WHAT CAN YOU DO? AS A TRAVELLER
Travel with care! Learn more about the SDGs and how being conscious of decisions and actions taken during a trip can contribute immensely to advancing them.
- Do not waste food. Try to order or fill your plate with the amount of food you can actually eat, and avoid having leftovers.
- If you see an interesting initiative or social project during your travels, related to women’s rights or climate change, share it so your network can see it too and learn from it.
- Learn to speak a few words in the local language. This can help you connect with the local community and its people in a more meaningful way.
- Do a bit of online research and give preference to staying at places or buying only from companies that you know have sustainable practices and don’t harm the environment.
- Stop printing booking confirmations and boarding passes, instead have digital copies of these documents.
- Promote the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism and learn more on www.travelenjoyrespect.org
WHAT CAN YOU DO? AS A PUBLIC BODY
Governments and tourism policymakers have a unique opportunity to shape and determine solid policies to increase tourism’s role in the realization of the 2030 Agenda.
- Partner with civil society networks to provide education and entrepreneurial skills training (e.g. tour guides, local artisans, local cooks).
- Create programs (e.g., internships, work-study programs, traineeships, etc.) that give students earlier access to the corporate environment and demonstrate employment opportunities in tourism.
- Create policies that prohibiting the use of chemicals and materials that can be particularly detrimental to water quality if improperly disposed.
- Engage in public-private dialogues, partnerships and collective action in conflict prevention, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, anti-corruption and the rule of law.
- Create policies that encourage minimizing manufacturing impacts by substituting virgin raw materials in products with post-consumer materials through recycling and upcycling.
- Foster regional and international cooperation and access to science, technology and innovation and enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms, including through improved coordination among existing mechanisms, in particular at the United Nations level, and through a global technology facilitation mechanism.
WHAT CAN YOU DO? AS AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION
International Organizations should continue working with all stakeholders to advance the contribution of tourism to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs in their respective areas of action.
- Encourage and support governments to adopt policies for paying equal remuneration, including benefits, for work of equal value and strive to pay a living wage to all women and men.
- Encourage incentives for integrating renewable energy into employee benefits packages, subsidizing the capital expenditures associated with residential solar or electric vehicle investments.
- Support policy makers and encouraging partnerships to shape better policies to realize the 2030 Agenda for people, planet, prosperity and peace.
- Help reform the private sector finance investment strategies to support integrated and sustainable urban development like sustainable urban transport, low-carbon buildings, and resilient infrastructure.
- Commit to and implement conflict-sensitive, lawful and transparent operational policies and practices, including on human resources, public and corporate procurement, and in the value chain more generally.
- Enhance international financial support for implementing effective and targeted capacity-building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the sustainable development goals.
WHAT CAN YOU DO? AS AN ACADEMICIAN
- Recruit, train and employ local community members, including those living in poverty, and integrate them in the tourism value chain (as producers, suppliers, distributors, vendors)
- Use already existing resources on health for guidance (e.g. from the ILO, WHO, etc.).
- Pay equal remuneration, including benefits, for work of equal value and strive to pay a living wage to all women and men
- Work with other groups such as governments, community groups, peer companies to improve local water governance or on water projects to address identified challenges
- Partner with civil society networks to provide education and entrepreneurial skills training.
- Share and engage with ONE Planet – Travel with care
WHAT CAN YOU DO? AS A COMPANY
Competitiveness is the key business driver for sustainability. Companies can take advantage of the 2030 Agenda, by embracing sustainable business models and practices.
- Develop tourism products and services tailored for customers with lower income, to ensure that everyone can become a tourist.
- Invest some of the tourism receipts in sustainable agricultural technology, intensifying collaboration with academic as well as scientific institutions.
- Ensure sufficient participation of women – 30% or greater – in decision-making and governance at all levels and across all business areas in tourism related corporations.
- Recruit, train and employ local community members, including those living in poverty, and integrate them in your value chain (as producers, suppliers, distributors, vendors).
- Significantly reduce waste and ensure that any unavoidable waste is utilized to the fullest degree (e.g. organic waste as fuel or fertilizer).
- Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries.
WHAT CAN YOU DO? AS A DONOR
The global donor community should increase its support to sustainable tourism, recognizing the wide-ranging impacts of tourism on all dimensions of sustainable development, and thus on all 17 SDGs.
- Invest in the development of health tourism.
- Provide support to NGOs and the public sector to help promote sustainable growth within developing countries.
- Invest in safe and sustainable infrastructure in the community and or city of operation, including lighting, transportation, alarm systems etc.
- Provide resources for awareness campaigns on effective ways to properly dispose of their waste to discourage littering and promote responsible behavior.
- Foster development and investment in product and technology innovation to optimizing resource efficiency, reducing impacts on ecosystems and lower carbon emissions.
- Support a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading.
