HH Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, Chairman of Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA), has called on the local, regional and international travel industry to prioritise sustainability efforts to leave a lasting legacy for future generations.
In a welcome message to speakers, delegates, exhibitors and visitors at the inaugural World Green Tourism Abu Dhabi conference and exhibition, which begins a three-day run at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre today (November 22), His Highness said: “There is much at stake and future generations will not easily forgive us if we do not endeavour to leave them a legacy on which they can build.”
Sheikh Sultan, who is World Green Tourism Abu Dhabi’s patron, described the event as a watershed for the regional industry and “a vehicle for us all to pool our knowledge, expertise and energy to building an industry, whether on a local, regional or international level, that will live up to the highest levels of responsibility.”
He added: “Whether our challenges be social, financial or environmental, a focussed approach on sustainability across the board is vital to ensure we deliver to our individual mandates and for the benefit of generations of travellers and our citizens to come.”
World Green Tourism Abu Dhabi, a first-of-its-kind event for the Arabian Gulf, is the debut meetings industry initiative to emerge from ADTA’s Advantage Abu Dhabi incentive programme, which catalyses and seeds new business tourism and meetings concepts. The event reflects the core values of the Abu Dhabi Government’s 2030 plan which clearly identifies tourism as a key economic diversification driver and environmental sustainability as an underlying fundamental of the emirate.
The event is co-hosted by the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi, and will boast over 50 speakers including international sustainability pioneers, tourism ministers and heads of tourism bodies and UN representatives. It is a forum for key industry leaders and associations to discuss the environmental challenges facing the tourism industry, highlighting ‘green’ initiatives, technologies and solutions currently being integrated into mainstream industry practices.
The event’s final day, Wednesday November 24, 2010, has also been earmarked as ‘Green Tourism Careers Day’ as the industry looks to sustain and inspire human resource capital, offering college and university students, as well as those who are just starting their working lives, the chance to discover how businesses, locally and globally, are introducing sustainable practices to reshape the tourism industry.
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