Sustainability at the forefront of the dialogue with the travel and tourism private sector
People, planet and profit. Counting nearly 170 of the world’s top Travel & Tourism enterprises as Member companies, WTTC strives to promote the tourism sector’s long-term growth and prosperity through a harmonious balance between tourism businesses and the people, cultures and environments of global destinations.
The Sustainable Growth priority is integral to WTTC. This priority covers issues such as destination stewardship, climate change, anti-trafficking (human and wildlife), the future of work and our Tourism for Tomorrow Awards and is vital for ensuring that there is a future longevity in the sector. WTTC has three main strategic initiatives: Security & Travel Facilitation, which is about getting bonafide travellers moving easily across borders regardless and speeding up security processes using technologies such as biometrics; “Crisis Preparation and Management”, centers around making sure that the sector is prepared for crisis events and is able to minimise the impact; and Sustainable Growth, which is built upon the fact that businesses and the sector to think about the long term for Travel & Tourism to thrive into the future. (1) Awarding leading initiatives - Tourism for Tomorrow Awards: The Awards herald the best practices of Travel & Tourism enterprises across the world in different categories - in how they act with communities, how they support and bring destinations to life, how they are innovative, how they support people and development and how they interact with the environment. They are successful examples of companies that are using tourism in the best possible way. The winners recognize the value in having won a Tourism for Tomorrow Award, and WTTC try and help the winners get a wider visibility.
(2) Building an environment that gathers people who are cutting edge in sustainable tourism. Several inspiring examples of learning, sharing and community developing among the awardess who keep in touch years later and all keep striving to make their businesses as sustainable as they can be, and also reach out and help other organizations and the industry more widely.
(3) In 2017, WTTC involved consumers: through a campaign called “Is it Too Much To Ask?” that tries to get consumers to think a bit more about the responsibilities that they have. There are ten pledges and the overall pledge is, “if I don’t see how a company is behaving responsibly, then I’m going to ask”, or “if I see bad practices I’m going to make a complaint.” This idea of pledging is getting consumers to start thinking ahead of time about their holidays and about what they’re going to do. It tries to educate the consumer to think about the things they might take for granted. It asks if there is a better way, and if there isn’t one, then we need to try and convince companies that there needs to be a change.
