New Signals at the World Tourism Day 2008

On this year’s World Tourism Day, the official celebrations focussed on ”Tourism Responding to the Challenge of Climate Change”. The main event was organised by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) on 27th September in Lima, Peru.
At a pre-event in Lima, a group of civil society organisations, including EED-Tourism Watch, had formulated their inputs to the discussion. As Sabine Minninger reports, they were surprised at the degree to which tourism officials talked about social responsibility, social and environmental indicators and awareness raising to promote climate friendly behaviour.
Though the rhetoric at the official event had shifted towards climate protection and poverty alleviation, NGOs raised criticism regarding the lack of civil society participation in UNWTO events. They also questioned the method recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to calculate aircraft emissions.
UNWTO presented two new initiatives: "TOURpact.gc", in cooperation with the UN Global Compact, aimed it encouraging the tourism industry to adopt social and ecological standards, and the website www.climatesolutions.travel, set up in cooperation with Microsoft to serve as a portal on solutions to combat climate change.