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The author addresses the unequal participation of different nations in outgoing tourism as an ethical question and proposes a tourist certificate trading programme. Today 65 per cent of the total tourism expenditure belongs to the top ten tourism outgoing countries that only have 15 per cent of the world population. The tourist emission trading programme would provide governments with an efficient tool for obtaining equity in trans‐boundary tourism consumption by giving financial compensation for not travelling. Travellers would have to hold tourism permits equal to the value of their travel consumption units. If they proved insufficient they would have to buy permits from other participants that travel less. Non‐travellers would be compensated for not travelling, the third world nations would gain financial sources due to their lower travel propensity on the account of western countries with a higher propensity to travel. Since tourism uses and destroys the environment and grows constantly, such a programme would enable the control of the growth of tourism too ‐ by limiting the total number of certificates.