10th WTM World Responsible Tourism Day, WTM London.
Simon Press, Senior Director, WTM London 2016 said: “Our decision to revamp WTM London as a three-day event was in response to our listening and responding to our core audience of buyers, exhibitors and visitors.”
Tourism ministers, bloggers and party goers turned the final day of the revamped three-day WTM London into a festival of business and fun.
The UNWTO & WTM Ministers’ Summit is one of the highest-profile sessions of the entire event. Now in its tenth year, more than 100 tourism ministers and their aides from around the world were joined by board-level representatives from some of the biggest travel companies.
The 10th edition of the Minister Summit was held under the title ‘Tourism and Security: Promoting Safe and Seamless Travel’. The event discussed the various risks affecting travel and tourism – health scares, natural disasters, geopolitical changes and terrorism – and called for a full integration of tourism into national crisis and emergency structures.
The lack of a coordinated approach and the need to set crisis management systems were pointed out as the biggest challenges to safe, secure and seamless travel. Participants stress that security is a shared responsibility among public and private sector and across government administrations at all level. In this respect, they recalled the need to build global standards and recognition of mechanisms such as passengers’ information.
“Underpinning our discussions is the conviction that advancing safe, secure and seamless travel requires national and international coalitions between all tourism and security stakeholders as well as between public and private sectors” said UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai.
Perception was pointed out as one of the main obstacles in crisis management and recovery. In this respect, ministers and private sector called for increased capacity in crisis communication and management as well further collaboration among public and private sector and the media stressing that communication should be clear on ‘what the situation is’ and ‘what is being done’.
Participants unanimously agreed that “what happens in any destination affects all others” and that as such the international community needs to work further together on travel advisories and increase dialogue between destinations and source markets. “Tourism brings jobs and economic growth; and if we fail to support destinations affected we fail to create social stability and peace” said participants.
Mohamed Yehia Rashed Tourism Minister Egypt assured delegates that his country has the technology and security measures in place to protect tourists and urged for standard security measures to be introduced globally. Vinod Zutshi, Secretary of Tourism in the government of India – WTM London’s Official Premier Partner – said countries needed to be more responsible when issuing travel advisories as perception of safety in destinations is a key factor.
Zutshi’s call was echoed by Fritz Joussen, Chief Executive TUI Group, who noted people’s perceptions often compound the problems of terrorism. “The probability of being killed by a terrorist is lower than having car accident on the way to the airport,” he said.
The Summit was chaired by CNN International’s Becky Anderson.
As the leading global event for the travel industry, WTM London welcomes all levels of participants in the business, from ministers to bloggers. At a dedicated Speed Networking event, 100 bloggers from 15 different countries talked to exhibitors interested in using this increasingly important channel.
Valentina Correa, based in Germany but originally from Colombia, runs unpocodesur.com, an adventure blog. “We have relationships with tour operators but WTM is a fantastic chance to talk to tourist boards and hotels as we look to widen our coverage. It is a great chance too to educate some of the exhibitors about the benefits of working with bloggers.”
WTM London is now applying its highly successful Speed Networking concept to new verticals, with a dedicated Wellness session. Lisa Wakefield Programme Leader University of Derby said: “We run International Tourism and Spa Management degrees and courses in hospitality, the culinary arts and event management and I’ve managed to talk to lots of businesses about taking our students on placement.”
While spa speed networking is new, Richard Cope Senior Trends Consultant Mintel is a WTM London regular. Attendees at his well-attended session were given first access to its 2017 consumer trends analysis, getting advance notice on wearables as a payments device, travel brands sponsoring the restoration of iconic monuments across Europe, chatbots and AI becoming a mainstream customer service channel and the potential time-limited offers and promotions.
Elsewhere Mexico City Tourism Trust Director Magdalena Sanchez noted that Donald Trump’s victory in the US election came on the 27th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall came down. “The most important thing is to say Mexico is open for business to the world. As a tourist service we are working to strengthen our markets, this is why we are here.”
The Tenth WTM World Responsible Tourism Day Celebrated at WTM London
Twenty years ago the post-apartheid government in South Africa adopted the principles of Responsible Tourism in their national tourism policy and the campaign for Responsible Tourism began in the UK.
To mark this anniversary, and the fact that 2016 sees the 10th anniversary of the responsible tourism programme at WTM London, this year the flagship Roundtable Interview shifted from interviewing mainstream industry representatives, to discussing responsible tourism issues with some of the movement’s pioneers, providing a chance “objectively and critically to see how much progress we have made and to look forward to see how far we can go over next 20 years,” according to WTM London Senior Director, Simon Press. “Responsible tourism should be the backbone of the industry,” he added.
“As an activist you are never happy,” said Justin Francis, CEO of Responsibletravel.com and founder of the annual World Responsible Tourism Awards. However, reflecting on the 20 years he has worked to make the industry take responsible tourism seriously, he did see signs of progress. “We have moved from no one knowing what Responsible Tourism was, to people saying they can’t do anything about it, to people asking me to tell them what to do, to now people saying ‘let me show you what we do’,” he explained.
Adama Bah, Director, Institute of Travel and Tourism of Gambia, agreed that the industry had made a great deal of progress, but felt that the focus needed to now be more on destinations, where it was much harder to gain traction. “In our experience in destinations politicians still call the shots,” he said, “and while industry may say it takes the lead, if a project is not supported by politicians they struggle. We have not been able to bring politicians as far as they should.”
Justin Francis was more optimistic, however, commenting that: “Old production models are changing. No longer do companies build a project and launch it on a destination. Now they are collaborating with a destination and developing something together.”
Adama Bah disagreed, arguing that destinations continue to spend more on marketing than the businesses themselves. “Why should government spend the money, basically subsidising the companies and gaining nothing in return?” he asked. “Communities are paying taxes into government and they are not getting the industry they want.”
“We need to stop teaching people to smile for tourists,” said Auliana Poon, Managing Director, Tourism Intelligence International. “We need to give them the livelihoods that mean their smiles come naturally.”
Instead, agreed Jane Ashton, Director of Sustainable Development, TUI Group, the industry needs to keep working to persuade consumers that sustainable tourism makes for better holiday experiences. “We have a long way to go to find the language to raise the demand among customers,” said Ashton. “We have been hesitant because we were worried about greenwash, and now perhaps we are risking so-called ‘greenhush’ and not talking about it enough.”
In a later session exploring tourism’s ability to impact on the Sustainable Development Goals, Peter Burrell, Managing Director, Exodus talked of a project where his company has worked with the impact measurement consultants Just Impact to look at the social end environmental impact of its tours to Nepal. They discovered that virtually all the in country expenditure from his responsible tourism business stayed in the local market. “It confirmed we have in our power an opportunity to really positively impact on communities where we work.”
In the same session, Glynn O’Leary from !Xaus Lodge – which had earlier won a silver award in the World Responsible Tourism Awards – explained how the work that Transfrontier Park Destinations had done to develop a lodge in a remote area of South Africa had brought huge benefits to local people and also to those who invested. He showed how not only has 86 per cent of lodge’s earnings been put back into local economy, but also, because the lodge attracts visitors to the Government-run national park, also spending money on other services, so to it has boosted government revenues and those of local businesses. “I get sick and tired of hearing people from government say they have given this money to the community,” he explained, referring to initial investment to support the lodge’s development. “But they forgot that for example, South African National Parks charge an entry fee into park that lodge is in, and they have made more than three million rand as a result.” Furthermore he added, while they may have made an investment nine years ago – one that had already been more than returned back to them – but they will now continue to earn profits without needing any further investment for as long as the lodge exists and succeeds.
This session was followed by a lively keynote speech by Doug Lansky looking at the challenges confronting destinations eager to attract visitors and protect their integrity at the same time. He showcased how destinations from Dubrovnik to the Cinque Terre were now looking at ways to limit numbers, since tourists increasingly are reporting negative experiences as a result of the discrepancy between the way a destination markets itself and the experience they get when there. “There’s no organisation you can complain to when destinations don’t live up to on their brand promise,” said Lansky. By way of an alternative approach, he suggested that rather than imposing limits, there might be tech-based supply and demand solutions that enable visitors to see how crowded the attractions they wish to visit might be when they book transport and hotels, and thus structure their trip accordingly. We need to look at “Visitor Experience Design” he added.
Earlier that day, hundreds of people keen to promote their Responsible Tourism products and experiences attended the Responsible Tourism Speed Networking. Representatives from buyers including Explore Worldwide, Authenticitys and Inspired Adventures mixed with bloggers, tech providers and other people keen to develop business relationships and further responsible tourism.
Simon Press, Senior Director, WTM London 2016 said: “Our decision to revamp WTM London as a three-day event was in response to our listening and responding to our core audience of buyers, exhibitors and visitors. We are confident we have, yet again, delivered a best-in-class event which reconfirms our status as the leading global event for the travel industry.”
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
