ʻO ka hui ʻana i kahi mākaʻikaʻi hoʻomau me ka ikehu hou

The first glance may be treacherous. There is no reason for Travel & Tourism, the world’s largest industry and a self-proclaimed promotor of peace and understanding, to remain passively in the wait – on the contrary: Before Covid-19, the share of greenhouse gas emissions caused by global Travel & Tourism, including tourism transport, accommodation and supply chains, amounted to some 8 %, a research team of the University of Sydney found out in 2018. According to the study, this is far more than previous results revealed, and the trend shows upward.

With Covid-19 lingering pertinaciously though, Travel & Tourism will emerge from shambles – to the better or the worse at last, that depends on its self-understanding and proven relevance, as a resilient and socio-ecologically responsible part of the economy. Rather than a mere industry for leisure and pleasure, ‘smart’ Travel & Tourism should afford involving pioneers who share a better perception, a clearer perspective and a stronger impetus than conventional travel technocrats. It’s a question of setting examples of both the broader purpose of Renewable Energy proliferation and the higher purpose of solidarity: Global Tourism’s leading organizations like UNWTO a WTTC should use Travel & Tourism as a tool of both brain and hands – to synergize with Renewable Energy organizations like the European Solar Federation EUROSOLAR and IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency), as well as theme-related film producers like Fechner MEDIA (current project: ‘The Story of a New World’).

Time is right – and tight – to boosting research and development on methods and devices that will facilitate tackling the problem – and help selling solutions! EUROSOLAR has started an exciting campaign, called “The Regenerative Decade”. It is determined to promote renewables on different platforms for ten years to come. Tourism could be teaming up as the logical soulmate.

Travel & Tourism organizations on all levels should act as creative and accountable interfaces of communication and cooperation with the private sector inside and outside of the industry and build up multitasking ‘clusters’ to keep the Travel & Tourism economy afloat and the world’s natural beauty and people’s joy in a healthy balance. This is the message Travel & Tourism — big, potentially mighty, yet politically still a dwarfed and fragmented industry — needs to push forward to the ears of the political and economic giants, powerful as they are, though acting as well in a world equally fragmented.

Hence, cooperation most suitably starts from scratch: Cross-promoting Sustainable Tourism and Renewable Energy is the first step to common application and practice. There is nothing more intriguing than energy, renewable and decentralized, jointly with renewable energy-based mobility, to serve as the manifest symbol of a new lifestyle based upon nothing less than the idea that energy can be renewable, supplemented by that remarkably palish adjective ‘sustainable’, to enhance Tourism in terms of solidarity and responsibility.

ʻO ka mea kākau, ʻO Max Haberstroh, he lālā hoʻokumu o ka World Tourism Network (WTN).