Prioritising well-being in travel & tourism

Part­ner Message by Paul Rogers of “GT” Insight Part­ner Plan­et Hap­pi­ness:

As tour­ism stake­hold­ers, if we truly value and believe in this life-chan­ging industry, if we want to advoc­ate its mer­its and abil­ity to deliv­er the UN SDGs, we need to recog­nise the imper­at­ive to value and meas­ure travel and tourism’s con­tri­bu­tion to des­tin­a­tion well-being. 

Travel and tour­ism are inex­tric­ably linked to nation­al and glob­al devel­op­ment, affect­ing change almost every­where.  Fol­low­ing the dev­ast­at­ing impacts of COVID-19 includ­ing the industry’s loss of some 62 mil­lion jobs world­wide there is mount­ing pres­sure to recov­er; to repos­i­tion and pri­or­it­ise the industry in the minds of all stake­hold­ers. This implies a repos­i­tion­ing, a move to evolve the sec­tor and engage the broad­est pos­sible alli­ance, com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing the industry’s abil­ity to deliv­er the UN SDGs.  From a des­tin­a­tion per­spect­ive, three issues must be addressed, not­ably: tour­ism gov­ernance, over-crowding and the sector’s car­bon footprint. 

A Need For Change

A sys­tem­ic struc­tur­al weak­ness with des­tin­a­tion devel­op­ment has been its lack of inclus­iv­ity and tend­ency, over time, to pri­or­it­ise busi­ness and gov­ern­ment interests over the needs and con­cerns of host com­munit­ies. Moreover, eco­nom­ic object­ives asso­ci­ated with travel and tour­ism growth can under­mine the qual­ity of life (QoL) of host com­munit­ies. Pri­or to COVID-19, this struc­tur­al imbal­ance led to des­tin­a­tion over-crowding, which coupled with the sector’s car­bon foot­print are two of the sector’s biggest sus­tain­ab­il­ity threats.  

What Can Be Done?

From a tech­nic­al pos­i­tion these threats can be addressed if des­tin­a­tions and busi­nesses com­mit to sec­tor sus­tain­ab­il­ity stand­ards and cri­ter­ia (such as those advoc­ated by GSTC), and car­bon foot­print registry and reduc­tion pro­to­cols (as advoc­ated by SUNx and Tour­ism Declares).  While busi­nesses and gov­ern­ments are start­ing to engage in this com­plex arena, they can be incentiv­ised to move at pace if they are driv­en by evid­ence-based pub­lic opin­ion centred upon QoL issues and met­rics. As house­holds, com­munit­ies and eco­nom­ies recov­er from COVID-19, a con­cer­ted glob­al part­ner­ship is needed to:

• engage and drive pub­lic interest in the well-being agenda, QoL met­rics and the pro­pos­i­tion of regen­er­at­ive, flour­ish­ing des­tin­a­tions, and
• incentiv­ise busi­nesses and gov­ern­ments to embrace des­tin­a­tion well-being in their policy and plan­ning frameworks. 

The Well-being Pragmatic Shift

Interest in well-being policy and prac­tice is grow­ing on mul­tiple levels, from the indi­vidu­al to the state. Pro­gress is under­pinned by the 2011 UN Res­ol­u­tion 65/309 “Hap­pi­ness: towards a hol­ist­ic approach to devel­op­ment” and ten years’ of the UN’s annu­al Glob­al Hap­pi­ness Reports. Interest is intensi­fy­ing as indi­vidu­als and gov­ern­ments con­tem­plate eco­nom­ic restruc­tur­ing owing to COVID-19. Sig­ni­fic­antly, the well-being agenda aligns with the UN SDGs; and, the inclu­sion of QoL sci­ence, meas­ures and indic­at­ors in des­tin­a­tion plan­ning, provides a frame­work and nar­rat­ive to:

• engage an industry-wide spec­trum of stakeholders,
• embrace well-being scores in des­tin­a­tion com­pet­it­ive­ness report­ing, and
• for travel and tour­ism to play a defin­ing role in COVID-19 recovery.

While indi­vidu­al and com­munity (des­tin­a­tion) well-being can be sci­en­tific­ally meas­ured, how can the well-being agenda itself be posi­tioned to sup­port travel and tourism’s recov­ery? Per­haps the biggest revolu­tion in travel and tour­ism data sci­ence over the last five years, has been real-time often demand side data col­lated from social media, on-line book­ing plat­forms and oth­er per­son­al mobile device-related data. These innov­a­tions feed espe­cially Nation­al Tour­ism Organ­isa­tions, Des­tin­a­tion Man­age­ment Organ­isa­tions, and big busi­ness. Focus­ing upon vis­it­or exper­i­ences, they often sup­port, for example, niche-mar­ket­ing, trans­port plan­ning and oppor­tun­it­ies for product devel­op­ment and busi­ness growth. In brief, they fur­ther empower busi­ness and gov­ern­ment and, if not well man­aged, can add to the vul­ner­ab­il­ity of host com­munit­ies, which in-turn under­mines inclus­ive des­tin­a­tion development. 

The Value of Quality-of-Life Data

To pro­mote more inclus­ive, evid­ence-based approaches to respons­ible devel­op­ment and regen­er­at­ive growth, tour­ism gov­ernance requires access to more hol­ist­ic data, provid­ing 360-degree insights into not just vis­it­or and industry data, but also the social, envir­on­ment­al and health con­di­tions, sen­ti­ments and aspir­a­tions of host com­munit­ies. Through object­ive and sub­ject­ive meas­ures, QoL data can be har­ves­ted to engage com­munit­ies and civil soci­ety groups in well-being con­ver­sa­tions, as well as the role that travel, tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity can play in strength­en­ing des­tin­a­tion well-being. Such innov­a­tion is needed to sup­port industry restruc­tur­ing already under­way with its emphas­is upon domest­ic tour­ism as well as event man­age­ment, product innov­a­tion, well­ness and altern­at­ive travel exper­i­ences brought about by COVID-19 and the cli­mate change imperative. 

Travel and Tourism as a Force for Good: Positioning Well-being Front and Centre

Sig­ni­fic­antly, QoL data is also required by gov­ern­ments to enable them to rebuild and deliv­er listen­ing, caring and inclus­ive soci­et­ies and eco­nom­ies. Fol­low­ing the impacts of COVID-19, psy­cho­lo­gic­al, social and eco­nom­ic vul­ner­ab­il­ity are already emer­ging as press­ing issues to man­age.  Hence the travel and tour­ism industry can pos­i­tion itself to call for this data, thereby:

• elev­at­ing its polit­ic­al profile;
• sup­port­ing its own regeneration;
• breath­ing new life into tour­ism gov­ernance sys­tems; and
• pla­cing people, neigh­bour­hood, com­munity and des­tin­a­tion well-being front and centre, at the heart of des­tin­a­tion plan­ning processes.

Such an approach could be launched with par­tic­u­lar emphas­is placed upon the well-being of the 62 mil­lion sec­tor work­ers to have lost their jobs and incomes: includ­ing those sup­port­ing the planet’s nation­al parks and pro­tec­ted areas embra­cing eco­sys­tems and wild­life assets that travel and tour­ism have sup­por­ted, that are crit­ic­al to the plan­et and that are threatened by the industry’s collapse. 

Engaging Stakeholders – Accelerating Change

At the des­tin­a­tion level, the poten­tial of this travel and tour­ism, big data and good gov­ernance pro­cess, with its abil­ity to engage gov­ern­ments, civil soci­ety groups and busi­ness, can be accel­er­ated through the applic­a­tion of AI-enhanced, multi-facing dash­boards designed to:

• provide graph­ic rep­res­ent­a­tions of (tour­ism and) well-being data by tar­get group;
• enable the co-cre­ation of policies and inter­ven­tions across gov­ern­ment depart­ments in part­ner­ship with civil soci­ety groups;
• focus upon the needs of vul­ner­able groups; and
• run policy and inter­ven­tion scen­ari­os pre­dict­ing well-being out­comes that max­im­ise win-win scenarios. 

These multi-pur­pose, multi-facing dash­boards can be applied to both tour­ism and non-tour­ism sys­tems. With this agenda, the travel and tour­ism industry can pos­i­tion itself front and centre:

• advoc­at­ing great­er inclus­iv­ity, well-being equal­ity and plan­et­ary balance;
• re-advoc­at­ing itself as a life- and plan­et-chan­ging people centred industry; and
• emphas­ising the sector’s deep com­mit­ment to the UN SDGs. 

To find out more about our work, events and ini­ti­at­ives sup­port­ing this agenda, please vis­it the Plan­et Hap­pi­ness web­site, sign up for our News­let­ter and email us for des­tin­a­tion part­ner­ship details.

Written by Paul Rogers

Paul Rogers is a tour­ism-for-devel­op­ment prac­ti­tion­er focused on policy and plan­ning. With 20 years’ exper­i­ence as a seni­or tour­ism advisor to nation­al and loc­al tour­ism organ­isa­tions, he has worked in more than a dozen coun­tries in South and South­east Asia, Africa, and Aus­tralia. In recent years Paul has under­taken assign­ments for the World Bank, ADB, FAO, DfID, UNDP, UNWTO, USAID, ICIMOD, Lux­em­bourg Devel­op­ment, Kew Gar­dens, Isti­tuto Oikos, SNV (Neth­er­lands Devel­op­ment Organ­isa­tion), and WWF. 

Build­ing on his sig­ni­fic­ant exper­i­ence, Dr Rogers co-foun­ded Plan­et Hap­pi­ness, a pro­ject of the Hap­pi­ness Alli­ance. The Hap­pi­ness Alli­ance is a US-registered not-for-profit that meas­ures the hap­pi­ness of res­id­ents liv­ing in World Her­it­age sites and bey­ond. Plan­et Hap­pi­ness’ mis­sion is to “focus the atten­tion of all tour­ism stake­hold­ers on the well-being agenda; and use tour­ism as a vehicle for devel­op­ment that demon­strably strengthens des­tin­a­tion sus­tain­ab­il­ity and the qual­ity of life of host communities”.