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UNWTO launches online platform to achieve SDGs through Tourism
WYSE News | July 26, 2018
Tourism4SDGs.org is a newly created online tool designed to advance the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals through tourism. Developed by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), with the support of Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), it acts as a co-creation space allowing users to access a wide range of resources, add their own initiatives, findings and projects, motivate discussion and collaboration, and share content related to tourism and sustainable development.
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) constitute an ambitious global agenda for people, planet, prosperity and peace through partnerships. Promoting greater engagement of the tourism sector with sustainable development is the main objective of the Tourism for SDGs platform. The SDGs aim to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and solve climate change by 2030. The economic relevance of tourism, representing up to 10% of the world’s GDP and employment, makes harnessing its full potential essential for the advancement of the SDGs.

“Tourism plays a vital role in many, if not all, of the 17 Goals,” said UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili. “Tourism has come of age as a cross-cutting economic activity with deep social ramifications, and the Tourism for SDGs Platform is providing the global tourism community with a space to co-create and engage to realise the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” he added.

The Tourism4SDGs.org platform has three main levels of interaction: Learn, Share and Act. Each feature is a call for action, which aim not only to educate, but also encourage conversation and collaboration towards a sustainable tourism sector.

“Switzerland strongly supports this platform as it will allow a focus on the three main components of sustainable tourism: its economic, environmental and social dimensions,” said Ambassador Raymund Furrer of SECO.

The platform was launched during the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development ‘Transformation towards sustainable and resilient societies’ (New York, 9-18 July) during an event co-hosted by UNWTO and the One Planet network.

Useful links:
Tourism for SDGS Platform website
Tourism for SDGS Platform – Introduction video
UNWTO Sustainable Development of Tourism programme

Source: UNWTO, Madrid, Spain, 23 July 2018