This week will bring tourism back to United Nations Headquarters to highlight the sector’s unique position to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Reflecting the unprecedented importance of tourism in the United Nations agenda, UNWTO, in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of the Republic of Croatia and the support of the Ministry of Tourism of India, Chairman of the Group G20 Tourism Working Group, will bring together leaders from the public and private sectors for a high-level panel discussion at the official side event on “Economic, Social and Environmental Sustainability in Tourism” to be held on Friday 14 July as part of the United Nations High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
Inspire and guide action
The high-level event will advance UNWTO’s work to make tourism a key pillar of sustainable development, including through strengthened public-private partnerships. In New York, UNWTO and its partners:
Provide a better understanding of the SDGs from a tourism perspective and inspire further action among government and private sector stakeholders.
Present the Goa Tourism Roadmap as a vehicle to achieve the SDGs developed under India’s G20 Presidency.
Raise awareness of a crucial development that harnesses the power of data by forging a global consensus for harmonized data on the economic, social and environmental performance of tourism at the international, national and destination levels: the next statistical framework for measuring tourism sustainability ( MST).
Describe the benefits the private sector can bring and derive from developing a harmonized environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework for tourism businesses.
Share the key points of the recently launched document “Achieving the SDGs through Tourism: Toolkit of Indicators for Projects (TIPS)” developed in partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as a comprehensive resource designed for guide users in aligning tourism development projects with the SDGs.
Connect key stakeholders
The Forum side event aims to inspire joint action between the public, private and academic sectors for the tourism sector to achieve real sustainability by focusing on the economic, social and environmental aspects of tourism as well as governance. Discussions will draw on the insights of leaders from the public, private and academic sectors from all regions of the world, as well as key figures from the UN itself.
Csaba Kőrösi, President of the United Nations General Assembly, will join Lachezara Stoeve, President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to officially open the event.
Moderated by the UNWTO Executive Director, Zoritsa Urosevic, the high-level roundtable will count on the participation of the co-organizer of the event, the Croatian Minister of Tourism and Sports, Nikolina Brnjac, and Ministers of Tourism India, Jamaica, Spain, and Dr Ivan Šimonović, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Croatia to the United Nations.
Matt Callaghan, chief customer and operations officer at easyJet Holidays, will represent the private sector, while Edward Brooks, executive director and co-founder of Oxford SDG Impact Lab, will provide the academic perspective.
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