For the past six months, the Travel Foundation has been working with over thirty tourism destination management organisations (DMOs) around the world to pilot our new, soon-to-launch Destination Climate Champions training course, developed in partnership with Expedia Group.
The course provides participants with the A to Z of climate action planning, as well as access to a network of similar organisations around the world to share solutions. Our aim is to equip destinations with climate literacy and empower them to lead positive change.
The destinations that took part in the pilot were organised in three cohorts: Europe, the Pacific Northwest of the US and Canada, and New Zealand. We’ve been incredibly impressed with the commitment of the participants to the topic and our thanks go out to all those who took part. The feedback we’ve received has been extremely positive, with participants highlighting how the course enabled them to:
- Understand how to start taking climate action, with a clear structure to follow.
- Break down a big topic into manageable, bite sized chunks.
- Have confidence in their message when engaging stakeholders in action.
- Strengthen their business case for climate action and justify the need to invest in it.
- Learn from and build connections with other destinations that are facing similar challenges.
“The course was very helpful in bringing such a broad and widely discussed topic and ensuring it stayed relevant to the work of DMOS. I felt that I could align what I was learning in every module with my day-to-day work.” Serena Meredith, Visit West, UK
“What I really valued was the opportunity to learn and understand how others are tackling some of the issues – the chance to come together, talk to others, and share learning and experiences.” Richard Drakeley, The National Forest, UK
During the three peer-to-peer learning sessions that accompany the online course (a feature that will be replicated when the course launches publicly later this year), many of our pilot participants shared inspirational climate initiatives that were already underway when they began the course, demonstrating that DMOs are often already doing much more than they think in terms of climate action planning. Here are a small selection of initiatives:
- The Oregon Coast Visitors Association (OCVA) has a ‘Travel Impact Calculator’, on their website which is helping visitors to determine the carbon impact of their travel. The OCVA is now looking to implement more electric charging stations for the entire Oregon coast to attract more vehicle travel from domestic markets.
- Visit Berlin is working on an ambitious project to develop a climate roadmap for the destination, focussing on both leisure travel and MICE activities. The roadmap will be developed in partnership with their stakeholders and suppliers – with and for the destination.
- Visit Tampere is collaborating with City of Tampere to align their Climate Action Plan with the climate roadmap for the city. The team is also working on how best to help companies help themselves with climate action and how to offer further, meaningful ways to collaborate with their stakeholders.
- The Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA) has committed to developing an events policy to reduce the footprint of all in-person events, including guidance on menus, single use plastics, use of reusable and recyclable materials and request and encourage verified carbon footprint measurement from vendors.
- The National Forest (UK), is using ‘nature recovery’ as an entry point to engage stakeholders in climate action. The National Forest’s mission is to support businesses in using trees to create transformative impacts for people, the planet and the economy and by focusing on nature recovery, they are seamlessly introducing climate change and sustainability into the conversation.
- Great South (New Zealand) has developed a sustainable tourism programme for operators and undertaken regional emissions measurement. They have a goal to become carbon neutral by 2026.
For our New Zealand pilot cohort, we were fortunate to have the support of the forward-thinking Regional Tourism New Zealand (RTNZ), who brought together twelve regional tourism organisations (RTOs) to complete the course and supported them with further coaching delivered by the Travel Foundation. This helped participants to contextualise the course, as well as to learn from and support each other on their climate action journeys. RTNZ also brought the RTOs involved together in person at their Te Ūnga Mai wānanga (learning forum) in July, where they discussed how to build resilience in their destinations for a thriving tourism sector. A similar learning programme for the Destination Climate Champion training course is now taking place for eight Pacific Island nations, supported by the Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO).
If you’re interested in joining the Destination Climate Champions course when it launches later this year, please sign up here, where you will also find more information on the course and a list of the destinations that have taken part in the pilot. The course will be free to access, thanks to the generous support of Expedia Group.
