Tourism Destination Climate Action Plans: the enabling environment

In March 2022 our School partnered with the Travel Foundation, an international organisation dedicated to sustainable tourism, to explore the challenges and enablers for Climate Action Planning in global tourism destinations. The project involved both signatories and non-signatories of the Glasgow Climate Declaration (GCD) which was developed at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26). 

In particular, our study analysed the process of development of Climate Action across a sample of signatory destinations; identified the issues, challenges and enablers involved in the planning for Climate Action; and elicited the barriers to involvement in the GCD amongst a sample of non-signatory destinations (primarily from the Global South).

The project employed a mixed-method qualitative research approach which consisted of online one-to-one interviews with signatory Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) and online focus groups with a sample of non-signatories to the Glasgow Climate Declaration. The interviews were conducted with destinations from North America, Latin America, North and South Europe and focussed on the key areas of collaboration, finance, measurement, communication and barriers and enablers for these. In addition, 7 focus groups with non-signatories to the Glasgow Climate Declaration from Africa and Latin America were conducted. The focus groups explored the barriers and challenges to climate action planning. 

Research findings (summarised in the above infographic) are split into enablers and barriers for the planning, development and implementation of Climate Action in tourism destinations. Some of the key barriers identified by our informants included the lack of climate skills & literacy, technical knowledge, climate competency and understanding of the priorities to address climate change. Additionally, the findings show that communication of climate change, its impacts and ways to adapt and plan around it is challenging. Among the key enablers, informants addressed the importance of developing strong partnerships and effective communication to engage all stakeholders. They have also addressed the relevance of education on, and awareness of, the impacts of climate change at all levels (from community through to national level departments) including of the role that tourism plays in climate change. 

A webinar is organised on Tuesday 27 June 2023 to bring together the destination representatives who contributed to the research, to disseminate concluding research findings and to collect feedback via focus groups. In light of the results which emerged so far, the next stages of the project will aim to explore further aspects of: a) communicating climate change to and by tourism stakeholders and b) ways to develop meaningful knowledge exchange mechanisms which will enable development, sharing and facilitation of innovative systems and flows of knowledge exchange in the context of climate change and tourism. 

The Research Team involved in this piece of work were:

• Dr Kyriaki Glyptou
• Dr Elisa Burrai
• Dr Jane Turner
• Dr Davina Stanford
• Lucy Mccombes
• Professor Chris Cooper