Statement by
Mr. Taleb Rifai
Secretary-General, World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)
on the occasion of
SIDS event in the context of sustainable development and the green economy plus preparations for Rio+20
(organized by the High Representative for LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS)
New York, 27 October 2011
INTRODUCTION
Tourism is today a major economic sector and one of the mainstays of international trade.
It contributes directly to 5% of the world’s GDP, employs 1 in 12 people globally and accounts for 30% of the exports of services.
Furthermore, its role in environmental protection, in preserving biodiversity, in conserving the cultural heritage, in promoting mutual understanding and peace among nations is increasingly significant.
As one of the most successful export sector in the world, international tourism has become the main economic activity for many island nations creating so much needed income opportunities, jobs and foreign exchange earnings. This is particularly true for least developed island states.
It is also in small islands that the challenge of sustainable development is more evident. Due to their size they are quite vulnerable from both an environmental and a social point of view. The challenging global economic conditions resulting from globalization, if not well managed, may increase the vulnerability of the Small Islands Developing States (mention hereafter as SIDS) and compromise their prospects for the future.
To frame the debate on the role of the tourism sector in fostering growth and development in the SIDS I would like to focus on three main issues:
- The economic significance of tourism to the SIDS and the challenges to maximize the benefits of the sector;
- The potential role of tourism in fostering development and fighting poverty in the SIDS;
- The imperatives of sustainability and climate change.
- The economic significance of tourism to the SIDS and the challenges to maximize the benefits of the sector
Notwithstanding the opportunities for economic diversification and growth presented by globalization, nearly all SIDS report high vulnerability in economic performance, including concerns of marginalization in the challenging international economic conditions created as a result of this same globalization.
Tourism is no doubt one of the sectors in which most of the SIDS present a strong comparative advantage and thus a sector that can allow them to take a bigger role in the international economy.
The value of tourism translates into foreign exchange earnings, increased consumption, value added to the GDP, investment, resources for debt payment and jobs.
On the other side, the SIDS have a high degree of dependence on the tourism sector and a high level of leakages, meaning that a significant part of the earnings generated by tourism in the islands are often “leak out” of their economies. These leakages are made up primarily of imported goods and services and the repatriation of profits.
In some islands, tourism leakages reach as much as 56%, on account of imported goods and services, repatriation of profits by overseas resort developers/hotel owners and remittance of funds by expatriate labour.
Despite very suitable climatic conditions, food related tourism leakages are often unnecessarily high. In some cases, most of the food consumed by tourists, and even by locals, is imported as local people have given up agriculture or other productive sectors.
However, for other SIDS tourism has been utilized as a catalyst for agriculture, fisheries or handicrafts with locals being encouraged to invest in such projects, to maximize tourism earnings retention and distribution.
The extent of these leakages influences the economic benefits received by the local population becoming ever more critical for islands to devise policies which allow mitigating these leakages.
It is a major responsibility of governments to devise the adequate policies that allow to maximize tourism earnings by encouraging local investment in specific areas with a view to satisfy the tourists’ needs with locally produced goods and services as well as foreign investors to use local products and human resources.
A second challenge facing small islands is their inevitable dependence on air travel. Being by nature insulated and, in many cases, situated in remote places, tourism in islands depends much on availability and costs of air transport.
The trend towards a decline in the cost of air travel registered in recent decades has strongly benefited the growth of tourism to SIDS. However, increasing taxation on air travel, for fiscal purposes or connected to climate change mitigation measures, has become a perilous issue for the development of tourism in the SIDS, and thus for their economic and social progress. The Air Departure Tax out of the UK is a case in point.
- Tourism – fostering development and fighting poverty in the SIDS
We should not forget that 12 out of the 38 SIDS are Least Developed Countries (LCD).
It is also important to note that the 2 countries graduating in the last decade (Cape Verde and the Maldives) were SIDS and that tourism has played a critical role in this progress.
Tourism can no doubt work as a tool for development for several reasons:
- Island developing countries have valuable tourism resources and the tourism activity has a strong potential of geographical expansion, even in remote areas.
- The tourism value chain has a high capacity to support and complement other economic activities, such as traditional agriculture, transport and handicraft providing a multiplier effect in the economy which tends to be higher than that of many other sectors.
- Tourism is characterized by high labour intensity and easy access to the labour market, and is thus an invaluable source of employment opportunities, particularly for more vulnerable groups such as youth and women.
- Tourism is a sector where entry barriers for SME’s and micro enterprises can be quite low, and can this way contribute to support the development of income opportunities in many poor areas; and finally
- Tourism can make communities proud of their local culture, and appreciate their natural environment.
Moreover, the trend of tourism towards the SIDS confirms these opportunities. In the last decade, the number of international tourists visiting SIDS destinations increased by 12 million to reach 41 million in 2010, while exports generated by international tourism grew by almost US$ 20 billion to a total of US$ 45 billion last year.
- Sustainable Development and Climate Change
Sustainability should be a primary consideration in all tourism development, but particularly in that of small islands.
The biodiversity and other fragile natural and cultural resources, as well as cleanliness and safety in the destination, can determine the competitiveness, and in the limit the survival, of an island nation.
With its strong link to nature and climate, tourism is a highly climate-sensitive sector. At the same time, it is a contributor to climate change accounting for an estimated 5% of the total GHG emissions, mainly from transport and accommodation.
Climate change is not a remote future event for tourism. The impacts are becoming evident at destinations, and LDCs and SIDS might be particularly affected, especially by extremely damaging natural disasters.
Coastal and island destinations are highly vulnerable to direct and indirect impacts of climate change (extreme climatic events, coastal erosion, physical damage to infrastructure, sea level rise, flooding, water shortages and water contamination), given that most infrastructure is located within short distance of the shoreline. This high vulnerability often couples with a low adaptive capacity, namely due to limited financial and technical capability to implement adaptation measures.
UNWTO has been long advocating the need to address this challenge taking into account:
a)The need to provide SIDS, namely LDCs, with adequate financial means and technical expertise for adaptation;
b)The importance of developing mitigation policies which do not jeopardize the tourism sector to these destinations considering that most coastal destinations and SIDS depend on long-haul flights for their tourism-driven economies.
This position has been presented by UNWTO in international fora namely in the Climate Change Summits from Bali to Mexico.
CONCLUSIONS
For Small Island Developing States, the search for sustainability begins at the crossroads of a triple concern involving economic, social and environmental considerations.
Despite their vulnerability, some SIDS have performed particularly well over the last 20 years, for some of them the adoption of sustainable tourism development practices has been instrumental in achieving significant growth.
Several UN Resolutions have highlighted the role that sustainable tourism can play for the development of SIDS. Most recently, the Resolution adopted by the General Assembly in October 2010 stresses that “the Mauritius strategy recognizes the need for sustainable tourism as an important contributor to employment, foreign exchange and economic growth”.
Moving towards RIO+20 in 2012 and “Barbados +20” in few years, UNWTO has launched an innovative framework for achieving sustainable development – the creation of the Steering Committee on Tourism for Development in late 2010 with 8 other sister agencies working in tourism (ILO, ITC,UNCTAD,UNDP,UNEP, UNESCO, UNIDO and WTO) is an opportunity to make tourism work for development in a more effective manner.
The Committee has already secured that tourism is recognized and placed in the LDCIV outcome document and Plan of Action. Many SIDS are as well LDCs, with tourism being a champion in helping those vulnerable economies to graduate from LDCs.
Under the leadership of the World Tourism Organization, the ambition of the committee is to become an Innovative Framework for Delivering as One for Tourism, targeting primarily LDCs and vulnerable states such as SIDS, but aiming at assisting other developing states to achieve the MDGs and development imperatives through tourism in the coming decade.
In this framework, UNWTO is also currently preparing a review of the performance and future challenges to be addressed by the SIDS in the next decade as we move towards a greener growth path. The Report, to be released at RIO+20, will surely give us the basis to continue advancing this important work and I would like to call upon the UN system to also inform of its respective undertakings in supporting the SIDS in promoting sustainable tourism in SIDS regions.
1