Two steps forward, one and a half back

For more than 40 years, NGOs all over the world have made efforts to make the voices of poor and marginalized people heard in globalized tourism. From 1999, when tourism was on the agenda of the 7th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UN-CSD) in New York, up to the formulation of the SDGs and Agenda 2030, NGOs have been raising issues and challenges.

However, the progress made in niches is neither reflected in the bulk of international tourism offers nor in the trends regarding resource use in tourism. Hotels might ask their guests to use water sparingly and to use their towels twice, but the real threat to sustainable development, as described in the Agenda 2030, is not the visiting tourist. The crucial issues are related to the ways in which tourism is being developed throughout the life cycle of a destination.

Not surprisingly, a number of the issues that NGOs have raised have only partially been addressed. But while most of the challenges have remained, the conditions under which tourism happens have changed. The internet and other information technologies have fundamentally changed the ways in which tourism is organised. Changes in financing, ownership and corporate structures combined with large scale outsourcing have made it easier for decision-makers to cover up their responsibilities. Global developments have changed the flows of capital and the flows of tourists.