Asia’s tourism sector should reinforce its ability to address climate change, was the clarion call at last week’s UNWTO-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) International Conference on Tourism and Climate Change.
The 26th Joint Commission Meeting for Asia and the Pacific was held in Legazpi, Philippines, but it closed without leaders providing a single practical recommendation on how Asia’s tourism industry could respond, its efforts to counter climate change. The message should have been sent to the oil industry and Asia’s government policy makers who have made solar energy intensively expensive.
In its meeting assessment UNWTO noted that Asia-Pacific is at the forefront of tourism growth and development and recent numbers confirm that tourism in the region continues to progress above worldwide averages. Yet, continued tourism growth and sustainable development depends on fixing the tourism’s sector resilience to climate change.
Participants could have saved themselves the trouble of travelling to this event if all they could muster was a call for tourism to address climate change. They increased their carbon footprint substantially travelling to Manila, without making a single recommendation to show how in practice the travel industry could address climate change.
Taleb Rifai, UNWTO Secretary-General, made a call to position the fight against climate change at the heart of the tourism agenda, a call he has repeatedly made without any evidence that any of his members are prepared to act as that might impede tourism expansion.
However, the reality is a different story. Travel is viewed, as a quick fix industry for emerging economies so sustainable polices to reduce its carbon footprint is not high on the agenda.
The outcome conclusion was that tourism providers and consumers need to be aware of their individual input to climate change and respond and reduce the impact. More than 200 senior tourism officials, policymakers, and industry travelled all the way to Manila to reach that conclusion. They could have done more for climate change by staying home and sharing their thoughts through tele-conferencing.
Despite tourism expersts from 18 countries exchanging views and best practices on how to reinforce the sector’s ability to address global challenge, the reality is real-time tourism is not in their hands to bring about a single change. It is in the hands of corporations, airlines, travel firms and hotel chains, so the question is how can they help to lessen climate change as they go about their daily business?
An approaching UNWTO/University of Queensland study Tourism’s Response to Climate Change: An Examination of Tourism Related Initiatives in Asia and Pacific shows that Asia-Pacific is affected by 90% of global climate-related catastrophes. UNWTO believes responding to the challenges of climate change is fundamental to make sure that tourism continues to advance.
