Travel organisations unite to fight for sustainable global tourism

Six travel organisations have come together to form a coalition focused on the long-term sustainable and equitable growth of global tourism

Guiding principles include demanding fair income distribution, operating businesses responsibly and mitigating climate impacts

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More tourists, more waste – but a new coalition seeks to reduce tourism’s burden on local communities. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 8:45pm, 19 Jun 2020Updated: 8:45pm, 19 Jun 2020

Six travel organisations with very similar mission statements have come together to form the Future of Tourism Coalition, which aims to ensure the viability of an industry that was facing a multitude of threats even before Covid-19 all but shut it down.

“Decades of unfettered growth in travel have put the world’s treasured places at risk – environmentally, culturally, socially and financially,” reads the press release announcing the launch of the coalition. The travel and tourism industries face a precarious and uncertain future due to the Covid-19 global pandemic, with international tourist numbers projected to fall 60 to 80 per cent in 2020.”

The coalition’s founding six are the Centre for Responsible Travel, the Destination Stewardship Centre, Green Destinations, Sustainable Travel International, Tourism Cares and the Travel Foundation.

They are being guided by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council.

Two boys make friends in Makuleke Village in Kruger National Park, South Africa. The local community has benefited from a unique conservation deal linked to their new ownership of part of the park, after being forcibly removed from their land in 1969 by the apartheid authorities. Photo: Corbis via Getty Images

The coalition has drafted a set of guiding principles that are “vital for the long-term sustainable and equitable growth” of global tourism. Travel companies, governments, investors, non-governmental organisations and destination communities are being asked to follow the 22 founding signatories – which include Ecotourism Australia, the Hilton hospitality company, the Palau Bureau of Tourism, the Seychelles Ministry of Tourism, Tourism Council Bhutan and the WWF – in committing to: