The relationship between cycle tourism and sustainable transport in the UK

The use of both sustainable transport outcomes and tourism impacts as a mixed justification for investment in cycling infrastructure has led to the two often being seen as synonymous. The environmentally friendly credentials of cycle tourism are predicated on a conceptualization of cycle tourism in which cycling as a form of transport supplants other energy-consuming and -polluting forms of transport within the tourism trip. However, using a recent meta-analysis of UK data, this research note shows that even when the environmental costs of major cycling events are excluded, in absolute terms recreational cycle tourism across its full range of forms in the UK still generates considerable motorized transport use. But, the use of counterfactual models shows that in relative terms, on average across all its forms, recreational cycle tourism in the UK reduces the use of motorized transport to get to and from destinations by 12.2% and reduces motorized transport use at destinations by 7.6%. Consequently, recreational cycle tourism in the UK does have a positive sustainable transport outcome, but this is far smaller than is often visualized.