Our 5 Key Takeaways from ITB Berlin 2023

Sea Going Green attended #ITB2023, after a few years of online events the team left feeling inspired and re-energized to tackle sustainable tourism! Our team focused on attending the many sustainability events and panels ITB Berlin had to offer this year, hats off to Rika Jean-Francois (ITB Commissioner for CSR) for putting together such a diverse and sustainability focused program. We are also part of the EU Commission COSME project -? #SUSTOUR: Promoting sustainability among the European tour operator sector through a business led approach, as carbon management coaches for the tour operators and presented a keynote on Carbon Management for Tour Operators along with a workshop with the tour operators at ITB Day 2 this year. It was great to connect with the tour operators off screen and learn about their best practices and challenges in their sustainability journey.?

Our team has prepared our key takeaways for ITB 2023 below for those of you who missed it this year or are looking for a quick refresher of some of the main themes this year, looking forward to ITB 2024!

1. Tourism Businesses are ready to walk the talk.?

We were delighted to see that the tourism industry has bounced back from the pandemic era stronger and more resilient than ever before. Seeing the prioritization of sustainability in the transport industry’s usage of sustainable aviation fuels, corporates’ application of ESG, and the hospitality’s pivotal role in the net positive movement, showed that the industry is ready to do their part in hope of stimulating a large-scale butterfly effect. Marloes Knippenberg (CEO at Kerten Hospitality) put it best, “‘If everyone is doing ten things it’s better than talking about 70 and doing none”, meaning that the industry as a whole will need to do its part and continue to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.?

2. There are many keys for the same lock.

Throughout all of the sessions, we saw that sustainability is increasingly being viewed as important throughout all of the sub sectors of the tourism value chain since the sector as a whole, experiences many of the same challenges and potential opportunities. While the sustainability challenges facing the hospitality industry can be alleviated by making small changes to operations or services, the transport sector requires a change in mindset, especially for the rail, cruise and air transport sectors. On top of a shift in thinking about sustainability, technology and digitalization provide the opportunity to improve the efficiency of the sector’s wider transition while streamlining processes and securing data.

3. Unified approach to sustainability through certification.

We witnessed a lot of discussions around the topic of tourism certification. While applauded as an effective tool to enhance the sustainability of tourism businesses, its biggest challenge is that the vast number of schemes and blurred lines between certification, verification, accreditation and other jargon, waters down the value of such tools. Circumventing the label jungle and finding the right certification program is considered to be the industry’s biggest challenge. Therefore, it is up to destination-wide mandates, like those seen in Turkey and Singapore, to perpetuate the need for certification that is backed by adequate technical and financial support for tourism businesses’ certification journey.?

4. Effective governance must be inclusive.

Adding to our previous takeaway, we heard over and over again the need to enforce mandatory sustainability reporting and benchmarking, which will require the development and improvement of monitoring capabilities. Besides mandatory measures, sustainability will additionally need to be incentivized and made accessible to small tourism businesses in addition to the “big players” in the industry to make a widespread impact. Governments will need to take a leading role, but tourism businesses themselves will also need to have their voices heard too for change to be in touch with their wants and needs. As Susanne Bouma said, “We are talking of governments as a different entity, but from a democratic perspective that’s us”.?

5. Sustainability should be the norm, not an add-on.

The future of sustainability is dependent on the mainstreaming of sustainability into tourism offerings. Sustainable and eco-friendly alternatives and practices are currently seen as an add-on rather than a fundamental part of business practices. For this to change, sustainable options will need to be prioritized and encouraged, for instance by putting vegetarian and vegan options at the top of menus instead of listing them as optional substitutions. In addition to more impactful measures, these types of subtle changes will also help set new norms for the tourism industry.?

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