Last week, as heads of state and government gathered for the UN General Assembly in New York, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were finally high on the agenda. Not because there was anything to celebrate at the halfway point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, but rather because the UN Secretary-General has called for an urgent rescue plan for people and planet. In reality, we are far from achieving the SDGs. With regard to some of the 169 sub-goals, including poverty and hunger reduction as well as climate and environmental protection, we are even taking steps backwards.
What does this mean for tourism? Tourism is closely linked to other sectors such as transport, gastronomy and culture. As a result, tourism offers opportunities for sustainable development as it can act as a driving force for broader transformation. All the more worrying is the fact that negative tourism trends – although temporarily suspended by the pandemic - are back with their old urgency. This can be observed in areas such as labour outsourcing, overtourism or tourism's high dependence on air travel.
These trends must be counteracted in a targeted manner, because one thing is certain: although tourism is only explicitly mentioned in the SDGs 8, 12 and 14, the sustainable transformation of tourism is indispensable for the achievement of all SDGs. With this in mind, the Transforming Tourism Initiative (TTI) published ten articles. The contributions fit into the sobering picture of the general SDG mid-term review and show how urgently we need change in the sector. This is especially true for SDG 8 on decent work, SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production and SDG 13 on climate change. At the same time, the contributions to SDG 4 on education and SDG 16 on peace show that there are inspiring ways forward.
In other words, it is possible to transform tourism. It is high time to finally set the necessary transformation processes in motion. This is the message we want to carry to the industry, to politicians and to travellers on 27 September 2023, on World Tourism Day.
