Tourism is bouncing back - but can we make travel sustainable?

This transcript has been generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio.

Jacqueline Gifford, Editor-in-Chief, Travel + Leisure: When you buy something, the gratification you get from buying that thing, it only lasts a little bit. But when you actually have an experience, that experience stays with you for the rest of your life. So I think travel and the experience economy is only going to continue to grow.

Robin Pomeroy, host Radio Davos: Welcome to Radio Davos, the podcast from the World Economic Forum that looks at the biggest challenges and how we might solve them. This week: a global survey of the travel and tourism sector, ravaged by Covid, but bouncing back.

Maksim Soshkin, Centre for Energy and Materials, World Economic Forum: If you combine nature and tourism development, it could really, maximise the sector's potential for socio economic prosperity in the developed world.

Robin Pomeroy: We hear about the Travel and Tourism Development Index and talk sustainable tourism - how to reduce the negative impacts of travel and increase the positive. We hear from this head of a hotel chain eliminating single-use plastics.

Neil Jacobs, CEO, Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas: An inventory of every single piece of plastic was taken in every hotel. We probably reduced overall by about 65-70%.

Robin Pomeroy: And we go to Rwanda where tourist dollars are helping preserve mountain gorillas

Michaella Rugwizangoga, Chief Tourism Officer, Rwanda: People who are now rangers, were poachers, actually killed the gorillas. But today, the former poachers are now rangers. What we've achieved here is an incredible balance between conservation and improving the life of the people.

Robin Pomeroy: And the editor in chief of Travel + Leisure magazine tells us about the impact of sustainable tourism

Jacqueline Gifford: That actually can have a more positive impact on the ground than if they didn't go at all.

Robin Pomeroy: Subscribe to Radio Davos wherever you get your podcasts, or visit wef.ch/podcasts.

I’m Robin Pomeroy at the World Economic Forum, and with this look at travel, tourism and sustainability…

Jacqueline Gifford: And that's a better way to travel, ultimately.

Robin Pomeroy: This is Radio Davos.

Welcome to Radio Davos. And this week, as the summer approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, we're talking about travel and tourism, with a particular focus on sustainability. And to help me do that I'm joined by my colleague Maksim Soshkin. Hi Maksim. How are you?

Maksim Soshkin: Great. Great to be here.

Robin Pomeroy: What do you do at the World Economic Forum?

Maksim Soshkin: I lead the Forum's work on the Travel and Tourism Development Index, which is one of the Forum's flagship benchmarking tools. It measures 119 economies based on the enabling factors and policies that lead to more sustainable and resilient travel and tourism development.

Robin Pomeroy: So this is a report that comes out every year, right?

Maksim Soshkin: Every other year we come out.

Robin Pomeroy: Are you able to give me kind of the some of the headlines from that report?

Maksim Soshkin: Of course. So I think one of the things, one of the main headlines is that enabling conditions for travel and tourism reflect the rebound the sector's experienced post-pandemic.

We see enabling conditions being backed up by, a rebound in global air capacity and connectivity, improved international openness. A lot of countries have, improved their visa openness since the pandemic. And there's also been an increase in demand and investment in tourism, generating natural and cultural resources.

So we see that 71 out of the 119 economies that we rank in the index have improved their scores past pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

However, despite this growth, non-leisure demands, essentially, business travel, is still behind that of leisure and we're seeing a lot of labour shortages, especially in more advanced economies, and capacity and connectivity, capital investment in the sector, productivity and other supply factors, while recovering, have not kept up with the rebound of demand because it's been a lot of pent-up demand that's caused very strong growth as the sector during the pandemic cut a lot of its investments in capacity.

So the supply and demand imbalance has a lot to, and in a way amplified by inflation we've seen broadly around the world, has led to a decline in price competitiveness. So travel has become a little bit more expensive. And also there's been some service disruptions as well. In particular, you could see that in the airline industry of a lot often airline capacity is not where it ought to be given, people's demand or wants to fly.

Robin Pomeroy: Why service disruptions, what's happened there?

Maksim Soshkin: So that's essentially due to the fact that during the pandemic there's been a lot of cuts in capacity. So you think about air about capacity. Then essentially what happened is, when demand recovered, we found out it's not as easy to restart operations as it was to shut them down. So that then there's been this gap.

Robin Pomeroy: And you're looking globally.

Maksim Soshkin: Yes. This is globally.

Robin Pomeroy: Is there anything you can tell us about regional trends.

Maksim Soshkin: Yes. So we see that, in many ways the recovery was stronger in regions like Europe and the Middle East. In Europe in particular, there's a lot of interconnectivity between the different economies. So once travel restrictions are lifted, there's a lot more travel.

We saw a slight delay in Asia as those, economies, like China and others were a little bit slower to reopen their, travel and tourism segments, but now they're actually more or less the ones, showing the greatest growth because of essentially catching up with a lot of the rest of the world.

Robin Pomeroy: So this report is an index. You're giving a score to countries, is that right?

Maksim Soshkin: Yeah, exactly.

Robin Pomeroy: And what's that based on? What are you putting together to find that number?

Maksim Soshkin: Overall, like I mentioned before, where we're trying to measure this, this is not us trying to measure what's the best, you know, country to go visit or anything like that.

What we're really looking at are the enabling, enablers and policies that enable sustainable and resilient travel and tourism, development.

So we look at five different dimensions. One is the general enabling environment. So here we're looking at things that are not directly connected to tourism, but they're important for tourism development. That's the business environment, health and safety, ICT readiness. So you know, the adoption of internet connectivity, 3G mobile coverage, things like that. And we also look at the general, human resources and labour markets.

Then we have things that we call travel and tourism policy enabling conditions. So this looks at things like price competitiveness. So how expensive is it to travel. We look at openness to travel and tourism. So that's where we're looking at visa policies. How easy it is to travel on a particular country's passport. How welcoming locals are to visitors. And we also look at prioritisation of travel and tourism, which is really us looking at government support for the sector.

We also then look at infrastructure and that's includes transport infrastructure, ground and port and air transport infrastructure and capacity.

We also look at tourist infrastructure and services. So that's where we look at things like availability of hotel rooms in the country, even capital investment in the sector and the productivity of the travel and tourism specific labour force.

Then we look at travel and tourism resources. So really, this is why people travel to a particular destination, right? So we're looking at a country's natural and cultural heritage, and also non-leisure resources. That's like the location of globalised cities, major headquarters of global companies, things like that. And for cultural natural resources, I think it's important to note that we're not just saying how rich countries' culture and natural resources are, but we do in a way measure that in that aspect, but also measuring how well a country has developed those resources for use within the travel and tourism sector. How well are those resources or attractions advertised to the world as well?

And then lastly, we look at travel tourism sustainability. Where we're looking at environmental sustainability of the sector, where we look at energy and ability, you know, issues related to, pollution. Also, we look at things like preservation of nature, which is very important for the sector. We look at the socio economic impact of the sector, and finally we look at demand sustainability. So that's looking at things like seasonality of demand. We have metrics that look at things such as how concentrated demand is in particular attractions versus the broader economy. So how well distributed tourism is within an economy. Those are the kind of things that we take a look at.

Robin Pomeroy: Well we're going to come back to sustainability. But can you give us an idea of are there always countries that are always towards the top of this chart?

Maksim Soshkin: The top ten don't necessarily always change that much. So typically the top 30 we see are mostly dominated by economies from, Europe and Asia Pacific. The top ten often being Germany, United States, Spain, France, but then from Asia, we get countries such as Japan, China on the top ten.

So of the top 30, 19 are actually from Europe, seven are from Asia Pacific, three are from the Americas and only one from the Middle East and North Africa. And also the top 30 tend to be dominated by high income economies. So we see that a lot of the different enablers of travel and tourism development, things like infrastructure, business environment, health and hygiene and safety and security are typically correlated with a level of economic development in the country. So in those areas, more developed high income countries tend to have an advantage.

And in general the top 30 tend to have overall benefit from again, like favourable business environments and labour markets, open travel policies that tend to be more open to the world when it comes to ease of access to the country. They have more, advanced ICT adoption, excellent transport, tourism infrastructure. And also they tend to also have rich natural, cultural and non leisure attractions. And due to that, the top 30 actually account for over 75% of travel tourism GDP in 2022. That's a very highly concentrated sector globally.

Robin Pomeroy: What would you say is the point of creating this index? Are there lessons to be learned? Do you think a government or tourist, a tourism board of a country or region could take this away, look at it and think, if we did this, this would unlock something better for us.

Maksim Soshkin: Yes, absolutely. I think that it's a very useful benchmarking tool for a lot of governments around the world.

The sector, in many ways this is a benefit of the sector, it's very heterogeneous. It's very, it has a lot of different players involved. So, within travel and tourism itself, you're talking about hospitality, airlines, infrastructure companies, airports and so on. But then also it's heavily reliant on making sure that, you know, people travel to a country, they feel safe and there's, healthcare system there in case they get sick or they're not exposed to disease. And then there's a friendly business environment.

So it's a highly interconnected segment of the economy that relies on a very broad number of stakeholders. And what this index does is it really highlights all that interconnectivity of the sector. And that we can't just focus on one of those areas, without, you won't necessarily be that successful if you take a very narrow minded, siloed approach to the sector. It really requires a lot of coordination between different stakeholders.

Robin Pomeroy: So it's not enough to build a shiny new airport, for example. There's a whole lot of other things that have to go with that.

Maksim Soshkin: Exactly. And sustainability is actually one of those factors as well.

There's always a balance between encouraging growth for the sake of growth and doing it in the way that maximises the environmental, social and economic benefits of the sector for local residents as well.

Robin Pomeroy: Yes. And that's, as you mentioned, a chapter of your report.

And there's other people at the World Economic Forum engaged in sustainable tourism. There's a thing called the Global Future Council on the Future of Sustainable Tourism. And the Global Future Councils, they have been on Radio Davos before, these are kind of small groups of experts brought together by the World Economic Forum to look at these quite specific issues, in this case the future of sustainable tourism. And they arranged three interviews for me, and we're going to hear, hear them. Very, very diverse ones.

And the first one is with Jacqueline Gifford. She is the editor in chief of Travel + Leisure magazine. She's got one of the best jobs in the world by her own reckoning. She also happens to be a co-chair of the Global Future Council on the Future of Sustainable Tourism. She has a great overview of the global tourism industry and the changing trends and the impacts of mass tourism and concerns about sustainability.

Let's hear that interview with Jacqueline Gifford.

Jacqueline Gifford: I think I have the best job in the world.

First of all, I am so lucky to work at Travel + Leisure. I've been there about ten and a half years. I am constantly on the road. I consider myself fortunate to be able to meet people in tourism to understand this from a global perspective, but really distil trends, information down to an American audience and give them inspiration to get out there and explore the world.

We have an amazing team of editors at Travel + Leisure who are based in New York and Los Angeles, and what we do is really give them inspiration. And I'm probably on the road once a month.

And what's, again, amazing about this job is we've seen the experience economy take off and people are valuing travel above everything else. And I feel like what I do is really just give them the tools they need to get out there and go.

Robin Pomeroy: And tourism, maybe a couple of generations ago, was seen as a very aspirational, a very positive thing. Travel the world. Broaden your horizons. Expand your mind. I'm guessing you still have confidence that that is the case from travel, right?

Jacqueline Gifford: I believe that. I think we saw coming out of Covid - I should add too obviously, we're on this global listening tour - we have a team of people in New York and Los Angeles who are then distilling all that information and crafting beautiful, inspirational stories. And I think the best part of travel and these are, you know, we reach 15 million people a month on our site. We have a million subscribers to the magazine. The amount of people who want to travel and learn and are curious, it's growing. That's the best part.

And like you said, it's inspirational. The idea years ago that people would take a trip and it was only for the super affluent. That's completely changed. We've seen the experience economy grow over the past 15 years, and now instead of buying things and consuming, which ties to sustainability, obviously, people want experiences.

Studies and research shows that when you buy something, the gratification you get from buying that thing, it only lasts a little bit. But when you actually have an experience and say, you go to Rome with your family and you learn how to make pizza together at a beautiful restaurant, that experience stays with you for the rest of your life.

So I think travel and the experience economy is only going to continue to grow. And we've seen, coming out of Covid, to be honest, that's just gone into hyperdrive because people were shut indoors. They had that taken away from them. So now there's this desire to do more and see more because they feel it could go away again at any time.

Robin Pomeroy: The added complication to that, though, these days is the sustainability, be that the environmental impact of flying or other modes of transport. Carbon emissions. Also the potential damage we do to environments, nature or overcrowded cities. And there's all kinds of problems and it's kind of fraught. I wonder if you get feedback from that from your listeners - 'I'd love to do that, but I just can't bear the kind of the guilt associated with it or or the damage I might be inflicting on on the world or the place I'm going to'?

Jacqueline Gifford: We do. We see that people now are trying to, look, you can't stop the world from travelling. That's full stop. And I believe that in no. With the best of intentions, people want again, assume that people want to do the right thing, but will never just stop, you know? Covid was an unprecedented event where literally planes just stopped flying for a good chunk of time. I shouldn't say totally stopped flying because there were still a few going, but that kind of mass stoppage is never going to happen again.

What we need, though, is people to understand that when they go out and they take a trip, there's this style of consumerism, there's a responsibility they have to learn about the environment, the place that they're visiting, understand the local community and not be wasteful, and that actually can have a more positive impact on the ground than if they didn't go at all.

There's this idea, I think we talk a lot about travel and tourism that if you send somebody to a place and educate them on it, they're going to come back and and be sort of spread the word and make sure that people in their community, they know. Even if, say, take cruise to Antarctica, right, a fragile environment. There's a lot of people who think we should be doing cruising there at all. But you send people there responsibly with tourism companies that have scientists on board, have great practices. Then they're going to come back and actually tell and share that word and that mission. And that's a better way to travel, ultimately.

Robin Pomeroy: Like a lot of challenges, it's also an opportunity, right? Sustainable tourism. We had an article here that how particularly younger people, they want to be sustainable consumers whenever that's possible. There's a premium isn't there I would say on sustainable tourism. And are you seeing that in the companies you talk to in the places you go where sustainable tourism or ecotourism are something the the consumers are actually interested in paying for?

Jacqueline Gifford: I think so, for sure.

For example, take Costa Rica. So Costa Rica was a Travel + Leisure destination of the year for 2024. One of the reasons we picked that destination is because it's accessible to the American audience. Right. We're writing primarily for an American audience. Environmental quality of living is written into the constitution in Costa Rica, which was groundbreaking at the time. You could argue that the eco lodge was born in Costa Rica. There's so many national parks there that have, you know, again, the way that you access it, the eco lodges are tied up into the the whole environment and, you know, wildlife, surfing, wellness, it sort of ticks all the boxes for healthy living. And some of these eco lodges and, and tourism experiences are less than $100 in some instances. Or, you know, in a range that's really accessible and affordable to a wide swath of people. So I think that people are choosing things at a wide range.

On the other hand, you have Rwanda, which I just visited to do the gorilla trekking. It's expensive, right? It's $2,000 a person to get the permit to go in and see the gorillas. Now, I understand why they've gone with that model. It's the high impact, low volume model. Because they have to because of the fact that the gorillas, the population is quite small. So to preserve that and fund the research, to keep the gorilla population thriving, they need to charge more in order to make that whole thing go.

So I think there's a wide range of experiences that people can choose from. It can be on that affluent high end model. It can be on a more affordable, accessible model. It can also be just a single experience. I think of the time we went to Sea Island in Georgia years ago, and I took my son and he was three years old, and we did a morning experience to go see the turtles hatch on the beach. And it's a really fragile environment. You know, when the turtles hatch most of them don't survive because the birds come in and swoop in and eat them. And it was really amazing to sort of see this fragile environment, this whole experience. And that was just one morning and this was one morning in the larger story of a beach vacation, which was, you know, kind of a quintessential American family holiday. But again, that's an experience I'll never forget.

So I think when we look at the idea of sustainable tourism, where we fall short is that oftentimes there's this 'eat your vegetables' mentality to it, like, 'oh, you must do this because it feels, you know, it's like ticking a box. It's going to be good for the environment'.

But actually what we're trying to do is give people a better sense of the place that they're living and visiting so they can make responsible decisions. And those experiences can be fun. They don't have to be dry or boring.

Robin Pomeroy: I guess the beauty of that is, in an ideal world, the money you're spending there is going to, certainly in the Rwanda case, to preserve those environments which otherwise will be under pressure from maybe deforestation, for other ways to produce income, to produce revenue from those natural resources.

What about another element of sustainable tourism? People go to hotels and you always see the thing about 'don't throw your towels on the floor because you'll save the environment by not making us wash them'. Are there ways that you're seeing the hotels and other parts of the tourism industry are trying to make themselves, and I hope without just greenwashing, they actually are making ways, they're making what they do and what we do in those places more sustainable. Are you seeing that happen as well?

Jacqueline Gifford: I am, I think that, you know, that example is a brilliant one because a lot of hotels do it. And yes, you could argue it does help their bottom line and conserving water certainly in some of the United States and some of the western states, where that's a real huge issue. Sure.

The reality is, though, that that educational piece, leaving a sheet of paper on your pillow to say, 'do you want to throw your towels in the tub or leave them on the floor or hang them back up', that's not actually really taking it a step further and doing some educational experiences.

So I think one thing that I'm very I won't say bullish, but yes, I will say bullish on, and a lot of companies are looking at this more critically now, is food waste. And that's something that everybody can get involved in. But people don't understand the amount of waste that goes into a buffet. When you go and you might have one sip of a glass of orange juice and, exaggerating, you leave like a whole cup left and you take one sip. The amount of energy it took for someone to make that glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, ship the orange into the hotel, and then you drink it and you take one step and it goes in the trash. It's just a complete waste.

And so what a lot of hotels are doing now is looking at how much they put out, portion size. These are things that actually consumers, if you educate them on, again, properly, a lot of cruise companies are doing this. Carnation Hotels has a programme that looks at their food waste, as, do you Uniworld Cruises. There's some really interesting brands. And it's again, sometimes I think hotels don't do a good enough job of explaining that they're doing these things behind the scenes, because it might feel like that to the consumer. Oh, they're sort of cutting back. And to a certain degree that's true of some of the water conservation efforts as well. It feels like, again, it's a lesser then, but if there's more of an understanding and this is where a media comes in, if we do a better job of explaining to people, oh, there's a real reason why people are doing these things or companies are doing these things. It's because it's a better environmental practice - then I think the industry will just keep growing and rolling with it, and more hotels will start to do these things.

Robin Pomeroy: Another element might be single use plastics. Is that something that comes up as a as problematic for your readers?

Jacqueline Gifford: For sure. Everybody's looking at single use plastics. And honestly, listen, in the past 5 to 10 years, the amount of hotels that now offer water bottles and water stations, that's changed. And a lot of again, people might want to say, oh, is that really making a difference? But I say perfection is the enemy of progress. I think we've got to reward people for taking some steps. And it might not be perfect. It might not be, you know, the full things we want it to. Everybody has goals. But again, think back on, you know, ten, 15 years ago you never saw that.

And now the amount of hotels that are reducing the amount of plastics I go back to Rwanda is a really interesting example as a country that banned single use plastic. It held true. We saw, you know, everywhere. Every hotel had an aluminium water bottle. When you go into your trekking experience.

You know they've got a tiny country, a fragile environment, and plastics are bad and they've taken the step. They also have a community monthly cleanup effort where everybody, even the president, takes part in it. And I was like, wow, if we did that in the United States, think about how much cleaner and greener we would be.

And it has the buy in of the entire country, because, again, they know that if you have a healthier environment, it's going to support their tourism efforts and their economy in the long run.

Robin Pomeroy: And maybe this is part of what you were saying about the broadening people's horizons. If you're going from what is often a richer country like the United States, to a poorer country like Rwanda or even Costa Rica, there might be the arrogance of, 'you're not going to learn anything from these countries'. Whereas these, just like those two examples, are countries that have made huge strides when it comes to protecting their environment.

Jacqueline Gifford: I think you're right. I think sometimes we don't appreciate how, and I don't want to say underfunded, but certainly undereducated. You know, when we are here in the United States, I just read recently that New York City is thinking of adding climate change to the school curriculum here in the public schools, which is fascinating to learn. But when we look at the sort of arc of of some of our cities and infrastructure take a place like Singapore, they have incredibly green initiatives there. And there's so much globally.

And this is why tourism is important, because the more you travel, the more you see what other people are doing and how they've shaped their destinations and ecosystems. And we could take that and bring it back here to the US are certainly some of the things we're doing here could influence other destinations.

And that's really why to me, travel is important. I'm on a global listening tour as the editor in chief, and I love to go and travel and learn what other people are doing and see if this would work in the US, or could it work somewhere else, because it's really about uplifting people and making sure that we have a planet that is still that is still habitable and and safe and a clean environment. These are all things that everybody that everybody has a stake in.

Robin Pomeroy: Is there anything, trends for 2024 that you think you're excited about, either in ecotourism or just tourism generally?

Jacqueline Gifford: Tourism in general? One trend I'm very excited about, Robin, we have seen that, you know, there's this surge of interest in Asia, particularly in the US. And because it was the really the last place to open up, so many destinations there, I think are going to, you know, benefit from travellers coming back this year and whether it's Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia. So people are very interested in it and going and experiencing it. I call them sort of the it's the monument tourism or monumental tourism.

People are really interested in seeing architectural heritage sites, Unesco sites, because, again, there's this tension. Will they be still be here at some point? And I myself have benefited from seeing things. For example, I went to see al-Ula in Saudi Arabia in 2022, and it was one of the most remarkable experiences of my life to see these ancient structures from thousands and thousands of years ago. You have to walk away feeling completely changed. So I think that style of tourism is here to stay and is probably going to grow.

And then also outdoor travel, adventure travel, that's something that's held up, actually, since, you know, the pandemic, people really still are valuing their time in the great outdoors and nature. And that's important. Celestial travel, looking at the stars, that's something that people are really keen to do. And live events and music festivals.

That's another thing that we're looking to cover editorially, because people are just so excited to go to concerts and feel like they're part of a cultural moment.

Robin Pomeroy: That was Jacqueline Gifford, editor in chief of Travel + Leisure magazine. So, Maxim, she's talking about sustainability. Do you notice that sustainability concerns about sustainability have an impact on the trends that you're looking at in your job?

Maksim Soshkin: Absolutely. I think sustainability is one of those major challenges the sector is facing, especially in the coming decade. So, even the project that we're working on, we made a lot of revisions to the Travel and Tourism Development Index. It actually used to be called the Competitiveness Index. But before the pandemic, there was a lot of concern about overcrowding. That was a major issue in the sector, right? Places like Amsterdam, Venice.

Robin Pomeroy: Barcelona.

Maksim Soshkin: Yeah. People protesting tourism. Right?. So we decided to kind of develop sustainability index. We ended up we had a number of workshops and engagements with stakeholders, from governments to private sector to academia and international organisations that were kind of saying, okay, well, we want to have a competitiveness index and sustainability one, what would be in sustainability and what would be in the competitiveness Index? And what ended up happening was that everybody sort of said that these two things are not, you can't separate them, they are the same thing. So that's how we ended up changing the name and incorporating much more sustainability factors into the index.

Robin Pomeroy: That that takes us to our next interview with, a company. So private sector. This is Neil Jacobs. He's the chief executive officer of Six Senses Hotels, Resorts and Spa. They sound very. Have you ever been to a Six Senses hotel Maksim?

Maksim Soshkin: I actually haven't had the pleasure.

Robin Pomeroy: Well, you know, save up, save your pennies because he makes them sound very nice. And the reason we interviewed Neil Jacobs is because Six Senses, as well as running apparently lovely and high end hotels, is very engaged in sustainability. Let's hear from Neil Jacobs.

Neil Jacobs: Six senses has been around for probably close to 30 years. It was always and continues to be known for, predominantly resorts. And, I've never been frightened of going to remote areas and places that, you know, a little more difficult to get to and generally quite beautiful and kind of scattered around the world today.

But, the group started very much as a resort group in Southeast Asia. And the main value set of the brand is really based around sustainability. And the group and the founders of the company, who were very much engaged in sustainable practice from day one. And that was long before people we're talking about sustainability.

So we're very well known for where we are and the value sets of wellness and sustainability and experiences and, you know, interesting stuff to do when you're there.

Robin Pomeroy: So tell us about this plastics initiative, you're a signatory of the Global Plastics Initiative. Could you just tell us in a nutshell, for anyone who doesn't know what that is? And then we can talk more specifically about what you're doing at your hotels.

Neil Jacobs: Well, it's kind of, semi government body, came out of Europe that is really focussed on sustainable practice. And in this instance in the reduction of single use plastic in all its aspects.

For us, even prior to being part of a kind of meaningful entity, we took a view going back about 4 or 5 years now, that we wanted to eliminate single use plastic from all of our properties, and this gave us an opportunity to really take a deep dive into the back of house and the supply chain aspects of the plastic products.

Every property we have allocates half a percent of revenue to sustainable objectives in the jurisdiction where those hotels reside.

So plastic was one of those group objectives whereby we went out to all our executives and said, this is what we're going to do, this is how we're going to do it. First thing that was done was an inventory of every single piece of plastic was taken in every hotel. At the time we did it, we probably had 16, 17 hotels, today we have 25. So this inventory was taken. We engaged Swiss Hotel School to help us. And every three months, every six months we we took a look backwards. We we tracked it. We were tracking numbers. We made, you know, almost a competition out of it between all the different properties and, you know, general managers of hotels generally very competitive. So that was a good thing.

To give you an example, we worked in, as Isay, remote destinations. So, you know, in a remote island in, in Thailand, you know, the fisherman would always show up in the morning with his catch from the night before, and they would all be sitting in, in a plastic crate or worse, perhaps using this styrofoam crate. So it was also about how do you, in these kinds of environments, manage that supply chain, because this fisherman has been doing that for all his life and just doesn't see what the issue is.

Also, we would go into kitchens and say to our very eloquent, very highly trained executive chefs, you know, that they can't cook sous-vide anymore, which is where you put the the filet-o-fish right in the plastic bag and steam it. And it's very nutritious. And, and you know, they would look at us in absolute horror. What do you mean? You know, this is really good. I said, well, firstly, it's not that good because you're getting microplastics in the food, like it or not. And secondly, how did you cook before there were plastic bags? So let's find the right way to do it.

So these were some, you know, a couple of the challenges that that we were faced with. And it took a couple of years before there was really good traction in those.

So middle of '23, we we looked at where we were and what was left. And we took that major, major inventory again. And, pleased to say that we probably reduced overall by about 65- 70%. Was was not 100%, but it was still a huge amount. And we found that the majority of what was left could be classified into about 18 items.

Robin Pomeroy: So which were they? What are the hardest things to eliminate. Can you give us an example?

Neil Jacobs: Probably the worst offender was the Nespresso pod. So we found alternatives to that pod, in a way more sustainable one, done with with cardboard as opposed to the plastic. So that came down considerably.

Fortunately, given our view on sustainability, we've never, ever used little plastic bottles or shampoo and conditioner. I think in our case, and our advantage in some ways, is that we had been practising these kinds of initiatives for so long, and even before it became the politically right thing to do. You know, we had people that that worked at Six Senses that were believers ten, 20 years ago. And so it's really very, very much embedded.

Robin Pomeroy: So you, you say it's embedded kind of in the DNA of the brand, and it's pushed by members of staff keen on this idea. I wonder also is it a selling point? Do you have any evidence that your customers want this and they would be disappointed with you if you weren't delivering it?

Neil Jacobs: Yeah, we have plenty of evidence and that shows up in perhaps the high level of business that we benefit from.

And, you know, the sad part is it is it's not for everyone. There are people that still today don't really care about it. But the good news is very much that the train has left the station. Certainly the younger generations care a lot more about it than older people. Our employees care about it. But, it's changing, so that's gratifying.

Robin Pomeroy: You're running luxury hotels. Your customers are high-end customers with a lot of money to spend. And perhaps you can afford to do this. Could this go through the whole sector? There's a risk that the greener, more sustainable tourism becomes the luxury add-on for those who can afford it. Do you think there's any way of greening the broader, wider tourism sector?

Neil Jacobs: We definitely think so. And I mean, you're right in what you say, it's a little bit the same around wellness too. So it's how do you almost, you know, democratise it.

And, you know, I don't think that's about how much money you earn or not. It's about a point of view. It's how are we contributing to the jurisdictions where we build hotels, without just saying, oh, we provide employment, we do this. All of which is true. But how do we take that step further?

And it needn't cost. You can do plenty in a $200-300 a night hotel, doesn't have to be $1,000 a night to touch somebody's heart and have them participate in green initiatives. It needn't cost more to engage. And to us, it comes back to a culture of sustainable practice.

Because it's easy to say, oh, we can't do this or we can't do that. It's way more difficult to be having some impact.

To your point, though, about how do other groups do it? We are putting the final touches on the 'how to' document, discussing internally as to making it a very open source kind of initiative and sharing it with industry.

You know, we have put five years of graft into it. And although we think it, on a commercial level there's a little bit of a competitive advantage by doing that, the most important is that as many people as possible fight the fight, so to speak.

Robin Pomeroy: So you said you'd achieved not 100% of the goal of plastic waste. So, you know, where where do things go from here? What are your priorities now when it comes to this kind of green agenda?

Neil Jacobs: We're now, like many, focused on carbon and carbon reduction and, you know, looking at alternatives to just carbon offsets.

We've always looked at how we build. In many places we desalinate, we bring in seawater and we have the equipment to to do that. You know, we don't as a brand, for example, you cannot buy at a Six Senses a bottle of Perrier or, an Evian. You know, we will not get water around the world. Nothing to do with plastic because even in glass bottles, we won't ship it around the world. So all of our hotels during the construction, in the development phase, pretty sophisticated reverse osmosis plants where we're making our own still water and and sparkling water basically on site. And all the proceeds from that water go to a water charity, predominantly a local initiative, conservation of water, preservation of water.

Robin Pomeroy: You have a mangrove conservation project somewhere. What's that?

Neil Jacobs: We do. We have a number of hotels that have original mangroves.

The next hotel that we open the first week of April is in the Caribbean, on the island of Grenada. And we have active mangrove swamp there.

You know, the other thing that we do as a brand, we grow a lot of our own food. Every Six Senses has an organic garden. In Oman, we have a farm. We're growing a huge amount of food for consumption within the hotel. We have the same in Ibiza. We have animals, you know, we have chickens. We do organic eggs. We have goats. We have, depending where we are in the world.

So when I talk about culture and DNA, all this stuff is there. And, and local management spend a lot of time thinking about how to continue to raise the bar around sustainability and wellness. I mean, every hotel has a director of sustainability, which again, is is very, very unusual. Often it's just, you know, the general managers assistant that would run a monthly green team. And what are we doing. We're washing, you know, the towels. Are we washing dishes. All of which is regardless of the motivation, it's not a bad thing, right? It's not a bad thing.

But at least with a sustainability director that sits on the executive committee of the hotel, so they have an equal voice to the food and beverage, had the rooms head. And, you know, it's almost keeping everybody honest. It's like sustainability police force. And they touch every single department.

So when I you know when I talk about part of the culture, this is kind of how it manifests itself in a from a day to day perspective.

Robin Pomeroy: Neil Jacobs, CEO of Six Senses Hotels.

So he gave us an array of areas. Sustainability is so many things, you know, getting rid of plastics, reducing energy consumption or moving to renewable energies. There's also, you know, you've got to take a plane to a place like that - thinking about the greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.

It must be nice to be a tourist and to be able to think, you know, I'm contributing to the local economy. I'm expanding my mind. I'm having a lovely time. But also saying to yourself, I'm not damaging the Earth too much. You know, we always have a footprint, but I wonder if it's a bit of a luxury. Is is sustainability kind of a high end add on, do you think? Will mass tourism become more sustainable?

Maksim Soshkin: I think there's definitely ways to make tourism more broadly sustainable.

Obviously, I think it's definitely easier in the luxury segment to make things sustainable because it could sometimes increase costs.

If you look at things like, the preservation of nature, the sector fees for things like safaris or entrance to national parks, they bring hundreds of millions of dollars to preservation efforts in Africa. And often that's how many national parks get their funding. That's something that's sustainable, or helps, at least in the building preservation of nature.

Then, we look at the ability for some destinations, and, I think this is definitely for more richer cities and areas to implement, at least right now, which is the application of a big data. And, combining that with real time information to manage the flow of tourism.

So I think one of the problems we have for things like overcrowding, either in nature areas or in cultural sites or in the centre of cities, is that people tend to say, okay, I want to go to this one particular attraction, and everyone goes there and it's super crowded. You know, I remember I was in Florence one time, and I was looking at the dome. That's beautiful. But then the same time, I really can't help but realise I'm surrounded by like a thousand people. But, by providing people real time information, you might be able to change the flow of them. So, for instance, they've done tests, I think in Amsterdam, where they gave people were waiting on line to want to go to a particular museum, here is the waiting time again to this museum. People said, you know what? That's a little too long. I'll go on a less busy time. And then, you know, you're able to then manage the flow of people to less visited secondary destinations or to less visit the parts of a city you're able to both, at once the economic benefits of tourism improve the visitor experience. They get to feel safe going to necessarily more touristy areas. They get to go to more. They have more local experiences, which we find is something that more and more people want. And that reduces pressure on town centres and makes locals a little bit more, I think it has the potential, to reduce tensions with locals, especially in many areas.

So there's definitely things that can be done to make sure that this isn't just for the luxury market, but there's definitely a lot of room for improvement in those areas. We're still in the early stages. I would say.

Robin Pomeroy: One of the things you mentioned there was Africa and fees for visiting exceptional nature reserves. So that leads us to our final interview from the Global Future Council on Sustainable Tourism. This, we're going now to Kigali in Rwanda to speak to the Chief Development Officer for the Rwanda Development Board. This is Michaella Rugwizangoga.

Michaella Rugwizangoga: Yes. So my name is Michela. I am the chief tourism officer at the Rwanda Development Board, and I basically oversee the tourism sector in Rwanda as well as the brand. Visit Rwanda, which is one of our campaign, call for action that we have.

Robin Pomeroy: This podcast episode is about sustainable tourism. If I'm a tourist coming from anywhere in the world, what kind of sustainable tourism could I do there?

Michaella Rugwizangoga: Basically, our positioning in terms of tourism has been based on eco tourism. We offer a high end experience, but an eco tourism experience.

Our main tourism offer is the mountain gorillas. This is why most visitors actually come to visit Rwanda. And our country has been a champion of conservation over the past 30 years, since 1994, but essentially also since the last 20 years.

This year we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Kwita Izina, which is our baby gorilla naming ceremony, where every year we give a name to new baby gorilla born during the year. And to do so we invite conservationists, scientists, celebrities from all over the world to come and give a name to the baby gorillas.

The population of mountain gorilla, which was almost extinct 50 years ago, today we have 30% increase in the population. And all the programs around it are holistic and centred around conservation.

Robin Pomeroy: What would a tourist expect coming to Rwanda to visit the countryside, hoping to spot those mountain gorillas? Describe to someone who's never done that what the experience would be like.

Michaella Rugwizangoga: So Rwanda is one of the three countries in the world where you find mountain gorillas, and the experience is often described as life-changing and for really good reasons.

Your hike will take about between one hour or four hours, depending on where you find the family. The trackers working the park will guide you through the visit, and then you're allowed to stay with the family for one hour, observing them, observing their behaviour, seeing them move around.

Usually we have a group of eight visitors. People who have done it have said that it's incredible. I mean, the gorillas have a almost 98% DNA sharing with human beings. So to see that in real life is quite amazing.

And of course, the the Volcanoes National Park, which is the home of the mountain gorilla, is not the only attraction that we have. Visitors coming to Rwanda can also visit the Nyungwe National Forest, which acquired Unesco World Heritage status last year. They can also do a safari in the Akagera National Park, where you have the big five. Also in the Gishwati–Mukura park, observe the golden monkeys and other monkey species. So the experience is broad.

Robin Pomeroy: How ecological is it, do you think? Because surely if I was a mountain gorilla, I'd rather be left alone and not have to contend with, I don't know, Landrover trips of tourists from around the world. Is it really ecological, do you think?

Michaella Rugwizangoga: We have a limited number of gorilla mountain family. And for those who have followed the growth of the tourism offering in Rwanda, you've noticed that our ticket price to visit the gorilla is currently at $1,500. It's not a low price, but there's a reason why we put it at that price. We put it at that price because first we want to guarantee an experience.

We also reinvest the revenues from the national park to sustain the gorillas. And also we reinvest 10% of the revenues of the park in the community surrounding the the national park, which means building schools, building hospitals, building roads and so on and so forth.

This programme is called a tourism revenue sharing programme. It's been quite successful. We injected about $10 million in the communities, and that has proven to be life changing for the people living around.

So, it's not mass tourism. Here we really do look at the number of visitors who come, but we want to guarantee you an experience that is unique, but that is also meaningful.

Robin Pomeroy: What if this tourism didn't exist in this way? What kind of threats would there be to the natural environment, to those gorillas and to the forests? Where are the pressures coming from?

Michaella Rugwizangoga: A couple of years ago, a lot of them, people who are now rangers, were poachers, they would actually kill the gorillas to sell to whoever wants pieces of their bodies for whichever reason.

But today, the former poachers are now rangers. It's about earning a living. It's about dignity. It's about seeing changes.

I think what we've achieved here is an incredible balance between conservation and improving the life of the people.

Robin Pomeroy: The tourists that come, I'd be interested to know where they come from geographically, if you've got any kind of data like that, you can share. But is the fact that this is eco tourism and that does that add to the appeal? Obviously, people want to see these fantastic animals and this beautiful countryside. Presumably there's lots of other interesting experiences they can have in Rwanda, but are they also thinking, you know, I'm doing some good here as well, because I think there's sometimes a lot of guilt attached to tourism. In some cases.

Michaella Rugwizangoga: Yes, definitely. The visitors who come to Rwanda understand that them themselves are conservationists in a way, because they do good, and the revenue that they bring into the country are used for for positive reasons.

So the US is our first source of tourists. Then the UK. Canada and Europe come third position. And slowly, by slowly we see a growth in the African markets, essentially from Nigeria and South Africa. But our main source is really US, UK, Canada and Europe.

Robin Pomeroy: Is there something that you've learned by doing this that other countries could learn from? I wonder whether in your position people come to you and say, is there a model that you've produced that could be used elsewhere? Do you ever talk to your counterparts in other countries around the world?

Michaella Rugwizangoga: We often say that we don't want to give lessons to other countries, but if there's anything that can be inspiring, definitely we are ready to share. And we have a lot of cooperation projects with other African countries.

One essential things that we've done here in Rwanda, and which has proven to be successful, is to involve the local population from the get go, to have their buy in, to make them understand that the programme that the government is putting in place, the decision to develop tourism, the decision to develop, whether it's leisure tourism or conference tourism, it has to be done hand in hand with them. They are the prime actors, but also the prime beneficiaries of this development.

And I think we've been able to achieve that really well because our system is decentralised and very inclusive, and that has worked really well.

Another example is cooperation with other African countries. When we did the rewilding of the national Akagera park, where we have the big five, we were supported by South Africa. So we were able to introduce white rhinos in Rwanda from South Africa. We introduced lion from South Africa. And this cooperation, this Pan-African cooperation, is also very important.

So I think the message here is for African countries, it's also that working together we can achieve so much. We can reshape our tourism product, we can improve our tourism product by working together. And that's key.

Robin Pomeroy: So if you had to convince someone, I'm sure the little convincing, what would you tell them? Maybe apart from the gorillas and the big five, what what would be fascinating to someone who's never been to Rwanda or that part of Africa?

Michaella Rugwizangoga: Rwanda's best kept secret, I like to say, our weather. We are known as the country of eternal spring. Really good soft weather for you just starting for your first day in Africa. It's really a smooth landing. It's clean. It's safe.

We have a rich history, part of our history. It's difficult, but still a rich history that we we are sharing with the world. Lots of museums and cultural spaces to visit. Artistic life is vibrant.

Today we come also number two in Africa in terms of conference and event. And that means incredible events to to see from concerts to the NBA Basketball Africa League competition. Every year in May, we welcome the Africa NBA game. It's a week of entertainment, of, basketball, music and so on. Culinary as well. We do have some of the top chefs in Africa who have restaurant here in Kigali. And so if you are a foodie, this is the place, for you to enjoy. And then hiking, lots of hiking experience because we are known as the country of a thousand hills. That's what comes on top of the all the national parks.

And of course, also meeting the people you know and understanding. We are our history, the sense of resilience that Rwanda have because we've come from afar and we've achieved a lot in over the past 30 years. And so that also is what we want to share with the world.

Robin Pomeroy: So, Michaela, you've mentioned that Rwanda is a clean country. There's a couple of initiatives related to that you can tell us about.

Michaella Rugwizangoga: Yes, indeed. Rwanda's commitment to cleanliness and community welfare shine through its monthly Umuganda initiative.

Umuganda is a unique tradition that we have, which can be loosely translated as coming together for a common purpose. And what we do essentially is that every last Saturday of the month, we go in our respective communities, and we do community service. That goes from repairing a road to just cleaning your room or repairing part of a school in your neighbourhood, etc. and we do that every last Saturday of the month from 7:00 to 10 a.m..

And in addition to that, for the past ten years, Rwanda has banned plastic completely. So when you you shop in the supermarket, you're given a paper bag. If you reach the airports with some duty free bags, plastic bags, you will be kindly asked to leave them there and they will exchange the bag with, some eco friendly material.

So we are completely, fully dedicated to protecting our environment and being conscious of what it takes to to get there.

Robin Pomeroy: That was Michaella Rugwizangoga, chief development officer for the Rwanda Development Board. So, Maksim, in your report, do you have facts and figures that would kind of speak to that subject?

Maksim Soshkin: Yes, I think that, you know, she talked a lot about, the gorillas and, national parks in Rwanda. And I think that actually brings up a very interesting angle for the travel and tourism sector.

So, as I mentioned earlier, high income economies accounted for 26 of the 30 top scorers right on the overall index. However, when it comes to natural resources, 21 of the top 30 in that category are actually low to middle income countries.

So it's clear that things like nature tourism are a good resource and have a lot of potential for the development of these countries. So if developing economies can leverage this potential and their heritage, their innate natural resource heritage, to drive investment into other enablers like infrastructure or even proving safety and security and training, that could translate into a very much more broader economic development of benefits, even beyond tourism, because, again, tourism relies on so many different segments and even manufacturers of cultural goods on small businesses. Over 80% of the tourism sector is made up of small and medium enterprises. And that's even greater if you include micro-enterprises, a lot of youth employment, a lot of women employment.

So the benefits, if it's properly managed, can be really great. And also, we found that thanks to new World Travel and Tourism Council data that on average, at least among the economies that we ranked, 33.2% of travel and tourism jobs are on relatively high wage segments when it comes to low to middle income states. So the benefits of tourism there are, so if you combine nature and tourism development, it could really, maximise the sector's potential for socio economic prosperity in the developed world.

Robin Pomeroy: Fantastic. I mean, there's so much in your report, the Travel and Tourism Development Index, people can find that online. There's links in the show notes to this episode. Maksim Soshkin, thanks very much for joining us on Radio Davos.

Maksim Soshkin: Thank you.

Robin Pomeroy: You can read the Travel and Tourism Development Index on the World Economic Forum’s website - links in the show notes.

Please subscribe to Radio Davos wherever you get your podcasts and please, if you can, take a moment to leave us a rating. And join the conversation on the World Economic Forum Podcast club on Facebook.

This episode of Radio Davos was presented by me, Robin Pomeroy, with editing was by Jere Johansson and studio production by Taz Kelleher.

Radio Davos will be back next week, but for now thanks to you for listening and goodbye.