|
|
World Expeditions first Charter Member of IIPT/Skal Travel for Peace Campaign
At the recent World Expeditions’ Responsible Travel Symposium in Toronto, IIPT Founder and President, Louis D’Amore announced the IIPT/Skal International “Travel for Peace Campaign” and World Expeditions as the first charter member.
Members will be asked to distribute the copyrighted IIPT Credo of the Peaceful Traveler along with the iconic “Portrait of the Global Family” by renown artist Padre Johnson.
The program aim is to create awareness among all travelers that the privilege of traveling provides them with a unique opportunity to learn more about our common home – planet earth, the wonder of its natural beauty, its many diverse peoples, cultures and heritage – and in the process to foster mutual respect, understanding and appreciation with each person they encounter.
Collaborating with IIPT and Skål International are the International Coalition of Tourism Patrners (ICTP) and in designing an interactive website will be Mr. Prakash Sikchi, Co-founder of Inspirock and Jeff Crist, Managing Partner, Crist Consulting Group. The website will be a place where Travelers for Peace can share their stories and interact with one another.
Grateful for the opportunity to travel and experience the world and because peace begins with the individual, I affirm my personal responsibility and commitment to:
|
WTTC Report Confirms
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has released a new research report quantifying for the first time the positive correlation between tourism and peace. While travel & tourism has often been recognized for its ability to foster peace, security, and mutual understanding, to date, there has been little empirical evidence to support this link.
The report, “Tourism as a Driver for Peace” conducted with the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP), the world’s pre-eminent think tank measuring peace, shows how important an open and sustainable tourism sector can be for the levels of peace in a country. Countries with more open and sustainable tourism sectors have higher levels of peace and lower levels of conflict and violence.
Increases in tourism sustainability can lead to improvements in the functioning of governments. As governments respond to tourism demand and create a welcoming environment for further tourism expansion, this ultimately increases future peace, the report states.
Over the last decade the world has become increasingly unequal in terms of its levels of peacefulness, with the most peaceful countries enjoying increasing levels of peace and prosperity, while the least peaceful countries are facing greater levels of violence and conflict. This research shows that the more sustainable and open a country’s tourism sector, the less peace levels have declined.
Even in conflict affected countries, all of which saw their levels of peace drop in the period between 2008 and 2015, those that had more open and sustainable tourism saw a significantly lower drop in peace than countries with less sustainable tourism sectors.
D’Amore continued, “IIPT’s founding vision was also that ‘every traveler is potentially an Ambassador for Peace.’ The report is very timely in this context as IIPT has just launched its ‘Travel for Peace Campaign’ with World Expeditions as its first founding member (please see above article). We are hopeful that all sectors of the industry will get behind this campaign in a collaborative effort towards truly making travel and tourism the world’s first global peace industry.”
Organizations wishing to become a founding member of the campaign are invited to email |
About IIPT For more information: |
|
eTurboNews
is
proud to be the sponsor for this IIPT
Newsletter |
Prakash has more than 20 years of high-tech experience specializing in machine learning, big data and distributed systems.He holds 25 patents and an MS from Stanford.
Since before people knew what internet was, Jeff has worked with governments and businesses to help them leverage the web for the benefit of their organisations, customers and citizens. Crist Consulting provides Web Design and Application Development, Internet Marketing and SEO and IT Consulting. CristCo is committed to providing well thought out, reliable and cost-effective solutions. This involves a commitment to understanding the customer and every possible aspect of each client's business. CristCo's technology experts make it their responsibility to provide clients with the most cost-effective, high quality solutions available.
IIPT Founder and President Louis D’Amore stated, “IIPT was born in 1986 with a vision of travel and tourism becoming the world’s first global peace industry, an industry that supports the belief that ‘every traveler is potentially an Ambassador for Peace.’ The Travel for Peace Campaign will give further momentum to the growing phenomenon of travelers as Peace Ambassadors. We are honored to have World Expeditions as the First Charter member and Skal International, Inspirock and Crist Consulting Group partnering with us in this 30th anniversary year legacy project.”
Nigel Pilkington stated: “Skål International is proud to be associated with IIPT and is fully supportive of the Travelers for Peace Campaign. In 2015 over 1 billion people travelled internationally according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), and this figure is expected to grow. We need to engage with travelers and make them aware of the impact they have when traveling & how by making informed decisions around their travel,and how they interact with local communities, they can make a difference.”
David Scowsill, President and CEO of WTTC, said: “Travel & Tourism’s economic impact is now well established and widely recognised, and governments around the world are increasingly looking to the sector to provide livelihoods and jobs, and drive economic development. However, the benefits of tourism as a force for good, its ability to bring peace, security, and understanding have been harder to quantify. I am delighted that this research now shows that Travel & Tourism does have a strong link to creating peaceful societies.”
Steve Killelea, Founder & Executive Chairman, IEP, said: “The data shows how tourism and peace can support each other and increase societal resilience, prosperity, and peace in the long term. This also shows how the tourism sector is one of the key areas in which the private sector can play a positive and tangible role in contributing to global peace.”
IIPT Founder and President, Louis D’Amore stated, “IIPT congratulates WTTC and IEP for this groundbreaking report that clearly demonstrates by thorough analysis that tourism is indeed a vital force for peace. The report findings give further momentum to IIPT’s founding vision in 1986 that “tourism has the promise of becoming the world’s first global peace industry.”