Tourism growth is not the enemy: UNWTO boss

August 27, 2017

Tourism growth is not the enemy according to UNWTO Secretary General Taleb Rifai

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In response to an increas­ing num­ber of reports about “tour­ism-pho­bia”, the the World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO), August 15, released an opin­ion piece by its Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al, Taleb Rifai, arguing that tour­ism growth is not the enemy; it’s how we man­age it that counts.

As an eco­nom­ic activ­ity, travel and tour­ism is rel­at­ively young; yet it has become today, a sec­tor cent­ral to our soci­et­ies and to our way of life. Today, tour­ism gen­er­ates 10% of the world’s GDP, 1 in every 10 jobs and 30% of world trade in ser­vices. It is key to many coun­tries’ bal­ance of pay­ments and livelihoods.

Recog­nising how tour­ism can help us address many of our com­mon chal­lenges, the United Nations declared 2017 as the Inter­na­tion­al Year of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism for Devel­op­ment, remind­ing us that with growth comes responsibility.

A sus­tain­able tour­ism sec­tor is one that pro­motes envir­on­ment­al pre­ser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of tan­gible and intan­gible cul­tur­al her­it­age, but more import­antly, it pro­motes engage­ment, com­mit­ment and respect for loc­al com­munit­ies. Man­aging the grow­ing num­ber of vis­it­ors to many pop­u­lar areas of our plan­et, includ­ing cit­ies, is cru­cial for both hosts and vis­it­ors, both inter­na­tion­al and domest­ic. In coun­tries such as Spain or France the share of domest­ic tour­ists is high­er than that of inter­na­tion­al visitors.

But growth is not the enemy. Grow­ing num­bers are not the enemy. Growth is the etern­al story of man­kind. Tour­ism growth can and should lead to eco­nom­ic prosper­ity, jobs and resources to fund envir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion and cul­tur­al pre­ser­va­tion, as well as com­munity devel­op­ment and pro­gress needs, which would oth­er­wise not be avail­able. It also means that through meet­ing oth­ers we can broaden our hori­zons, open our minds and our hearts, improve our well-being and be bet­ter people; shap­ing a bet­ter world .

Yet ensur­ing that tour­ism is an enrich­ing exper­i­ence for vis­it­ors and hosts alike, demands strong, sus­tain­able tour­ism policies, prac­tices, and the engage­ment of nation­al, as well as loc­al gov­ern­ments and admin­is­tra­tions, private sec­tor com­pan­ies, loc­al com­munit­ies and tour­ists themselves.

Over-tourism in Bangladesh yet UNWTO says tourism growth is not the enemy.

Pulling togeth­er. Sun­rise on Saint Mar­tin Island, Bangladesh. By Tah­mid Mun­az from Dhaka, Bangladesh (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wiki­me­dia.

The sec­tor needs reg­u­la­tions and clear guidelines, but not ones that would curb growth. Rather, reg­u­la­tions that ensure its sus­tain­able man­age­ment and sus­tain­able growth actions that help such as:

  1. Diver­si­fy vis­it­or activ­it­ies; both in type and loc­a­tion [such as rur­al tour­ism];
  2. Effect­ive and integ­rated mech­an­isms and policies to man­age vis­it­ors at sites [such as in Ant­arc­tica, an extreme example];
  3. Policies to reduce seasonality;
  4. Incent­ives for the private sec­tor to invest in new areas and new products;
  5. Incent­ives and policies to reduce energy and water con­sump­tion and address oth­er com­munity needs, short­com­ings and defi­cits [or high­light and cel­eb­rate those who simply get on with it].

There have been sev­er­al case stud­ies of des­tin­a­tions strug­gling to main­tain a fair and inclus­ive sec­tor while man­aging expo­nen­tial tour­ism growth – Venice and Bar­celona being prom­in­ent recent examples. It should be emphas­ised, in this regard, that, whilst loc­al com­munit­ies must be con­sul­ted and fully engaged in tour­ism plan­ning, ‘tour­ism-pho­bia’ on the part of cit­izens is largely a res­ult of the fail­ure to man­age the growth in a sus­tain­able man­ner. The wrong­do­ing of illeg­al com­pan­ies, dam­age to mar­ine and ter­restri­al eco­sys­tems or the mis­be­ha­viour of a small num­ber of trav­el­lers do not rep­res­ent a dearth of tour­ism eth­ics by the sec­tor as a whole.

It’s the fail­ure of man­age­ment not of the sec­tor as such.

All the efforts of enter­prise, gov­ern­ment, civil soci­ety and trav­el­lers in the last dec­ades to shape a more respons­ible and com­mit­ted glob­al tour­ism sec­tor should not be in vain. We can and should be able to con­tin­ue cap­it­al­ising on the sec­tor and its bene­fits in terms of job cre­ation, eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and cul­tur­al inter­ac­tion, while curb­ing its neg­at­ive effects and impacts.

Every grow­ing human activ­ity has a down­side to it. The answer should nev­er be to halt the activ­ity, and lose all it’s clear bene­fits, but rather to live up to the chal­lenge and man­age it cor­rectly. This is the real chal­lenge. We should ensure that our con­vic­tion to improve the sec­tor is today stronger than ever. Oth­er­wise, the value of the sec­tor will nat­ur­ally be lost and contested.

Togeth­er we can con­tin­ue build­ing a sus­tain­able, equit­able and well-man­aged tour­ism sec­tor that sup­ports many live­li­hoods around the world and can enrich us every time we cross bor­ders and exchange cul­tur­al experiences.

Let us remem­ber the motto of the cam­paign of the Inter­na­tion­al Year of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism for Devel­op­ment: Travel, Enjoy, and Respect.

Travel, Enjoy, Respect

On August 22, the World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO) announced that it would be launch­ing a con­sumer-ori­ented cam­paign aimed at rais­ing aware­ness of the value and con­tri­bu­tion that sus­tain­able tour­ism and respect­ful, respons­ible travel can make towards devel­op­ment. The ‘Travel.Enjoy.Respect’ cam­paign wants to engage trav­el­lers to make the tour­ism sec­tor a cata­lyst for pos­it­ive change.

Per the press release:

The main mes­sage of the cam­paign is sum­mar­ised by the UNWTO Sec­ret­ary-Gen­er­al, Taleb Rifai: “Whenev­er you travel, wherever you travel, remem­ber to: respect nature, respect cul­ture, and respect your host. You can be the change you want to see in the world. You can be an ambas­sad­or for a bet­ter future. TRAVEL, ENJOY AND RESPECT.”

The cam­paign, which will run in vari­ous lan­guages and out­lets around the world, includes a manu­al of ‘Tips for a Respons­ible Trav­el­ler’, developed by the World Com­mit­tee on Tour­ism Eth­ics in line with the UNWTO Glob­al Code of Eth­ics for Tour­ism. The manu­al provides trav­el­lers with a set of recom­mend­a­tions to help them make respons­ible choices when trav­el­ling and have a pos­it­ive impact on the des­tin­a­tions they visit.

“Today more than ever, ensur­ing that tour­ism is an enrich­ing exper­i­ence for vis­it­ors and hosts alike demands strong, sus­tain­able tour­ism policies and prac­tices and the engage­ment of nation­al, as well as loc­al, gov­ern­ments and admin­is­tra­tions, private sec­tor com­pan­ies, loc­al com­munit­ies and tour­ists them­selves,” added Mr Rifai.

The mes­sage will reach con­sumers through cam­paign sup­port­ers includ­ing among oth­ers CNN Inter­na­tion­al, the Gov­ern­ment of Andorra, the Mad­rid City Coun­cil, Iber­ia, the Span­ish Nation­al Rail­ways Sys­tem (Ren­fe), Minube, PR MEDIACO, Clev­er­d­is and Air Mauritius.

Des­tin­a­tions and com­pan­ies from around the world are invited to join the cam­paign and cel­eb­rate the Inter­na­tion­al Year of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism for Devel­op­ment with a com­mit­ment from the sec­tor to ‘Travel.Enjoy.Respect’.

Fea­tured image: Taleb Rifai, Sec­ret­ary-Gen­er­al, UNWTO. By World Travel & Tour­ism Coun­cil (CC BY 2.0) via Wiki­me­dia.

Download

Responsible travel tips from UNWTO

Words of wis­dom from ‘Tips for a Respons­ible Trav­el­ler’ (PDF 4MB)

Tips for a Respons­ible Trav­el­ler’ (PDF 4MB)

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