Prepared by the NGO Steering Committee Tourism Caucus for ISWG-CSD 7, 23 February 1999

• Preamble
• Areas of Concern
• Institutional Action

The Need for Change Towards Sustainable Tourism
There is an urgent need to raise awareness about the complex nature of tourism, its ambivalent role in the strive towards sustainable development and especially about its inherent dangers and to identify new ways for constructively shaping tourism development.

A Challenge for All Actors Involved
The development of tourism and its related impacts present a challenge to all actors involved – tourists, receiving communities, employees, employers, managers, investors, journalists and politicians, etc. – to assume responsibility and tourism act accordingly.

Global Ethics
All cultures and societies are committed to specific ethical values within which common areas of concern have been accepted. These values draw upon secular traditions and regulations which guide the interaction of individuals, communities and societies as well as to the different beliefs of religions of the world. Representatives of these ethics can be found, for example, in various UN Conventions and Declarations, for example: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN General Assembly; the International Convention on the Rights of the Child; the draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; the Rio Declaration on the Environ-ment and Development and the recommendations of Agenda 21.

Areas of Concern
Ethics in Tourism
In the same way as ethical principles apply to all individuals, communities and societies, they also apply to all actors in tourism in heir respective specific roles. This entails both rights and responsibilities. Concrete and specific ethical standards for behavior and practices in tourism must follow these broad principles as outlined above.
This means, for example:

• democracy and peace in the management and resolving of conflicts connected with tourism, which includes the openness and prepared ness for a reciprocal understanding and the obser-vance of the general principle of justice;
• solidarity with those who are directly and strongly affected by tourism and who suffer from unjust structures connected with tourism, and solidarity with those who need material or po-litical and philosophical support in defending their interests and rights which are threatened by tourism development or which are ignored in decision-making process;
• justice in a world tourism order, an aim which intends to change all structures of injustice that exists in the fields of economics, politics, social and cultural life;
• respect of diversity in the various areas of life – societies, environment, cultures, religions, and politics – which calls for sensitivity to difference and the practice of tolerance;
• authentic information for all people involved or affected by tourism. In order to enable grass-root communities to make a choice / take a decision on a tourism project, they need authen-tic, unbiased information on the possible impacts of the tourism project. This places not only a particular responsibility on the media, but also to the consultants and “experts” advising governments and tourism investors.

In many Southern destinations, international human rights standards are daily violated within the tourism sector, including racist and sexist practices. Indigenous peoples are particularly vulner-able to market-driven tourism, losing their customary lands and resources, religious freedom, and ultimately their cultures and capacity for self-sufficiency. Women and children are also at high risk, where tourism economies are built upon exploitative labour practices, and where sex tour-ism occurs.

The importance of trade unions in the tourism sector needs to be recognised as they can be agents for implementing sustainable development objectives in the workplace.

Health Impacts
All environmental initiatives must include a health component of exposed populations taking into account the environmental-health precautionary approach as there are clear causal links be-tween the degradation of the environment and disease. Strong governmental intervention is needed to prevent human illnesses by ensuring permanent access to safe drinking water, sanita-tion and proper waste disposal to all communities where tourism is developed. These sanitary conditions are essential to eliminate mosquito vector diseases: malaria and dengue. We strongly oppose the use of DDT or any other hazardous chemicals as a way to prevent vector borne dis-eases. The use of toxic chemicals will further contaminate water, air and soil, and cause illness to local people.

The linkage of tourism with the alarmingly fast spread of HIV/AIDS needs to be recognised and an appropriate education campaign through the tourism industry and governments is needed.

Cultural Impacts
Prior informed consent must be a guiding principle for any proposed tourism within indigenous homelands. Funding priority should be given to providing indigenous peoples and local commu-nities the capacity to undertake comprehensive assessments of how new or expanded tourism could impact on their cultures, and to develop effective tools for access and benefit sharing.

Industry driven tourism, which misrepresents itself through "environment" or "community" friendly marketing must be denounced. At the same time, the prerequisites for successful com-munity-controlled tourism should be identified. The prerequisites include the land rights, intel-lectual property rights, and negotiating capacity of indigenous peoples and local communities.

To minimize negative cultural impact it is important to conserve, protect and promote the use of indigenous knowledge and innovative systems in tourism activities.

Environmental Impacts
Tourism is a very resource and land intensive industry. It can have a major impact on habitats and biodiversity as recognised by the decision of COP4 of the Convention on Biological Diver-sity to address tourism at its fifth meeting. The need to have environmental impact studies of all tourist developments must be recognised.

Tourism is also a major generator of wastes. In many tourism developments particularly in the developing countries sewage, waste water and solid waste disposal are not properly managed or planned

Tourism contributes increasingly to global warming with the proportion of increased volume and mileage in global air travel. We call for the introduction of an international airfuel tax to impact on the fuel efficiency of the planes in use. The funds from this should be earmarked to imple-mentation of Agenda 21 projects in developing countries.

For instance, in many countries golf has brought heavy ecological and social costs: deforestation, the destruction of bio-diversity and erosion; dispossession of people’s homes and farms; over-consumption and pollution of water, and very high use of pesticides and fertilizers which threaten nearby residents, wildlife, workers, and the golfers themselves.

Stakeholder Participation & Empowerment
Agenda 21 recognised the vital role that all stakeholders have in bringing about sustainable de-velopment. All major groups affected by tourism must have the opportunity to fully participate in any relevant planning and decision-making process.

Is essential to ensure that all stakeholders can have the opportunity as well ability to participate to the fullest. This may require capacity building to enable full participation, which in some cases will have to be different for the different stakeholder groups.

Ideally run as part of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development and Local Agenda 21 processes, respectively, participation of all stakeholder groups should be supported by National Governments, tourism boards, and, most significantly, by the tourism industry assuming its role as a responsible stakeholder of the communities it wants to operate in.

Indigenous Peoples
The traditional resource rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, in particular land and cultural rights, must be guaranteed and adopted as the minimum baseline for all tourism ac-tivities. Existing international legal frameworks providing for these rights, such as the draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ILO Convention 169, and O.A.S. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be supported and implemented by governments.

Women
Women are being affected by tourism developments in particular ways, the most obvious being sex tourism which can often be the only alternative to generate income. All stakeholders must undertake every possible effort to eliminate the humiliating practices of sex tourism and child prostitution.

More precise gender disaggregated information is needed to assess the situation of women in the tourism workforce (numbers, occupations, working hours, education & training, duration of em-ployment, seasonality, wages, etc.).

With regard to employment of women in the tourism industry (formal sector), is has to be noted that there is a significant gender segmentation of labour in tourism industry, leaving women on the lower levels, with less pay and less training and development opportunities. Whilst the in-formal sector might be more accessible for women’s income generating activities due to their multiple roles in family and household work, there are significant drawbacks of working in the informal sector, ranging from the lack of health care coverage to the lack of access to trade union membership. However, to encourage independent income generating activities of women and women’s groups, micro-credit programmes should be closely linked with tourism planning.

The widespread practices of sexual objectification of women working in the tourism sector as well as using of stereotypical images of women as part of the tourism product are discriminating. Attitudes and behavior of tourists, employers and colleagues as well as marketing practices need to change in order to reflect respect towards women and their diversity.

Industry
All countries should be encouraged to ratify and implement the International Labor Organiza-tions Conventions 1, 14, 132, 153 and 140 concerning Rest and Paid Leave, as well as giving effect to Recommendation 37 concerning Hours of work in hotels, restaurants and similar estab-lishments. Also UN conventions such as the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in particular should be implemented at the local level within any tourist development.

Investors in tourism should strive to adopt environmentally sound technologies.  Companies that operate in developing countries should be required to adopt the environmental standards of their home country should these be stricter than those that operate in the country they are working in.

Voluntary codes or self regulatory mechanisms have an important role to play in addition to gov-ernment regulation. The CSD in 1998 agreed to set up a process to review voluntary initiatives. When the framework has been completed they should consider a review of tourism codes of conducts. Industry initiatives are welcome but must include multi-stakeholder participation and effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms with the local level capacity building this would entail.

Tourist development may be purchasing material, products and services outside of the country of operation. This financial leakage can be very large, in some cases up to 90% disappearing out of the country. This gives a false impression of the benefits the development is giving to the area or country. The need to identify ways in which more of the investment stays in the country is cru-cial. In particular NGOs would like to see the buying of local products when they are available. Support for the development of local enterprise to develop them when they are not available. This could be through partnerships between the tourist developer and local businesses.

In many countries tourism facilities belong to foreigners, and hardly any key managerial posi-tions are held by local staff. NGOs would like to see the employment of more local qualified staff in key managerial positions and the establishment of educational projects to ensure more local qualified people are available.

Support for the development of small and medium sized tourism enterprises should be encour-aged.

Influencing Consumer Behavior
Tourist demand for resources (land, water, energy and food) competes with the needs of local people and often leads to offending local people, social inequality, gender inequity and injustice. At this point in time, the average consumer resists acknowledging this dark side of tourism.
It is important to identify points of contact between the consumer and workers to try and ensure that relevant information is available. These could include:

• When buying the holiday;
• While in transit;
• Hotels and accommodation;
• Entertainment;
• Sports and recreational facilities;
• Restaurants and food outlets;
• Government services;

• establish a major group and stakeholder tourism advisory group for UN fora to provide technical support, analysis, and strategic advice;
• initiate a broad information and awareness campaign as part of the year of eco-tourism in 2002 to highlight damaging forms of tourism and impacts, providing tools for informed deci-sion-making;
• beginning with the review of voluntary codes set up by the CSD in 1998, the CSD should initiate research into the viability of effective multi-stakeholder certification schemes;
• designate an 'ombuds' office jointly between the CSD, CBD, and UN-CHR to encourage dili-gent self-regulation and compliance with international standards for sustainable tourism, which would include monitoring governments land rights policies towards indigenous peoples;
• develop guidance on tourism as an issue within Local Agenda 21 processes;
• should ask ECOSOC to create a 'good practices' information clearing-house in order to collect consumer information useful to understanding and positively influencing consumer behaviour and to make documentation accessible on an equitable basis;
• invite countries to integrate tourism into their national sustainable development strategies for the 2002 review;
• ask the review progress in local communities involvement in tourism development in their country profiles to the preparatory meetings for Earth Summit III in 2002 to be part of the re-view process;
• instruct DESA in co-operation with relevant UN agencies and convention secretariats, major groups and all stakeholders to develop indicators of sustainable tourism;
• invite convention secretariats and the Committee on the Environment of the WTO-OMC to report annually to the CSD;
• establish an international ombuds office to deal with human rights abuses and environ-mental destruction in tourism;.
• ask UNEP through their Industry Office to work with industry associations at all levels, trade unions, local authorities and NGOs to develop a framework and criteria for 'good prac-tice' and to develop a database on good practice, criteria, examples and analysis which should be accessible to governments and stakeholders alike;
• ask UNEP together with UNCHS, the Sustainable Cities Programme and relevant stakeholders to develop guidance notes on tourism within Local Agenda 21;
• ask UNEP and the World Tourism Organisation to set up accounting for tourism induced environmental externalities in national tourism statistics through linking the Standard In-ternational Classification System of Tourism Activities (SICTA) with the UN System of En-vironmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA);
• ask the UN Regional Commissions to prepare a report for the preparatory meetings for Earth Summit III in 2002 on sustainable and community-based tourism activities within their re-gion and to work with UNEP/WTO to develop regional agreements to address sustainable tourism;
• ask the UNDP country offices to bring together UN agencies, bilateral donors and other stakeholders to work together on sustainable tourism, involving the gender development pro-gramme in this process;
• ask the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development to integrate tourism into their development strategies and include a progress review on the role of indigenous and lo-cal communities' involvement in tourism for the Earth Summit III review in 2002 and to sup-port community-owned and controlled initiatives in tourism and biodiversity through its BIOTRADE initiative;
• invite environmental conventions and treaties secretariats to include community-based tourism in their action plans and programmes and to promote it as an incentive for the con-servation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

• establish in partnership with indigenous peoples an ongoing dialogue framework on sacred sites, indigenous knowledge, and other cultural property in relation to tourism.

• provide funds for applied research through pilot projects to determine optimal mechanisms for tourism development in a range of differing circumstances;
• assess their projects' effectiveness on local, sub-national and national levels involving all stakeholders and publish the results by the Earth Summit III in 2002;
• provide funds for capacity building and networking for indigenous peoples and local communities and for effective monitoring and evaluation of sustainable tourism projects and programmes;
• take part in a discussion forum on minimising leakage, with findings to be brought back to the finance discussion at CSD-8 in 2000. Possible outcomes include the development of a purchasing/procurement strategy for the tourism industry, local/ national investment strate-gies, improved mechanisms for informed choice by consumers, and a linking of aid with ca-pacity building in tourism-dependent areas.
• provide funds for community owned tourism development projects.

• invest in specific capacity building for different stakeholder groups;
• establish/clarify institutional and departmental responsibility for developing outgoing tour-ism and harmonise institutional interventions;
• initiate the use of tourism for local economic development by involving all sectors alongside the tourist ministry; to build the capacity to work at the destination level, including product development and effective management of existing destinations;
• increase funding for local NGOs to enable them to disseminate information on the impacts of tourism, facilitate research grants on sustainable tourism, methodologies, impacts and analysis of good practice; finance pilot schemes to develop 'good practice' and establish sys-tems for ongoing evaluation and monitoring;
• establish sustainable tourism policies and regulations, ensuring responsibly zoned develop-ment; natural and cultural heritage and resource conservation and protection;
• recognise the land rights of indigenous and local communities and build new relationships with indigenous peoples which respect their customary laws and management systems;
• allow for indigenous self-determination within public participation and other consultation processes;
• support public education programmes which encourage responsible consumption, natural resource use, environmental protection and local culture conservation;
• encourage local banks and other lending institutions to set up regional investment funding programmes, including micro-credit programmes, particularly for women;
• create Regional Tourism Boards involving all relevant stakeholders, fully staffed, to help in planning, promoting, regulating, and expanding sustainable tourism; initiate programmes to improve the management of tourism in protected areas; and set up training programmes for guides, tour operators;
• introduce and enforce legislation to abolish child prostitution, implement effective control mechanisms, conclude judicial assistance agreements;
• restrict tourist access to ecologically fragile or stressed natural areas;
• provide frameworks for ecologically appropriate pricing by strictly applying the polluter pays principle to internalise external costs. This includes ecological tax reforms including the taxation of aviation gasoline and oil, removal of subsidies/other economic incentives with negative environmental impacts;
• promote environmentally friendly modes of transport, shift demand to less environmentally damaging modes of transport;
• promote renewable sources of energy such as solar power, reduce the use of non-renewable energy, reduce the use of limited local resources through more sustainable prac-tices/consumption patterns;
• develop information and education programmes in co-operation with local stakeholders ensuring all stakeholders' involvement (e.g. women's); provide information to tourists on ap-propriate behaviour (sensitivity, respect for/adaptation to local culture);
• adopt, observe, implement and promote codes of conduct, e.g. the planned 'Global Code of Ethics for Tourism' (see NGO Contribution to the Production of a Global Code, Annex);
• integrate sustainable development education including tourism in the curricula of schools at all levels, universities and training institutions, involving all stakeholder groups, create and promote open networks for information and research on sustainable tourism, disseminate and implement results;
• invest in domestic sustainable tourism through small and medium sized enterprises.

• harmonise laws on tourism including regulations, fee standards, licensing, etc. so that they will be more favourable to sustainable tourism in the region;
• support and promote local and indigenous innovations which ensure that tourism profits en-hance cultural and biological diversity;
• develop and support programmes to revitalise the diverse aspects of local cultures.

• reduce financial leakage and support local economies by buying food and resources lo-cally, develop long-term partnerships with local operators, businesses and suppliers; train and hire local staff and contract with local businesses, promote management opportunities for women; prefer accommodations owned, built and staffed by local people;
• encourage clients to study and understand their destinations, respect local cultures and co-ordinate visits with local communities, authorities and women's organisations, being aware of and sensitive to local customary laws, regulations and traditions, respect historical heritage and scientific sites;
• educate staff to avoid negative environmental and cultural impacts and create incentive schemes to promote sustainable behaviour;
• promote sustainable tourism products, using market related instruments and incentives, such as contests, awards, certification, model projects, culturally sensitive quality labels cov-ering both environmental and social sustainability;
• reduce consumption, use local resources in preference to imports in a sustainable manner; reduce and recycle waste, ensure safe waste disposal, develop and implement sustainable transport policies and systems, e.g. efficient public transport, walking, cycling in destina-tions;
• provide tourists with authentic information, enabling them to understand all environmental and related aspects (e.g. human rights situation) of tourism when selecting any destination or holiday package; educate visitors in advance of arrival and give guidance on 'dos' and 'don'ts'; make tourists aware of their potential impact on and their responsibilities towards host socie-ties;
• provide information on respecting the cultural and natural heritage of destination areas; employ tour guides who portray societies honestly and dispel stereotypes;
• ensure that the marketing of 'green' tourism reflects sound environmental policy and prac-tice; use non-exploitative marketing strategies that respect people, communities and envi-ronments of destinations, dismantle stereotyping;
• train staff to foster tourist responsibility towards the destinations, encourage multi-cultural education and exchange;
• actively discourage sex tourism, particularly sexual exploitation of children;
• adopt, observe, implement and promote codes of conduct.