Tourism stakeholders urged to promote sustainable tourism

MANILA, Philippines — Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat is pushing for more responsible and sustainable tourism in a bid to prevent another Boracay from happening.

“Because of what happened to Boracay, we really need to promote sustainable and responsible tourism,” she said in a television interview last weekend.

She stressed that everyone has a part to play in the promotion of sustainable tourism, including private stakeholders, adding that it is not only the national and local governments who should be responsible for taking care of our tourist sites.

“Most of our tourist sites are natural resources and everyone has to work together to preserve our environment. We should always boost tourism without harming the environment,” Puyat said.

On a positive note, she said the closure of Boracay has driven private stakeholders in other destinations in the country to start policing themselves and complying with environmental laws.

However, Puyat emphasized that tourists themselves also have a role to play in preserving tourist sites, even by such simple acts as not littering.  

Meanwhile, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is urging world tourism stakeholders to take more action to combat climate change and loss of biodiversity.

During the 30th joint meeting of its Commissions for South Asia and Asia-Pacific, UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili said climate-friendly initiatives are essential for the improvement of the global tourism sector.

Pololikashvili also emphasized that stronger partnerships and incentives for governments, businesses and tourists themselves make a difference in climate action efforts. 

He also made clear that sound policies must be built upon accurate evidence, requiring the tourism sector to better measure its impact on sustainability – while acknowledging progress has been made in this regard, including UNWTO’s development of a statistical framework to measure sustainable tourism

On the local front, the Department of Tourism (DOT) earlier moved for more sustainable practices as it earlier conducted a workshop on responsible and sustainable tourism.

The DOT, through the Office of Tourism Development Planning, Research and Information Management said it recently partnered with the Climate Change Commission (CCC) to hold a workshop on climate and change and tourism to encourage the practice of sustainable tourism in the country. 

At present, five percent of Global Carbon Emissions can be attributed to the tourism sector.

Earlier this year, the DOT launched the Anahaw-Philippine Sustainable Tourism Certification which is granted to zero-carbon resorts in the country.

DOT Director for Office of Tourism Standards and Regulations Danilo Intong earlier said the certification is one way to encourage tourism-related establishments to be more sustainable.

“In the next ten years, probably, it should be 80 percent of our tourism-related establishments going green,” Intong told reporters.

At present, Intong said less than 10 percent of accredited establishments are green developments. He emphasized this because the DOT’s push for green establishments is relatively new. 

Pololikashvili’s remarks were part of a regional seminar on how tourism impacts upon sustainable development efforts in the region and globally, held as part of the meeting in the Fijian city of Nadi. 

The seminar featured dialogue on how tourism policies, partnerships and investments can tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.

This was the first Joint Commission meeting held in a Pacific island nation. 

“The meeting and seminar highlighted the need for developing island countries to collaborate on actionable policies, with measurable results, to address climate change and biodiversity protection within the tourism sector,” the UNWTO said. 

Moreover, the UNWTO also pledged to further raise awareness of climate change’s impacts and effects on tourism through capacity building and educational opportunities.