Climate change focus for “GT” Insight Partnership

SUN^x — Strong Uni­ver­sal Net­work is the latest “Good Tour­ism” Insight Part­ner. As a “GT” Insight Part­ner, SUN^x will inspire industry-wide con­ver­sa­tions and debate around tour­ism and cli­mate change. 

As with all “GT” Insight Part­ners, SUN^x will reg­u­larly identi­fy and invite an opin­ion or prac­tice lead­er work­ing in the area of cli­mate change & tour­ism to write a “GT” Insight for pub­lic­a­tion by The “Good Tour­ism” Blog.

“GT” Insights are ori­gin­al posts by aca­dem­ics, experts, and prac­ti­tion­ers keen to share their ideas.

SUN^x Co-Founder Geof­frey Lip­man said: “We are delighted to be a “GT” Insight Part­ner and to have the oppor­tun­ity to con­trib­ute to The “Good Tour­ism” Blog.”

The former top exec­ut­ive of IATA, WTTC, and UNWTO added: “We will be reach­ing out to our net­work of part­ners work­ing in the field of tour­ism and cli­mate change to ask them to write about new devel­op­ments and their insights into what is hap­pen­ing on the ground.”

The first “GT” Insight under the aus­pices of this part­ner­ship has been writ­ten by SUN^x Pro­gramme Man­ager Olly Wheatcroft, who was keen to intro­duce some of the core ideas of the ambi­tious not-for-profit. 

“For this first piece I have chosen to write about our Cli­mate Cham­pi­ons Pro­gram, an edu­ca­tion and train­ing ini­ti­at­ive to sup­port 100,000 next-gen­er­a­tion lead­ers in all UN regions by 2030,” he said.

SUN^x joins the World Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation for Cul­ture & Her­it­age (WTACH) and Second Look World­wide as “Good Tour­ism” Insight Part­ners. WTACH has a cul­ture & her­it­age focus, while Second Look spe­cial­ises in host com­munity infrastructure.

More “GT” Insight Part­ner­ships are in the pipeline. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog is invit­ing lead­ing not-for-profit organ­isa­tions work­ing in oth­er import­ant top­ic areas — nature & wild­life, chil­dren & young people, access­ible tour­ism, des­tin­a­tion plan­ning, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, et cet­era.

I am thank­ful to Geof­frey and Olly for their early sup­port of this ini­ti­at­ive and their will­ing­ness to take the lead on cli­mate change con­tent on the “GT” platform. 

Cli­mate change is a con­tro­ver­sial top­ic — not so much the fact of it as how best to deal with it. As a humble writer — a com­mit­ted gen­er­al­ist — I am the first to admit I am no expert in any of it. How­ever, I am keen to pub­lish author­it­at­ive ori­gin­al con­tent on cli­mate change and a range of oth­er import­ant top­ics to devel­op “GT” into a hub for mul­tiple thought­ful perspectives. 

Travel & tour­ism is a com­plex industry beset by chal­lenges and threats on many fronts. The industry needs a “GT” — an open-minded, apolit­ic­al plat­form for hon­est dis­cus­sion and prag­mat­ic ideas and solutions. 

Thus it is a “GT” policy that any­one — even scep­tics! — may con­struct­ively com­ment on a post, sub­mit an idea for their own “GT” Insight” or sponsored post, and join the grow­ing list of “GT” Friends. 

“GT” Insight Part­ners have the power­ful oppor­tun­ity to lead dis­cus­sions and set agenda in their respect­ive top­ic areas, but they by no means get to mono­pol­ise them. It is only through chal­len­ging each oth­ers’ ideas that we can come up with bet­ter ones. 

We all want the best for and from tour­ism. And that’s why The “Good Tour­ism” Blog is open to all and open for busi­ness.

Fea­tured image: Tree before and after by Tumisu (CC0) via Pixabay.