Neighbourhood News Update: DAVID GREEN: V&A leads way as tourism builds back better.

DAVID GREEN: V&A leads way as tourism builds back better.

As published on Business Day, 27 September 2023.

Africa’s most-visited attraction answers UN call for sustainable investments in people and planet on World Tourism Day.

Covid-19 gave the lexicon a new word to describe the global reduction in human activity – especially travel – during the pandemic. “Anthropause” was the term scientists coined when they pointed out the lockdown’s positive impact on the environment, as carbon emissions fell and air quality improved.

One of the pandemic’s legacies is our greater understanding of how sustainable practices and reduced travel can help to tackle the climate emergency, even if this knowledge hasn’t been universally embraced: incredibly, even as a wildfire on the Greek island of Rhodes forced tourist evacuations in July, new visitors were flying in after refusing to abandon their holiday plans.

Responsible travel is a human right, however, as the World Travel & Tourism Council has made clear. Physical human connection is essential for greater cultural awareness and understanding, and it’s needed more than ever in a world seemingly intent upon a more inward-looking nationalistic approach and less international collaboration. Click here to read the full article.

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