The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), UN Tourism (formerly UNWTO) and the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance have formed a partnership to reverse biodiversity loss. This new Nature Positive Tourism Partnership was launched on Earth Day with the publication of a joint report. As UN Tourism explains on its website, “the report is the sector’s pledge to support the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the UN’s Biodiversity Plan.”
The report offers “guidance and insights” and “highlights the intrinsic link between biodiversity and tourism’s resilience.” potentially empowering tourism “businesses to become stewards of nature.” As Julia Simpson of WTTC calls on the industry to “heed the call to nurture and protect our destinations. Our sector’s reliance on nature, coupled with our expertise in creating inspiring and memorable experiences, means we are ideally placed to be guardians of nature.”
Glenn Mandziuk CEO of the Sustainable Hotel Alliance launching the report and partnership said: “The Alliance is proud to contribute to and collaborate on this insightful and action-orientated report which will bring tangible change to destinations around the world, supporting biodiversity. Nature underpins our society, economies and indeed our very existence. The hospitality industry is today a leader amongst industries in its Nature Positive approach and this report signifies how much our industry understands the true value of nature.”
The partners recognise that the sector has a “critical role to play in protecting and conserving biodiversity” and this nature-positive approach is a “a touchstone for actionable change.” The report “focuses on equipping the sector with the tools and insights needed to nurture and protect destinations upon which it depends.” ANIMONDIAL back in 2022 published Nature Poisitve Travel and Tourism with the WTTC “Travelling in harmony with nature.” The 2002 WTTC Report has twenty pages of advice about how to take action to “reduce and restore” by setting SMART objectives and KPIs to monitor and report on progress.
ANIMONDIAL in their report for WTTC has a section on effective reporting: “A credible report should be honest and evidenced. Aim to balance celebration of success with accountability for any poor performance. Include a set of new commitments to address shortcomings based on the lessons learned. Include the objectives and actions by department, and of the business as a whole. Present performance alongside each respective target, including an evaluation of progress and reference to data sources, baselines and collection methods. Use quantifiable results as much as possible, and support these with qualitative data such as case studies.”
Effective reporting is essential to demonstrating progress against the urgent imperative to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
The aspirations are laudable, but delivery is the test, transparent reporting of biodiversity gain is essential. The Nature Positive Tourism Partnership report presents inspiring case studies and concludes “Only a large, unified effort can turn tourism from a burden into a guardian of nature. That effort has already begun, and it is up to us to build on existing actions and quicken the pace.”
The report also recognises that “Though Travel & Tourism clearly has a tremendous motivation to do the right thing, it is far from realising the dream of greener tourism. A gap remains between intention and action, words and deeds. Clearly, the tourism narrative still needs to shift more emphatically from enjoying and consuming nature to actively protecting and conserving it.”
Reading the reports I have been reminded of what Lord Colin Marshall, then chair of British Airways, perhaps inadvertently acknowledged when announcing sponsorship of the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards in 1994. He described the tourism and travel industry as “…essentially the renting out for short-term lets of other people’s environments, whether this is a coastline, a city, a mountain range, or a rainforest”. The next sentence, the enlightened self-interest case for business engagement with the sustainability of tourism, is more often quoted: “These ‘products’ must be kept fresh and unsullied not just for the next day, but for every tomorrow.”
The ideas are not new, delivery remains the issue.
