Driving sustainability across travel and tourism

World Tourism Day 2025 highlights tourism’s transformative potential as an agent of positive change. Realizing this potential, however, demands more than growth alone. It requires good governance, strategic planning, robust monitoring and clear priority setting that align with long-term sustainability goals. Tourism is more than an economic sector, it is a catalyst for social progress, delivering education, employment and creating new opportunities for all. To unlock these benefits, a deliberate and inclusive approach is essential, one that places sustainability, resilience and social equity at the core of tourism development and decision-making.

The bold agenda sets out a global framework to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and fix climate change until 2030. Building on the historic Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the ambitious set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 associated targets is people-centred, transformative, universal and integrated.

Tourism can contribute to poverty reduction both in a direct manner – by generating jobs in tourism businesses or creating opportunities to supply goods and services to tourists and tourism businesses or to establish/run micro-, small and community-based tourism businesses – and, in an indirect manner, by using income generated tourism-related taxes and fees for initiatives addressing poverty reduction or investments in infrastructure stimulated by tourism development from which people living in poverty in a destination may also benefit.

Tourism can spur sustainable agriculture, and its full integration in the tourism value chain, by promoting the sustainable production and supplies of food and beverages to tourism businesses and tourists

The link between tourism, health and well-being has been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic as the sector depends on contact intensive services.

Tourism requires a large workforce. Thus, it has the potential to promote sustainable and inclusive socioeconomic development; and skillful workers are key for a sustainable tourism sector to prosper.

Tourism is one of the sectors with the highest share of women who are employed or entrepreneurs, although women working in tourism are often concentrated in low-skilled or informal work. The sector can be a tool for women to unlock their potential, helping them become fully engaged and leading in every aspect of society.

Tourism investment for utilities can play a critical role in achieving water access and security, as well as hygiene and sanitation for all in tourism destinations and their surroundings.

Tourism is an energy-intensive sector; however, it can champion and accelerate the shift towards increased renewable energy shares in the global energy mix and prioritize energy efficiency across operations.

Tourism is one of the driving forces of global economic growth and is considered an effective sector for achieving decent work and economic growth in developing countries, especially so for the least developed countries (LDC) and landlocked developing countries (LLDCs).

Sustained investment in infrastructure and innovation is a crucial driver of economic growth and development. Tourism development relies on good public and private infrastructure.

Tourism can be a powerful tool for reducing inequalities if it engages local populations and all key stakeholders in its development. Tourism serves as an effective means for economic integration and diversification, and poverty reduction.

A city that is not good for its citizens is not good for tourists. Tourism can help advance urban infrastructure and accessibility, promote regeneration, and preserve cultural and natural heritage – assets on which tourism depends.

The tourism sector needs to adopt sustainable consumption and production (SCP) modes, accelerating the shift towards sustainability. It is imperative to identify key points of intervention within the tourism value chain to optimize the use of natural resources and reduce environmental impacts caused by production and consumption.

Tourism contributes to and is affected by climate change. Tourism stakeholders should play a leading role in the global response to climate change, both by implementing adaption and mitigation measures.

Coastal and maritime tourism rely on healthy marine ecosystems. Thus, tourism development should be an integral part of the management of these environments, in order to help conserve and preserve fragile marine ecosystems and serve as a vehicle to promote a blue economy, contributing to the sustainable use of marine resources.

Tourism can play a major role if sustainably managed in fragile zones, not only in conserving and preserving biodiversity, but also in generating revenue as an alternative livelihood to local communities.

As tourism revolves around billions of encounters between people of diverse cultural backgrounds, the sector can foster multicultural and interfaith tolerance and understanding, laying the foundation for more peaceful societies.

Public policy and innovative financing are at the core of achieving the 2030 Agenda. Tourism development contributes to all goals, not just for those involved in tourism, as the development of the sector can mandate a wider range of effects through diverse partnerships.