Interview: Geoffrey Lipman, World Tourism Organisation adviser

Wednesday, 04 Sep, 2002 0

The World Tourism Organisation is planning to raise $1m a year to finance research into how sustainable tourism can be used to alleviate poverty.

The WTO has had a strong presence at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg and now wants companies and governments to fund its new project STEP – Sustainable Tourism – Eliminating Poverty.

Speaking to TravelMole from South Africa, WTO adviser Geoffrey Lipman (left) said $1m could fund 20 small projects which would benefit local communities.

“We want to look at what can be done to help alleviate poverty,” said Lipman. “We don’t want bland academic research, we want specifics.

“As an example, every company which builds a hotel in Mauritius has to donate $1m into local projects. Now we want research into how that is working, if it is really benefiting local people. Then we can ask if that project can be extended to other areas.

“Another example is that people talk about staying in black townships in South Africa. But when that happens, is that money going to help that township or is it going to a tour operator? We need to know these things.

“If we can raise $5m over five years we could have 100 projects and then companies can pick up the principles from the research and use them.”

The WTO is committed to promoting sustainable tourism, which Lipman described as tourism that is “beneficial to the places visited in economic, ecological and social terms.”

Lipman admitted that it was an uphill struggle to get tourism on the agenda at the Earth Summit.
“Tourism is periphery to this conference, we can’t pretend otherwise,” he said.

“But it is more important than it was at the last conference, in 1992 at Rio. At least here there are a lot of tourism ministers around. There are ministers from Jordan, Cambodia and Mauritius, all of which rely on tourism.”

Global tourism has grown from 25m international arrivals in 1950 to nearly 700m in 2001 and over 1bn arrivals are predicted by 2010.

“If you look at the world’s developing countries, almost 80% have it as their primary foreign exchange earner,” said Lipman. “It is their primary employment and investment earner.”

Read our previous stories:
30-Aug-2002 Sustainability heads Environment Day at WTM
28-Aug-2002 Wish List for WSSD, by Ron Mader
26-Aug-2002 Green Globe to launch new Responsible Tourism website
26-Aug-2002 The Cape Town Declaration: Responsible Tourism in Destinations
25-Aug-2002 Progress made on poverty elimination with launch of ‘Step’
14-Aug-2002 WTO to discuss tourism’s contribution to poverty alleviation at WSSD

See previous TravelMole Interviews:
26-Aug-02: Jo Rzymowska, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts
20-Aug-02: TravelMole Interview: Peter Shanks, senior vice-president, Cunard Line
13-Aug-02: Tom Allen, The Theme Park People
05-Aug-02: Chris Kroeger, Sabre
30-Jul-02: Chris Mottershead, TUI UK
23-Jul-02: Seamus Conlon, Airtours Holidays
15-Jul-02: David Soskin, cheapflights.co.uk
09-Jul-02: Bruce Bishins, Genesis TDS
01-Jul-02: Howard Frost, Travelink
25-Jun-02: Rob Wortham, RWA
17-Jun-02: Paul Blackney, Worldspan
11-Jun-02: Mark Jones, Online Travel Corporation
27-May-02: Oliver Hillel, UNEP
20-May-02: Keith Webber, Telewest
13-May-02: Mark O’Brien, Rosenbluth International
07-May-02: Alicia Gardner, Sabre
29-Apr-02: Carolyn Ezzell, Delta Air Lines
23-Apr-02: John Davis, Pegasus Solutions
15-Apr-02: Gregory Hunt, ABTA Arbitration Scheme
09-Apr-02: Stuart Winter, Atinera
03-Apr-02: Roberto Da Re, Dolphin Dynamics
26-Mar-02: Arnaud Debuchy, Amadeus
19-Mar-02: Helen Baker, Lastminute.com
12-Mar-02: Pat Minogue, Galileo
07-Mar-02: Jon Hart, MyTravel
28-Feb-02: Lawrence Hunt, Rapid Travel Solutions