TOURISM WILL GROW SMARTLY – SAYS WORLD TOURISM DAY THINK TANK

Tourism growth must be pursued with increasing emphasis on ethics, local community involvement as well as reducing carbon emissions systematically.

This is the main conclusion of this year’s World Tourism Day (WTD) Think Tank held on the theme ”Tourism Responding to the Challenge of Climate Change”. The official celebrations took place in Lima, Peru.

The Think Tank was chaired by H.E. Mrs Mercedes Araoz Fernandez, Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Peru, and moderated by UNWTO Assistant Secretary-General, Geoffrey Lipman.

A group of leading public and private tourism stakeholders, representatives of civil society and of the UN system highlighted the inter-relationship between climate response and global poverty reduction efforts. Simultaneous efforts on both fronts are key to effectively meet and promote sustainability goals by the tourism sector.

“Tourism must grow in a smart way. The commitment to credible sustainability criteria will represent big opportunities for new entrepreneurs in this smart growth economy, involving businesses, communities and innovative governments”, said Geoffrey Lipman.

The experts convened by UNWTO agreed that special consideration must be given to the world’s poorest countries. While these are the least contributors to global warming, they will face the worst hardship of its consequences.

“The climate challenge must not displace global poverty reduction efforts. Both should be pursued simultaneously”, said UNWTO Deputy Secretary-General Taleb Rifai.

This will require new metrics to reflect the importance and positive role of tourism, to go beyond existing measurement tools. The legal and the ethical base need to be developed side by side and factored into this measurement, together with new databases to cover areas of intersect between public and private sectors.

While most of the world’s poor countries are in Africa, also Latin America faces severe challenges from the climate shift. All over the world, national and regional level Initiatives are emerging based on the Davos Declaration Process:

• The Amazon – shared by Brazil, Colombia and Peru – can become part of the solution as a preserver of biodiversity and a massive carbon sink with a huge ecotourism potential.

• Particular note was taken of the Peruvian forest conservation plans.

• The Sri Lanka Earth Lung has galvanized and engaged the entire sustainability movement from industry to local community and non governmental organizations.

• In Africa, the close and evolving linkage between climate and poverty response initiatives stand out, evidenced in Ghana. Furthermore, the massive transborder conservation areas, represented by the Peace Parks, can also become earth lungs.

• Argentina offered an example on the discussions to consider and integrate tourism activities with other ministries, taking note the sector’s horizontal socio-economic impact.

Against this background, tourism has to take advantage of its potential as a global communications industry. The sector can be used as a platform to help educate the world on the need for action on climate change coherent with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Participants of the Think Tank welcomed two new initiatives:

• ClimateSolutions.travel: Built with support of Microsoft, this portal will be a global repository of good practice for all tourism stakeholders to replicate.

• Tourpact.GC: The first sectoral initiative of UN’s Global compact. It links the Corporate Responsibility Principles and Processes of the Compact with UNWTO’s Global Code of Ethics for Tourism. The UN Secretary-General has welcomed it as an initiative to be followed by other sectors.

ClimateSolutions.travel and Tourpact.GC represent innovative and concrete steps to keep the momentum on the Davos Declaration Process, to help advance replicable good practice and to engage the private sector.

The Davos Declaration Process encourages all tourism stakeholders to adapt to changing climate conditions, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the sector, apply existing and new technologies to improve energy efficiency; and secure financial resources to assist regions and countries in need.

The Peru Think Tank was mirrored by similar events around the world and conclusions will be carried to the upcoming Ministers’ Summit on 11 November in London, during this year’s World Travel Market.

ClimateSolutions.travel

Valere Tjolle