Every year Tripadvisor highlights travellers’ favourite locations around the world across a variety of categories, and recently, their annual Travellers Choice Awards list for 2024 was released. Though there was – in our view, at least – a distinct lack of Aussie representation across the board, one city did appear in the list of sustainable travel destinations: our fair Melbourne.
The annual list reveals 25 winners per category – including the likes of food destinations, honeymoon destinations, trending destinations… seriously, one place for Australia out of all that? – which included Melbourne as the sixth best sustainable destination worldwide. The city trailed a trio of unsurprising Scandinavian spots (Copenhagen in first, Stockholm in second, and Helsinki in fourth), along with Bordeaux and Singapore in the final rankings. You can see the full list for each category here.
The sustainability factor was determined via four key metrics, including environmental factors (centred on a city or region’s climate change commitments), social progressiveness (inclusiveness, personal safety, level of corruption), a raft of societal infrastructure factors (the sustainability commitments stated by airports, restaurants, and hotels in the area), and finally sustainability management factors (basically, how sustainable the strategy and leadership of regional management is). With all this in mind, Tripadvisor then searched for positive reviews that mentioned key phrases such as ‘eco tourism‘ and ‘environmentally friendly‘, to determine which cities were leading the way in sustainability.
Sixth place is a good recognition of the work Melbourne has done in recent years to respond to the climate crisis; the City of Melbourne declared a climate and biodiversity emergency in 2019, and the increase in green walls and roofs is just one visible commitment to making the city a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable place to live in and visit. You can even follow a walking tour of Melbourne’s urban forest, exploring the 70,000+ trees in the city. Hopefully, this and further initiatives can keep the city as a sustainable travel spot for years to come!