World Tourism Day: Achieving Peace through Tourism

Did you know that peace and tourism are intertwined? According to UN Tourism, this sector plays a vital role as a catalyst for fostering peace and understanding between nations and cultures. Tourism is not only a socioeconomic powerhouse for developing countries, it can also bring people together in non-adversarial circumstances. This is why the theme for this year's celebration is Tourism and Peace.

Heading towards World Tourism Day on September 27, learn how the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is working to bring stakeholders together from across sectors and disciplines to generate new ideas, promote dialogue and build bridges to foster economic growth and drive social change in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

1. Social Responsibility:

A regional operation, supporting Barbados, Belize and The Bahamas, and in collaboration with the regional public health agency (CARPHA) and the Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) advanced post-Covid-19 health monitoring capacity in the hotel industry, encouraging travel and enhancing the quality and delivery of the Caribbean visitor's experience. While the pandemic brought unprecedented negative impacts for tourism, this project pioneered an alignment between tourism and health, thereby promoting a shift towards more collaboration and social responsibility in the hospitality sector.

2. Innovation and Entrepreneurship:

By encouraging creative solutions and new business models, tourism can drive economic growth and provide unique opportunities. Brazil has been on the forefront of smart tourism destination. Together with SEBRAE, the IDB has been executing a program to support an innovative look at the competitiveness of tourist destinations based on the central pillars of governance, innovation, and technology. Brazilian micro and small tourism business operators and entrepreneurs will benefit from innovative tourism planning and management tools, safeguarding the competitiveness of their operations. Among other things, technology facilitates the interaction of the visitor with the destination, enhancing the quality of the visit, and allowing for better communication and exchange with one another, preventing conflicts.

In Chile, on the other hand, the IDB is supporting SICET, the Chilean Tourism Business Competitiveness System. Conceptualized by SERNATUR, this initiative aims to support companies to overcome structural deficiencies and adequately address global market trends, by strengthening the effectiveness of business promotion policies and instruments. The new tourism business competitiveness system will support entrepreneurs to measure the impact of their businesses and guide them towards the instruments that best suit their situation.

3. Youth Education and TrainingOpportunities:

The IDB believes that education and skills training build the future. It opens opportunities, empowers self-confidence and fosters peace. In Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, Prodetur Bahia did just that, while breaking the silos that may exist between tourism and social services. The Coligados project contributed to reducing social vulnerabilities of 125 young people, by promoting their professional qualification, improving their interaction with the community and tourists, and enabling their inclusion in the labor market, especially in activities related to tourism.

4. Diversity and Gender Equality:

In the capital city of Bahia, another IDB operation proposed interventions that aimed at the environmental, sociocultural and economic sustainability of tourism activities, to improve the quality of life of the population of Salvador. By emphasizing local culture and Afro-descendants, which comprise 80% of the city's population, the project provided social inclusion, by ensuring that the economic benefits of tourism would be equally distributed amongst all those involved in tourism, and particularly in the afro population. The project has led the local government to submit another loan request to the IDB, focusing this new operation (the Salvador Capital Afro Program) on increasing employment and reducing the inequalities in income observed between the Afro-descendant population employed in the sector and the rest of the population.

5. Fostering Regional Dialogue and Alliances:

The IDB, through the tourism authorities of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, supported the development and strengthening of The Jesuit Way, a regional destination that shares a single, incomparable and genuine identity, along the itinerary that the Society of Jesus followed for more than 200 years for its establishment in South America. The Jesuit Way is a tourist corridor that totals 55 Jesuit heritage sites, 19 of them declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. The effort involved the alignment and coordination of several different regional, national and local tourism bodies, which culminated in a business tourism innovation challenge, a digital tourism marketing plan, and a platform to increase its visibility. This project aims to accelerate the creation and consolidation of tourist experiences around a natural, cultural, and spiritual heritage.

In the Amazon Region, the IDB has been encouraging a better understanding about the challenges and opportunities to support regional tourism, as a sustainable development option, consistent with market dynamics and with the need to preserve the natural capital and the Amazonian cultural heritage. A well-planned tourism destination can help to strengthen the identity of local communities, protect biological resources and promote experiential tourism that combine cultural and ecological attractions. Sustainable tourism in the Amazon, not only provides direct income to local communities, reducing conflicts, but can also encourage the conservation of natural resources and biodiversity. An IDB regional operation supports sectoral dialogue which enhances better communication and understanding about tourism in the eight countries belonging to this unique region of the world.

6. Environmental Management:

Addressing environmental challenges can promote sustainable peace by fostering cooperation, addressing root causes of conflict and promoting inclusive and equitable development. Often, the environment is at the center of resource-based conflicts, be it competition over land, water, and natural resources. In Barbados, the IDB supported programs to strengthen its tourism national policies, with particular focus on the diversification of tourism products, shifting from a "sun and beach" model to cultural products (e.g., festivals, culinary tourism), engaging a diversity of tourism markets as well as ensuring other opportunities to protect the natural environment, which constitutes the base of the tourism attraction of the island.

Likewise, in Haiti, the IDB has supported the Sustainable Coastal Tourism Program, which aims at the protection of the natural and cultural heritage of the South Coast, and the sustainability of investments in the future taking into account vulnerability to natural events, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

7. Transparency and Better Governance:

Information is another way to promote peace. In this respect Tourism Observatories have been a tool to support tourism planning decision-making, in addition to ensuring that data and information support accountability, integrity, good management and governance of tourism destinations. The IDB has led a consistent effort to promote the strengthening of tourism observatories in LAC. Most recently, a Caribbean study about the role Tourism Observatories have in leading the sustainable transition in tourism has concluded that, while there is a long road ahead, LAC countries are advancing their Tourism Observatories to include, in addition to the economic indicators, environmental and social indicators. A project in Sao Paulo, Brazil, supported the study of the Observatory of a north coastal area of the city.

The IDB is committed to promote sustainable tourism in Latin America and the Caribbean, which drives socioeconomic growth, empowers underserved populations, protects the environment and biodiversity, preserves cultural heritage, and contributes to the promotion of peace in the region.

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