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Sri Lanka Tourism industry to deal with green guilt - January 2008
According to the Responsible Tourism Partnership (RTP), there has been such a lot of noise with contradictory messages giving conflicting views on global warming and climate change in Sri Lanka. However confusing the messages are, now it has become a reality that climate change is a conclusive fact, and that something has to be done to reduce its impact.
Sri Lanka has long been serious about protecting its natural environment, and the tourism industry too has been very sensitive towards protected species, natural parks and conservation. Sri Lanka hotel industry has been environmentally conscious and has reached exceptional standards, some have won international accolades for best environmental practices and, for pioneering greening efforts. RTP says that Sri Lanka’s contribution to global warming- emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) is negligible. However, no matter how green Sri Lanka is already, the adverse impact of the anticipated changes arising out of global warming will certainly affect Sri Lanka and its tourism industry.
In an attempt to engage a wider group of stakeholders in the tourism industry and other related agencies to respond to Climate Change, the RTP held Sri Lanka’s first sustainable tourism forum on climate change ‘Towards A Carbon Neutral Sri Lanka: Building Tourism Partnerships’ in Januray this year with the Sponsorship of the UK based Travel Foundation. This highly relevant topic was presented exceptionally well by bringing together a very interesting panel of speakers not only from Sri Lanka but also from the Maldives and the United Kingdom, which included Climate Change experts, key government agencies and strong environmental voices.
The RTP lined up a very comprehensive programme to gather knowledge, debate and come together to look at how Sri Lanka tourism industry can respond to climate change. The forum discussed the urgency for partners to seek practical solutions for carbon reduction with the hope that the forum will result in engaging a wider group of stakeholders in the industry to deal with green guilt. One of the key messages was also that all this is good business sense and will have a huge positive impact on the bottom line. As a result of the forum consensus was drawn to implement a common carbon reduction programme.
Charmarie Maelge Director/CEO of the RTP says “Sri Lanka tourism industry while focusing their attention on immediate term measures to safeguard and increase visitor arrivals, they are also working towards long term needs and are very serious about climate change. As a response to this emerging trend, industry is banding together to adapt their businesses to better meet consumer expectations and regulatory mechanisms. The government has confirmed its commitment by introducing various programmes and ‘Sri Lanka Earth Lung’ concept introduced by the tourism authorities is one such key programme”.
The RTP advocates a collective initiative for the Sri Lanka tourism sector to introduce a more suitable development and set high standards for a greener destination and it says that our tourism industry has the opportunity to take the leadership in developing appropriate collective measures responding to climate change through simple practical solutions.
The RTP work towards promoting destination specific sustainable tourism and addressing key issues that the tourism industry is facing. This is done through implementing practical solutions involving all stakeholders. Projects and programmes implemented during the formative stages of the last two years of the RTP have clearly demonstrated that everyone working together can make a real difference.
For more details contact Director/CEO Charmarie Maalge: rtpcmaelge@slltnet.lk,
Tel: +94 773251088, Fax +94112613565
January 2008
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