Leading players launch sustainable tourism strategy

Founded by leading players, including British Airways, Thomas Cook and travel association ABTA, ‘Tourism 2023’ aims to address some of the critical challenges the outbound travel and tourism industry faces to its future sustainability and profitability. These include climate change, increased travel, resource scarcity and the carbon footprint of the industry’s own products and services.

“It is vital that the travel and tourism industry meets the challenges that an international industry faces if we want to have a successful and profitable future,” said Mark Tanzer, chief executive of ABTA. “ By working together we can come up with practical and innovative solutions to these challenges, which make sound commercial sense.”

As well as setting out the challenges facing their industry, the founders of Tourism 2023 – which together carry around 45 million passengers every year – have laid down a set of principles to guide them and are calling on others organisations and businesses to join them.

In a statement, Tourism 2023 said its vision was “based on six principles: protecting the environment, developing employees, providing customers with mainstream sustainable products, ensuring that destinations benefit from tourism, innovating to create sustainable transport and resorts, and developing a business which is environmentally, socially and financially sustainable.”

The Tourism 2023 vision and strategy has been developed in response to a number of scenarios that could threaten the UK outbound travel and tourism industry, from overcrowded destinations to the transport problems facing it. These have led the founders of Tourism 2023 to set out three urgent priorities for the industry: protecting holiday destinations, trialling and implementing new low carbon technologies, and increasing the market for sustainable tourism.

“As one of the largest travel retailers in the UK, we are an ideal position […] to promote the importance of sustainable tourism to holidaymakers and travellers,” said John McEwan, chief executive of Advantage Travel Centres, one of the members of Tourism 2023.

Jonathon Counsell, head of Environment, British Airways, added: “The work on alternative fuels for aviation is gathering pace. We are working with leading industry bodies such as Rolls Royce and Boeing and are greatly encouraged by the emerging options and the speed with which alternative fuels are reaching maturity.”

Other members of the Tourism 2023 include Carnival UK, The Co-operative Travel, The Travel Foundation, TUI Travel Tourism and Sunvil Holidays.

Tourism 2023 is being coordinated on behalf of the UK tourism industry by sustainable development charity Forum for the Future with support from the Defra.