10 Years after the Rio Earth Summit: Red card for Tourism?

10 principles and challenges for sustainable development of tourism in the 21st Century
For the World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002

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by AG Rio+10:

· akte – Working Group on Tourism and Development, Basel
· FernWeh – Tourism Review, Freiburg i. Br.
· International Friends of Nature, Vienna
· respect, Vienna
· TOURISM WATCH-EED, Bonn
of the Network for Sustainable Tourism Development DANTE
(Die Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Nachhaltige TourismusEntwicklung)

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More than any other industry, tourism lives and profits from beautiful landscapes and the hospitality of the inhabitants of its destination countries. This ought to make it the leader in sustainable development as it was laid out by the international community at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The Rio follow-up having largely failed to fulfil its promises, tourism is now presented with an even larger challenge, especially since it has become one of the world's largest industries and employers in recent years. However, tourism's fast development is at the cost of the local and global environment and much too often has become a burden to the people in the host regions. An increasing number of travel suppliers in the North and South are trying to work towards environmentally more responsible tourism schemes. But the re-orientation of tourism that is necessary for a sustainable development is not yet in sight.

In the light of the poor progress of sustainable development ten years after the Rio Earth Summit, tourism could be shown the red card: - sent-off, back to training - a demand that tourism leaders learn to practise "fair play” and contribute to sustainable development, as should be expected from the representatives of one of the world's leading industries! This is the opinion of the representatives of DANTE, a network of organisations from Germany, Austria and Switzerland working on tourism issues. In preparation for the World Summit in 2002 in Johannesburg, they have developed ten principles and challenges on the need for the sustainable development of tourism. The strategy paper takes up ten of the most important items on the Johannesburg agenda, questions the specific impact of tourism in these areas and makes a number of suggestions for future development which may serve as a basis for discussion in the lead-up to the Summit and in Johannesburg.
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DANTE is a network of 17 NGOs and initiatives from Germany, Austria and Switzerland who are concerned with tourism issues and developments. At its General Meeting in September, 2001, DANTE appointed a working group 'AG Rio+10' to elaborate a strategy and discussion paper on tourism and sustainable development in the light of the Rio process. The paper will be submitted to a wide range of decision makers in politics and the tourism industry as well as to NGOs preparing for the World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002 (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The "Red Card for Tourism?” is available in German, English or Spanish on the following websites, it can also be ordered as a pdf-file or a booklet (postal costs will be charged for sending the booklet) from the following addresses:

Christine Plüss, akte - Working Group on Tourism and Development, Missionsstr. 21, CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland, Tel +41 61 261 47 42,
Fax +41 61 261 47 21, info@akte.ch, www.akte.ch

Martina Backes, FernWeh – Tourism Review, P.O.Box 5328, D-79020 Freiburg i. Br, Germany, Tel +49 761 70 75 125, fernweh-iz3w@t-online.de, www.iz3w.org

Manfred Pils, International Friends of Nature, Diefenbachgasse 36/3, A-1150 Vienna, Austria, Tel +43 1 892 387-77, Fax +43 1 812 97 89, nfi@nfi.at, www.nfi.at

Christian Baumgartner, respect – Center for Tourism and Development, Diefenbachgasse 36/3, A-1150 Vienna, Austria, Tel +43 1 895 62 45, Fax +43 1 812 97 89, office@respect.at, www.respect.at

Heinz Fuchs, TOURISM WATCH-EED, Ulrich-von-Hassell-Str. 76, D-53123 Bonn, Germany, Tel +49 228 81 01 2303, Fax +49 228 81 01 160, tourism-watch@eed.de, www.tourism-watch.de

For the spanish version please refer to:
Angela Giraldo, KATE – Center for Ecology and Development, Blumenstr. 19,
D-70182 Stuttgart, Tel +49 711 2483970, Fax +49 711 24839722,
angela.giraldo@kate-stuttgart.org,
www.turismovision.kate-stuttgart.org

15th March, 2000