World Tourism Day is celebrated every September 27, which aims to raise awareness of the social, cultural, political and economic value of tourism, as well as to focus on how the sector can contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
This date, promoted by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), is celebrated this year under the slogan “Tourism and Peace“.
Thus, it highlights how this activity can be a “decisive and vital factor for the promotion of peace and understanding between nations and cultures and support for reconciliation processes”.
It also indicates that tourism has links with pillars of peace such as social justice, human rights, economic equity or sustainable development. According to the United Nations, the tourism sector employs one out of every 10 people in the world. With regard to its relationship with the planet, the agency points out that the tourism sector must fulfil its responsibilities to solve the climate emergency, which, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2023 report, is one of the most urgent risks of the next 10 years.
Along these lines, the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) is working on different lines of action to promote sustainable and green tourism.
On the one hand, tourism offers fertile ground for innovation and entrepreneurship.
For this reason, through the Emprendeverde Network, the Foundation supports the creation and consolidation of new companies that contribute to green recovery and the conservation of biodiversity, some of them with sustainable tourism entrepreneurship projects.
For example, Quei Vitorino is a rural tourism project born in 2011 that offers visitors different ecotourism experiences in the Natural Park of Fuentes del Narcea, Degaña and Ibias in Asturias.
Also, in 2015 Snorkeling Experience was born, a coastal ecotourism project that focuses on environmental dissemination in order to bring science closer to the general public.
On the other hand, the Biodiversity Foundation also supports projects linked to more sustainable tourism through its calls for grants.
Within the call for the promotion of the bioeconomy linked to the forestry field, it promotes Fantástico Bosque de Valdavido with which it is intended to establish a forest management model focused on biodiversity, ecotourism, which reduces the risk of fire and promotes new forest products.
The Tourism + Resilient initiative: Adaptation of tourism companies to climate change, of the call to implement the National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change, develops a methodology for the self-diagnosis of adaptation risks in tourism companies and their level of vulnerability.
In this same call, the project Resilience of mountain ecosystems: analysis of the impacts of climate change and conflict prevention on the development of snow tourism and its application in the Aragonese Pyrenees is promoted, which aims to expand knowledge on the impacts of climate change on mountain ecosystems that depend on snow tourism and generate adaptation alternatives to improve the resilience of the territory and social cohesion. Finally, the Climate Change Adaptation Guide initiative on the French Camino de Santiago works to raise awareness and attract pilgrims, promoting sustainable and environmentally friendly practices and raising awareness among local communities and authorities about the importance of adaptation to climate change.