Blog News: Sustainable Tourism Finally Takes the Forefront!

Reflecting on the course of this blog so far, I feel I’ve taken a pretty negative stance in exploring tourism’s role in global environmental change and possibilities for sustainable tourism. So for a bit of a change, here is my blog proclamation of some fantastic news: following the deliberations at COP-21 this month, the United Nations has officially declared 2017 the ‘International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development’!

Most notably, the resolution emphasises that “well-designed and well-managed tourism can make a significant contribution to the three dimensions of sustainable development, has close linkages to other sectors and can create decent jobs and generate trade opportunities.”

The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has taken the lead role in this plan, with their Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai, claiming this “is a unique opportunity to advance the contribution of thetourism sector to the three pillars of sustainability – economic, social and environmental, while raising awareness of the true dimensions of a sector which is often undervalued”. I honestly couldn’t agree more – tourism has barely been mentioned in previous initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals. Considering the sector accounts for 10% of GDP globally and 1/11 jobs, tourism has real power to make a change. Rifai added that the UNWTO is looking to work with loads of other stakeholders including governments, relevant sectors of the UN and NGOs, inviting them all to participate. I believe that the collaboration of stakeholders is key for achieving the goals of the declaration and sustainable tourism more generally, which, although fairly vague, is still in its early stages and will surely develop by 2017.

To add to this, the UNWTO has released this document which shows how tourism can potentially contribute - both directly and indirectly - to all 17 of the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)  as part of Agenda 2030. Furthermore, tourism has been featured in specific targets for 3 of the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals. Most notably, these include Goal 14 , which is to “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”, with the specific target to “by 2030 increase the economic benefits of [Small Island Developing States] SIDS and [Less Developed Countries] LDCs from the sustainable use of marine resources, including through sustainable management of fisheries, aquaculture and tourism.” One little quiff I may have is that tourism really should have been mentioned in a target for Goal 13 as well – ‘Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts’ – considering it's direct emissions contribute 5% of all global CO₂ emissions!

All in all, however, it seems that tourism is finally taking the forefront in global discussions for achieving sustainability. Whether 2017 will play out to be a success cannot be said yet – but the fact that International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development’ exists and is being talked about can surely only be positive!