According to Booking.com's tenth annual sustainability research report, published in April 2025, 93% of global travelers now say they want to make more sustainable travel choices and have, to some extent, already started doing so. That is not a niche figure from a small sample. It comes from 32,000 travelers across 34 countries. And it has been rising consistently since Booking.com first asked the same question in 2016, when fewer than half said the same.

Sustainable tourism is no longer a segment within the travel industry. It is the direction the industry is moving in, full stop. For travel agents, this creates both a responsibility and an opportunity. Clients are asking better questions about where their money goes, how destinations are affected by their visit, and whether the experiences they are paying for leave something positive behind. The agents who can answer those questions clearly, and who build their recommendations around those values, are the agents clients will trust most in the years ahead.

This post covers what sustainable tourism actually means in practice, why it matters in destinations like Croatia where the pressures of tourism are real and visible, and what you can do right now to lead the change rather than catch up to it.