UN High Level Political Forum discusses tourism's contribution to sustainable development

16-07-23

Last Friday, tourism was once again present at the United Nations Headquarters for its unique role in driving the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Reflecting the unprecedented relevance that tourism has acquired in the UN agenda, UNWTO, in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of the Republic of Croatia and with the support of the Ministry of Tourism of India, which chairs the G20 Tourism Working Group, will bring together leaders from the public and private sectors in a meeting of the G20 Tourism Working Group, will bring together leaders from the public and private sectors in a high-level roundtable in the framework of the official side event on "Economic, Social and Environmental Sustainability of Tourism", to be held on Friday 14 July as part of the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

Inspiration and guidance

This high-level event will continue to advance UNWTO's work to make tourism a key pillar of sustainable development, notably by strengthening public-private partnerships. In New York, UNWTO and its partners:

Help to better understand the SDGs from a tourism perspective and inspire further action that governments and private sector stakeholders can take.

Present the "Goa Roadmap for Tourism as a Vehicle for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals" that has been developed during India's G20 Presidency.

Raise awareness of a crucial development that highlights the power of information and has led to a global consensus on the harmonisation of data on the economic, social and environmental performance of tourism at international, national and destination levels: the forthcoming Statistical Framework for Measuring Sustainable Tourism (MST).

Highlight the benefits that the sector can bring, and gain, from the development of the harmonised framework of environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria for tourism enterprises.

To outline the key aspects of the recently launched toolkit (Achieving the SDGs through tourism: Toolkit of Indicators for Projects [TIPS]), a comprehensive resource designed to help users align tourism development projects with the SDGs that has been developed in collaboration with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Connecting key stakeholders

The Forum's side event aims to inspire joint action by the public, private and academic sectors to make tourism truly sustainable, focusing on the economic, social and environmental aspects and governance of the tourism sector. The debate benefited from the contributions of leaders from the public, private and academic sectors from all world regions, as well as leading personalities from the United Nations itself.

Csaba Kőrösi, President of the United Nations General Assembly, and Lachezara Stoeve, President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), officially opened the event.

The high-level panel discussion, moderated by Zoritsa Urosevic, Executive Director of UNWTO, will feature the co-organizer of the event, Minister of Tourism and Sport of Croatia, Nikolina Brnjac, and the Ministers of Tourism of Spain, India and Jamaica as well as Dr. Ivan Šimonović, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Croatia to the United Nations.

Representing the private sector was Matt Callaghan, Director of EasyJet Holidays, and Edward Brooks, CEO and co-founder of Oxford SDG Impact Lab, will provide the academic perspective.