Acknowledging the declaration of 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, the United Nations held an event titled “Sustainable Tourism: Changing the world through travel”, reaffirming its dedication to advancing the contribution of the tourism sector to the three pillars of sustainability – economic, social and environmental.
As part of the Travel+SocialGood Global Summit, the event brought together travel industry experts to discuss the ways sustainable tourism could help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), placing an emphasis on Goals 8, 12, and 14 in which tourism is featured.
Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Danny Danon highlighted how tourism had significantly created job opportunities especially for women and the youth, and lead to increased investment in developing African countries. As such, tourism has become the largest export category in many developing countries.
However, the pervasive lack of education on and unawareness of what constitutes sustainable tourism still negatively impacts some host communities. Rich Shea, director of Communications, Centre for Responsible Travel (CREST) highlighted the prevailing confusion among the general public about what makes tourism sustainable. He stressed the need to clarify sustainable tourism as well as the duties of a responsible tourist in order to make the concept more accessible to people.
Kelley Lousia from Travel+SocialGood also agreed that governments, business sectors and consumers should educate themselves about sustainability taking UNWTO’s five key pillars for reference.
Additionally, funds leakage still exists and results in many local communities that continue to suffer from poor wages. The direct amount of tourism investments or consumptions to the destination is smaller than the total amount. According to Jeremy Smith, co-founder of Travindy and writer for World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), in 2015 the total contribution of tourism to the GDP was 10.2% while the direct contribution to local GDP was only 3.1%. A similar situation could be found in local employment, with tourism supporting 9.6% of total jobs and only 3.6% of direct employment. He therefore suggested organizations “be more transparent about tourism impact”.
Jimmy Sweeting, president for Planeterra Foundation as well as vice president for G Adventure, encouraged travellers to “really connect to the local people and learn what they need”. He called for “empowering the under-resourced communities, especially marginalized women, disadvantaged youth, and indigenous and traditional peoples”.
The event attracted many attendees who were enthusiastic about sustainable tourism for development of travel destinations, empowerment of vulnerable groups and improvement of sustainability, especially in developing countries. It sent a message that tourism had endless opportunities to shape a better future.
The Global Goals have provided us a transformative plan to promote sustainable development. Tourism has a lot to contribute by identifying strategies for poverty eradication and building prosperous, inclusive and resilient societies for all, leaving no one behind.
Learn more about 2017 Travel+SocialGood Global Summit.
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Source: UNSDN