The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Tuesday January 30 2007
We misspelt the name of Grant Hearn, chief executive of Travelodge, as Grant Heard in the article below.
Low-budget airlines are being targeted by British hotel groups who want holidaymakers to abandon planes and take a green vacation in the UK.
Hotel owners met recently to discuss mounting a publicity campaign urging the population to help the environment by ignoring the lure of cheap flights and taking a home-based holiday.
Green groups believe airlines will scupper the government's policy of making a 60% cut in carbon emissions by 2050 if their growth goes unchecked.
Grant Hearn, chief executive of Travelodge, the UK's fourth-largest hotel group, said British holiday-makers must consider the environmental consequences before making their holiday choice. "We are saying to people, stay in the UK and help protect the environment by flying less," he said.
Bob Cotton, chief executive of the British Hospitality Association, which represents two-thirds of UK hotels, said the trade group had discussed emphasising the negative consequences of cheap flights in publicity campaigns. British tourists spend £18bn more abroad than is spent on UK tourism, he added, so a blow to budget flights would benefit the economy as well as the environment.
"Anything that discourages people from flying overseas and taking short-stay holidays abroad is likely to benefit the UK domestically," he said.
Toby Nicol, easyJet's communications director, said the hotel industry and the environmental lobby were "very strange bedfellows", particularly if they are claiming that a holiday in Margate is a victory in the battle against climate change.
"If holidaying in Britain is such a good thing, why is everybody going abroad? The genie is out of the bottle and you cannot put it back in."
He added that hotel groups were picking on the wrong target, because low-budget airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet have the most modern, fuel-efficient aircraft in the industry. "If you want to pick on anybody, pick on the legacy carriers who have much dirtier and smellier aircraft."
Airlines account for 5.5% of UK carbon emissions, but environmentalists warn that proportion could soar to 25% if other industries crack down on their emissions and aviation does nothing. British airlines want to sign up to the European Union's emissions-trading scheme, which requires companies to pay for the carbon they generate, but they are not expected to join until 2011. The environment minister, Ian Pearson, recently labelled Ryanair "the irresponsible face of capitalism" for its opposition to the scheme.
Low-cost airlines are the focus of much of the green lobby's campaigning because they are the fastest-growing part of the airline industry. In 2005, 77.5 million people flew out of Britain on low-budget flights.
