Welcome to the Sustainable Tourism Hub for visitor economy businesses in Birmingham and the West Midlands.
The term ‘sustainability’ means lots of different things to different people, and everyone reading this will interpret it differently.
Two of the most clear definitions are:
“Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” – United Nations Brundtland Commission (1987)
and
“The goal of sustainable development is to enable all people throughout the world to satisfy their basic needs and enjoy a better quality of life, without compromising the quality of life of future generations” – UK Government
In simple terms, it’s about giving due consideration to what we do now and how it may affect the future, be it in terms of the impact on climate change, our health, air pollution, the economy, nature and so on.
The global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide an excellent framework allowing you to visualise the various different themes that constitute sustainable development.
In the West Midlands, we have created our own local version focusing on the following priorities with targets for improvement by 2030:
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All of the resources on this website are aimed at helping your business to operate more sustainably focusing on the priorities above, while tailoring these to your tourism business. But why is this important?
Why is sustainability important for the tourism sector?
‘Sustainable tourism’ is a term that is often used in the industry, and this refers to tourism that has more benefits than negative impacts, especially relating to the environment, the economy and communities. Truly sustainable and responsible tourism should make destinations better for people to live in as well as visit, which in turn can boost business growth. A commitment towards being a sustainable tourism business will involve proactivity and not seeing sustainability as an add-on, but as a core objective against which all your key decisions are made.
Find out on the rest of this website what you can do to become a sustainable tourism business.
Further resources
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