism, as cost reductions and strong sustainability credentials enable access to new markets and partnerships.
• Early alignment with sustainability standards is helping destinations and businesses avoid future compliance costs and operational disruption.
• DMOs are emerging as key enablers of systemic change, coordinating stakeholders, aligning strategies, and supporting shared data and measurement frameworks.
• Regional collaboration models are accelerating climate action, as joint commitments and shared accountability drive faster progress than isolated efforts.
• Accessible tools and guidance are increasingly critical to engage SMEs, which often lack dedicated resources to implement climate strategies independently.
• Transparency and credible data are becoming essential to build trust, as stakeholders move away from generic green claims towards evidence-based communication.
• Climate-smart tourism is being recognised as a continuous, collective process, requiring sustained collaboration across businesses, public authorities, and supporting organisations.