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10 Years after the Rio Earth Summit
Red card for Tourism?
10 principles and challenges for
sustainable development of tourism
in the 21st Century
For the World Summit
on Sustainable Development 2002
by AG Rio+10:
- akte – Working
Group on Tourism and Development,
Basel
- FernWeh – Tourism
Review, Freiburg i. Br.
- respect, Vienna
- TOURISM WATCH, Bonn
of the Network for Sustainable Tourism
Development DANTE
Download
the text as a pdf-file
More than any other industry,
tourism lives and profits from beautiful
landscapes and the hospitality of
the inhabitants of its destination
countries. This ought to make it the
leader in sustainable development
as it was laid out by the international
community at the Rio Earth Summit
in 1992. The Rio follow-up having
largely failed to fulfil its promises,
tourism is now presented with an even
larger challenge, especially since
it has become one of the world‘s
largest industries and employers in
recent years. However, tourism‘s
fast development is at the cost of
the local and global environment and
much too often has become a burden
to the people in the host regions.
An increasing number of travel suppliers
in the North and South are trying
to work towards environmentally more
responsible tourism schemes. But the
re-orientation of tourism that is
necessary for a sustainable development
is not yet in sight.
In the light of the poor progress
of sustainable development ten years
after the Rio Earth Summit, tourism
could be shown the red card: - sent-off,
back to training - a demand that tourism
leaders learn to practise “fair
play” and contribute to sustainable
development, as should be expected
from the representatives of one of
the world’s leading industries!
This is the opinion of the representatives
of DANTE, a network of organisations
from Germany, Austria and Switzerland
working on tourism issues. In preparation
for the Earth Summit in 2002 in Johannesburg,
they have developed ten principles
and challenges on the need for the
sustainable development of tourism.
The strategy paper takes up ten of
the most important items on the Johannesburg
agenda, questions the specific impact
of tourism in these areas and makes
a number of suggestions for future
development which may serve as a basis
for discussion in the lead-up to the
Summit and in Johannesburg.
At its general meeting in September,
2001, DANTE gave the working group
‘AG Rio+10’ a mandate to
elaborate a strategy and discussion
paper on tourism and sustainable development
in the light of the Rio process. The
paper will be submitted to a wide
range of decision makers in politics
and the tourism industry as well as
to NGOs preparing for the World Summit
on Sustainable Development 2002 in
Johannesburg, South Africa.
Christine Plüss,
akte - Working Group on Tourism and
Development
Missionsstr. 21, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland
info@akte.ch,
www.akte.ch
Martina Backes, FernWeh – Tourism
Review
P.O.Box 5328, D-79020 Freiburg i.
Br, Germany
fernweh@iz3w.org,
www.iz3w.org
Christian Baumgartner, respect –
Center for Tourism and Development,
Diefenbachgasse 36/3, A-1150 Vienna,
Austria
office@respect.at,
www.respect.at
Heinz Fuchs, TOURISM WATCH, Ulrich-von-Hassell-Str.
76, D-53123 Bonn,
Germany
tourism-watch@eed.de,
www.tourism-watch.de
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