Today more than ever, the Anthropocene Age and its impact on tourism are facing a dilemma. On the one hand, economic activity in industrialized and emerging countries harms the environment and affects the climate, thus making tourism in appealing destinations more susceptible to problems (natural disasters, hot spells, water shortages, hunger and migration). Yet on the other hand, global tourism is also to blame: The worldwide mobility of over 1 billion business and leisure travelers has a negative impact on the environment and climate. All in all, CO2 emissions, marine pollution and an eco-social imbalance in both classic destinations and developing countries are increasingly endangering the existence of vacation destinations.
Greetings:
Prof. Dr. Dietmar Herz, Chairman, Institute for Tourism and Development
Moderated by:
Klaus Betz, Freelance Journalist & Project Manager Dialoge, Institute for Tourism and Development
Panel guests:
Dr. Susanne Götze, Deputy Editor-in-chief, klimaretter.info
Andrew Jones, Chairman, Pacific Asia Travel Association PATA, Guardian of Sanctuary Resorts, Hongkong
Michael Müller, former Secretary of State at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, Chairman, NaturFreunde Deutschland
Prof. Dr. Harald Zeiss, Professor for Tourism Management, Harz University of Applied Sciences, former Head of Sustainability, TUI Germany