5 Key Takeaways for the Future of Sustainable Tourism
Photo Credit: A man in Sky, UK, watching a sunset Unsplash / Joshua Earle
Skift Take
More industry stakeholders now recognize what practices are effective for their sustainability journeys. In the overall industry, however, gaps persist and there’s still a lot more work to do to put these strategies into practice. That was what we heard this week from industry leaders during our sustainable tourism summit.
The rhetoric has been been louder for more sustainable, green travel, as the winding down of the global pandemic signals a new start for many tourist destinations and travel companies. On Wednesday, Skift sought to parse through what is real, and what are just words, to offer some concrete solutions to the industry with its Skift Sustainable Tourism Summit online. Destinations actively being more inclusive of marginalized communities was certainly one major takeaway. Others included the superiority of science-based carbon targets over carbon offsets, unsustainable labor practices, action on climate change remains inadequate and sustainable stances can win over investors.
Much of Action on Climate Change Remains WeakMany industry suppliers still are not serious about combating climate change. Only 10 out of the 1,100 airlines and 20 out of over 400,000 hotels have joined the UN’s Race to Zero campaign, Skift Senior Vice President of Research Haixia Wang shared in a presentation.
A lot of industry efforts remains talk and surface level. “Half of companies, maybe even a little bit more, still hasn’t done anything,” said Intrepid Travel chairman and co-founder Darrell Wade told us. “At the World Travel and
