UNWTO ULYSSES CONFERENCE 2006

1. UNWTO ULYSSES CONFERENCE 2006 Palacio Municipal Campo de las Naciones 1 – 2 June, 2006 Madrid Sustainability in Tourism Destinations: Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency Dr. James Holleran President Tourism & Hospitality Institute for Sustainable Development Lausanne Switzerland

2. Tourism & Hospitality Institute for Sustainable Development Lausanne - Switzerland THISD • Who are we? • A new NPO • Interdisciplinary membership • Many existing or former academics

3. Tourism & Hospitality Institute for Sustainable DevelopmentLausanne Switzerland • Our Mission: • To provide support, research, education and training on tourism and hospitality sustainability, working with partners committed to ‘moving the agenda forward’ in reducing the negative and supporting the positive environmental and social-cultural impacts of tourism and related industries.

4. Tourism & Hospitality Institute for Sustainable DevelopmentLausanne Switzerland • Our Vision: • In cooperation with key partners, THISD will provide the support needed by the tourism and hospitality industry to: protect its investments in the destination environments in which it depends through sustainable practices; limiting its negative and enhancing its positive impacts on both host peoples and places; and improving the quality of visitor experiences and the economic vitality of its small and medium sized suppliers.

5. Tourism & Hospitality Institute for Sustainable DevelopmentLausanne Switzerland • So just what is it we hope to do? (1/2) • Build Content on better practices in hospitality and tourism sustainability by adding value to current content and conducting sponsored research to develop new content • Establish varied content distribution schemes that will get it to those who need it; including seminars, workshops, conferences, courses, presentations, and web-site –while creating a business model that will generate organizational funds to make THISD sustainable

6. Tourism & Hospitality Institute for Sustainable DevelopmentLausanne Switzerland • So just what is it we hope to do? (2/2) • Establish global membership and organizational/industry partnerships, student chapters, and encouraging curriculum development in institutions of higher education • Provide some focus on hospitality SME’s, destination based sustainability strategies, and CSR initiatives focusing on HRD

7. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency Governance for Excellence in Tourism Destinations • Excellence equates to Sustainability • Sustainable Tourism Destinations will seek to leverage investments through positioning and marketing • NGO’s and others will scrutinize Sustainability claims • Focusing on in-destination environmental impacts will soon not be sufficient • An eco-efficient tourism destination will need to consider the major related impacts of travel to and from as well as within the destination • This will require expanding the boundaries of our sustainability considerations to include more of the externalities

8. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency • What is eco-efficiency? • Eco-efficiency is a term coined by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in 1995, and based on a lifecycle analysis approach to reduce the use of resources and environmental impacts (Cramer, 2000) • For purposes of this student project, it was the estimated ratio of destination based tourism economic benefits and total estimated economic costs associated with its provision - focusing on transportation to, in and from the destination and energy, waste and water related costs associated with accommodation, and major tourist activities such as sightseeing, entertainment, etc.

9. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency What was the project? • Student team research project in Sustainable Tourism class this semester at EHL (Ecole Hoteliere De Lausanne) • Assignment involved developing eco-efficiency ratios by major source (geographic) market segments for a major urban center and discuss changes to marketing strategies using estimated ratios to prioritize

10. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency Student Research Project based on readings from: ‘European tourism, transport and environment’ EU MuSTT project Final Conference Brussels September 2004 • ‘Reducing the ecological footprint of inbound tourism and transport to Amsterdam’ by Paul Peeters • ‘The eco-efficiency of tourism’ by Gfssling, Peeters, Ceron, Dubois, Patterson and Richardson. Ecological Economics 54 (2005) 417– 434

11. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency Tourism Cities Selected: • Dubai • London • Stockholm • Macau • Hong Kong • Paris • Honolulu • Athens • Queenstown • Oslo • Dublin

12. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency • What were the major drivers behind the learning objectives? • Continued global tourism growth • Greater transparency of tourism costs associated with public utilities (energy, waste and water) and transportation • Fast growth in aviation demand and limited capacities to develop required infrastructure • Rapid use of Low Faire Airlines and debate over environmental and tourism impacts • Discussion over alternative strategies to provide incentives to reduce aviation generated emissions • Increases in fossil fuel prices, concerns over reducing cost effective supplies and geo-political distribution issues • Greater media coverage of Climate Change and several recent symptoms (Katrina) • Greater focus on CSR, standards, reporting, access to financing and risk assessments for climate change

13. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency • What were the major project learning objectives? (1/2) • Identify strategies to develop tourism revenue (expenditure) estimates for major geographic based market segments (domestic and inbound, • Develop appreciation for the difficulty of measuring tourism related externalities (in-destination activity based environmental costs) • Observe the impact of destination based eco-efficiency as a result of including transportation related environmental costs (energy and emissions)

14. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency • What were the major project learning objectives? (2/2) • Utilize accommodation based EMS analysis in evaluating destination environmental costs, focusing on utilities • Recognize the importance of length of stay, in-destination mobility, luxury hotel utility usage, domestic market participation and related factors impacting on eco-efficiency ratios • Develop a better understanding of tourism related impacts and the difficult trade-offs between growth and sustainable practices

15. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency Challenges for the students? • Lack of information by source markets on tourism expenditures, in-destination activity and transportation and accommodation usage • For national capitols, separating national and urban tourism statistics • Estimating aviation based environmental impacts in urban centers used as part of regional tours (I.E. Japanese arrivals by bus or train in Stockholm) • Identification of urban based tourism revenue multipliers • Data conversion issues for currency, weights and distances • Lack of data on cruise emissions and non-marine environmental impacts and on spend data for domestic markets • Cities serving as major transportation hubs (Paris, London, Dublin, Athens) have higher transportation based costs while revenues are often disbursed

16. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency • Developing an appreciation for the project complexity: • Looking at the report for Stockholm

17. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency • Some Interesting Findings: • Large range in tourism data collected by cities allowing tracking of revenues and activities by source markets • Cities with transport provided by LFA’s drive reduced LOS and higher environmental costs as compared to some long haul source markets • Long haul flights, as expected, drive negative ratios but can be offset with longer stays (reduced TO of flights & additional spend), use of mid-to-low hotels and public transport systems • Fast growth in private automobiles have placed environmental and infrastructure stress in some cities making sustainable transport more difficult • Group travelers often fail to report travel and lodging in spending accounts • Business travelers activity patterns reduce environmental impacts and increase aver. spend

18. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency Did the students learn anything from conducting this research? • Failure to establish destination based tourism impact measures places attention on short term revenues and fails to account for long term costs • Failure to include land use and industry employment related impacts biased findings • Developed models considering source market purpose of trip, average daily spend and lifestyle patters to allocate use over accommodation types • Heavy promotion and use of excursion buses drive-up emissions and energy use • Destinations marketing free or low cost tourist transport and attraction cards appear to generate greater use of mass transport, supported by limited parking and urban congestion • Recommendations included need to provide incentives for more environmentally friendly transport for distances within 500 miles with discounted lodging and urban travel

19. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency Linking Tourism Destination Governance with this student project: • Important to increase awareness and sensitivity of future hotel and F&B managers to the issues of sustainability, carrying capacity and the concept that there is such a thing as ‘Too Much Tourism’ • Hospitality sector has stronger political and economic influence over public policy • The growth of tourism in developing countries by MNC’s will require managers who consider responsible and pro-poor tourism in their development policies • Recognizing that what is not measured will greatly influence policy direction • Linking tourism destination promotion to increases in fast transportation options, and its related impacts, especially aviation, assures improved understanding of trade-off’s between tourism growth and sustainability

20. Sustainability in Tourism Destinations:Expanding the Boundaries of Eco-efficiency Thank you for your attention I have information on THISD if interested