The Diplomat
Tourism was back to the United Nations headquarters last week to emphasize the sector’s unique position to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Reflecting the unprecedented relevance of tourism on the UN agenda, UNWTO together with the Ministry of Tourism and Sport, Republic of Croatia and support from Ministry of Tourism, India, Chair of the G20 Tourism Working Group gathered leaders from the public and private sectors for a high level roundtable at the official side event on “Economic, Social, and Environmental Sustainability in Tourism” which was held on Friday 14 July within the framework of the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
The high-level event further advanced UNWTO’s work in making tourism a key pillar of sustainable development, most notably through enhanced public-private partnerships. In New York, UNWTO together with partners:
- Provided a better understanding of the SDGs from the perspective of tourism and inspired further action among both government and private sector stakeholders.
- Presented the Goa Roadmap for Tourism as a Vehicle for Achieving the SDGs developed under India’s G20 Presidency.
- Raised awareness about a crucial development that is mobilizing the power of data by forging a global consensus for harmonized data on the economic, social and environmental performance of tourism at international and national destination levels: the forthcoming Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism (MST).
- Outlined the benefits that private sector can bring to, and draw from, the development of harmonized Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Framework for Tourism Businesses.
- Shared the key points of the recently launched “Achieving the SDGs through tourism: Toolkit of Indicators for Projects (TIPS)” developed in partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as a comprehensive resource designed to guide users in aligning tourism development projects with the SDGs.
The Forum side event mas aimed at inspiring common action between the public, private and academic sectors for the tourism sector to achieve real sustainability by focusing on the economic, social and environmental aspects in tourism as well as governance. Discussions counted on the insights of public, private and academic sector leaders from every global region, as well as key figures from within the United Nations itself:
- Csaba Kőrösi, President of the United Nations General Assembly joined Lachezara Stoeve, President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in officially opening the event.
- Moderated by UNWTO’s Executive Director Zoritsa Urosevic, the high-level roundtable discussion counted on the participation of the co-organizer of the event, Croatian Minister of Tourism and Sport Nikolina Brnjac, and Ministers of Tourism of India, Jamaica, Spain and Dr. Ivan Šimonović, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Croatia to the United Nations.
- Representing the private sector attended Matt Callaghan, Director of Customer & Operations at easyJet holidays, while Edward Brooks, Executive Director and co-Founder of Oxford SDG Impact Lab, provided the academic perspective.
