Earlier this month, FindYourItaly was present at the World Travel Market (WTM) in London, promoting our sustainable and responsible tourism packages and services in Italy to a global audience.
The World Travel Market is one of the world’s largest travel industry events to meet other travel professionals and discuss potential business partnerships. Thanks to a global reach and excellent reputation, this huge event attracts high-quality travel agents, companies and providers from all over the world.
Best of WTM 2019: Responsible Tourism Edition
This year, WTM 2019 gave a lot of attention to sustainable tourism, which grows in both importance and popularity year after year. Across three jam-packed days, the event tackled and covered issues as wide ranging as environmental conservation, sustainable accommodation, natural disaster response, and adventure travel for people with disabilities.
All those things have something to do with responsible tourism in some way or another. Let’s check out some specific highlights of WTM 2019.
WTM 2019 World Responsible Tourism Awards
As usual, the 2019 edition of the World Travel Market also included an award show. The goal of these responsible tourism awards is to highlight, promote and acknowledge the efforts made by tourism businesses, providers and other professionals with regards to sustainability.
By rising up and taking responsibility, these tourism professionals determine the standards for basically all tourism practices in the future. They set the bar for reducing negative impacts tourism can have, while also focusing on improving the positive consequences.
Recognizing these major efforts is essential. It both rewards people and businesses who apply sustainable practices and provides a great example to those who’d like to join them.
The World Responsible Tourism Awards are meant to “inform, educate, inspire and challenge others to step up and take responsibility; do more to make tourism better for communities and their natural and cultural environment; make better places for people to live in and to visit.”
This year’s award categories included the following:
- Best for Coping With Success, Dealing with Overtourism
- Best for Reducing Plastic Waste
- Best for Benefiting Local People
- Best for Transparent Reporting
- Best for Wildlife and Nature Conservation
- Best for Reducing Carbon and Other Greenhouse Gases
Best Debates, Speeches and Discussions at WTM 2019
The main purposes of WTM are education, cooperation, discussion and information. All the different programs at the event are aimed at supporting those things.
WTM Responsible Tourism strives to bring together travel organizations, businesses as well as individuals who are interested in promoting and spreading sustainable practices and ethical methods within the travel industry.
This year, there were once again many different panels, interviews, debates, seminars and talks. Here are some that were among the most memorable.
Using technology to manage accommodation & tourism responsibly in Barcelona
To overcome overcrowding, the city of Barcelona is currently designing a Flows Management Research Program in real-time to help manage the influx of visitors at different places. This should reduce the tourist pressure at some sites at specific times bringing to tourists’ better experiences and helping to balance the social impact of visitors in the city.
What can the travel industry contribute to the conservation of wildlife and habitats?
This year’s wildlife and habitats panel reflected on the wide range of ways in which tourism can contribute to conservation. The fascinating discussion included such varied topics as using technology for wildlife conservation, tackling plastic pollution, the role of sanctuaries in nature conservation, and the lion trade.
Decarbonising Travel and Tourism: is the industry doing enough?
Resulting from a growing awareness of the climate change crisis thanks to school strikes and the Extinction Rebellion movement, the tourism industry is no longer protected against this trend. This panel shared their views about how we can best address the challenge of reducing our carbon emissions, since the time to leave things in the hands of others is long past.
Your Go-To Responsible Tourism Company in Italy
FindYourItaly has been, and will continue to be, dedicated to offering sustainable tourism packages in Italy. We work with local providers and guides, take care to decrease our carbon footprint and focus on responsible outdoor activities.
You can find all our tours, which by the way are 100% customizable, on this page.
