Business Leaders Urge International Cooperation to Make Tourism Climate-Ready

A recent independent study is pushing enterprises in the tourist and transportation industries to invest in climate-friendly technology.

Moreover, the businesses will have to take full responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions that they cause.

The Travel Foundation, the Centre of Excellence in Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality, Breda University of Applied Sciences, the European Tourism Futures Institute, and the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions collaborated to produce a paper titled "Envisioning Tourism in 2030 & Beyond." This publication was the result of an autonomous cooperation among the aforementioned organisations.

It follows the guidelines made in the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, which recommends that more countries engage in the Paris Agreement; tourist boards and travel firms provide more net-zero travel packages; financing greener mobility; a move towards decarbonization; halting the fast increase in aviation; and a number of other things in order to attain the declaration's objective of net zero by 2050.

The single most important piece of advice for travel companies? Emissions from all firm activities need to be reported so that reduction efforts may be made with precision.

According to the analysis, long-haul flights would more than treble by 2050, contributing 41% of all tourism-related emissions even though they only account for 4% of all journeys.

Dr. Susanne Etti, Global Environmental Impact Manager for Intrepid Travel, commented about the recent study:

“The report challenges all tour operators to move faster on decarbonizing our businesses.

“Intrepid is already the first global tour operator with science-based carbon emissions targets and we’re working to reduce the impact of transport in the trip emission profile; strengthen our domestic and regional travel offering; and promote longer trips in destinations that require long-haul flights. Decarbonizing our supply chain relies on different players, including governments, prioritizing the phasing out of fossil fuels in favour of clean technologies. This is not going to be easy and no business can act alone.”

This research has received assistance from a variety of travel and tourism businesses, as well as locations; some of them include the government of Chile, Intrepid Travel, Iberostar, the World Bank Group, the Pacific Tourism Organization, TourRadar, and Expedia Group, amongst others.

Verónica Kunze, the Undersecretary of Tourism for the Chilean government, stated that the country's officials call on the entire tourism industry to work collaboratively and seek the most successful instruments worldwide to progress in the task of reducing emissions.

“We call on the entire tourism industry to coordinate efforts, work together and seek the most successful tools worldwide to advance in the task of reducing emissions. The task is enormous, but taking action as soon as possible will allow effective results to be achieved in the medium and long term”, Kunze concluded.

 

source: travelpulse.com