Sustainable Travel

Beaches, rainforests, and mountain tops can be popular tourist destinations, but often they are also ecologically fragile sites that are culturally and economically significant to local and indigenous people. Developing countries are especially challenged by the competing priorities of attracting tourism dollars, improving local livelihoods, respecting indigenous and local cultures, and protecting the environment.

To address this pressing issue, 15 leading conservation and tourism development organizations recently joined forces to create the Global Sustainable Tourism Alliance, which is supported by the United States Agency for International Development.

“This new alliance will support tourism that creates job opportunities for local peoples, respects indigenous cultures, and protects the environment at the same time,” said Richard P. Bossi, director of the AED Center for Environmental Strategies, the organization managing the Alliance. “From South Africa’s Kruger National Park to mountain trekking in Nepal and Bhutan to community-owned lodges along the Amazon in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, we are seeing sustainable tourism development that brings benefits, without damaging local environments and cultures.”

The Alliance’s first initiative will be in Ecuador, which has significant opportunity to reduce rural poverty thanks to a national park system that covers 19 percent of the country’s territory. The Alliance will bring together Ecuador’s Tourism and Environment ministries to improve the quality and protection of the country’s natural attractions, while providing local communities with economic benefits generated by tourists visiting the country’s national parks.

“We are very excited and honored to be the first country to work with the Global Sustainable Tourism Alliance,” said Ecuador’s Minister of Tourism Maria Isabel Salvador at the Alliance’s recent launch event in Washington, D.C.

Currently travel and tourism account for more than $3 trillion in spending annually and 7.6 percent of the world’s total employment. The United Nations World Tourism Organization forecasts that international travel will double by 2020. The Alliance hopes to channel a significant amount of this business to developing countries.

“The Global Sustainable Tourism Alliance provides an unparalleled opportunity for potential investors and tourism leaders at all levels to work together to put sustainable tourism into practice in more countries,” said Franklin Moore, Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator of the USAID Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade Bureau. “We know more tourists will be going to developing countries, and it is our hope that the Alliance will enable their tourism industries to grow without harming the beauty that attracts visitors.”

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GSTA Partners: The GSTA is led by AED and three other managing partners: The George Washington University; Solimar International; and The Nature Conservancy. An additional 11 conservation and tourism development organizations, academic institutions, and consulting practices round out the membership: Conservation International, Citizens Development Corps, Counterpart International, ElperWood International, Nathan Associates, National Geographic Society, Rainforest Alliance, RARE, University of Hawaii School of Travel Industry Management, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, and the USDA Forest Service - Heritage Design.