About us
About the Global Partnership
Building Sustainable Tourism Worldwide
The Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism is a global initiative launched in 2011 to inject sustainability principles into the mainstream of tourism policies, development, and operations. It emerged as a more permanent successor to the International Task Force on Sustainable Tourism Development (ITF-STD). The Coordinating Office is hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme, Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics (UNEP-DTIE).
More information on the organizational structure>
History
The origins of the initiative date to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, which declared that “fundamental changes in the way societies produce and consume are indispensable for achieving global sustainable development.” The implementation plan that emerged from the summit highlighted the role that tourism can play in sustainable development. The global effort to encourage sustainable consumption and production, known as the Marrakech Process, fostered voluntary task forces on specific topics, including tourism. The International Task Force on Sustainable Tourism Development, chaired by France, helped support nearly 40 projects between 2006 and 2009 and had a membership of 18 countries and 25 organizations. The members of this Task Force recommended establishing a broader institutional and financial base to continue and expand its work and build on its momentum. That led to the Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism.
Mission
The mission of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism is to foster partnerships for advancing sustainable tourism principles at destinations through adoption of clear policies, innovative and transformative projects and the sharing of knowledge and experience, with an objective to create effective partnerships for sustainable tourism.
Objectives
The objectives of the Partnership are to:
• bring together international organizations, governments, civil society and tourism trade groups as members of the Global Sustainable Tourism Partnership and get them involved in its activities
• encourage networking among members and facilitate access to information about sustainable tourism
• strengthen, coordinate and encourage the adoption and implementation of sustainable tourism policies
• disseminate information about success stories
• scale-up, adapt and replicate successful projects and initiatives
• establish and implement innovative, multi-stakeholder projects that support sustainable tourism development around the world.
Members
Sustainable Tourism has more than 83 members, including representatives from:
• national governments,
• UN agencies and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
• international organizations and business associations
• companies
• non-governmental organizations
