If we do nothing there will be no tomorrow: Report of the CBTC | ATLAS Industry Day

Opening statements

Jorrit Snijder strongly supported the theme of Industry Day, Sustainable Transformations in Tourism & Leisure: “We want our students to become change makers for the future. When they leave us, in addition to knowledge of the industry, they must also have a lot of knowledge of sustainability.”

Hildegard Assies was proud of Breda, which is the sixth most visited city in the Netherlands. While many tourist attractions would prefer to see fewer tourists, Breda is clearly in a different position: “We have a goal of growing by 5% per year.” Yet a change is also imminent in Breda. “We are now talking to our stakeholders and residents and talking to them about the shift from tourism to leisure.” And with more attention for residents, they are already busy. This is evident from the Improve Breda project where they want to involve residents of the suburbs more in the city.

With his Center of Expertise, Menno Stokman is strongly committed to cooperation between knowledge institutions and the professional field: “As knowledge institutions, you must understand the drivers of the industry to bring about change. A good example is the sustainable vision for the Dutch travel industry that we have developed together with scientists and members of ANVR.”

Tara Duncan also sees that collaboration is essential: “The road to a sustainable industry goes step by step and, above all, together. For us, the United Nations SDGs are the guiding principles on the road to a better future.”

Keynote Frank Radstake: Towards a future-proof travel sector

Frank Radstake, now director of travel industry organisation ANVR, gave the keynote 'On our way towards a futureproof travel industry'. Its members organise no fewer than 4 million outbound trips every year and are a significant factor in the Netherlands. To help the sector and its members in the sustainable transition, he has asked for help from CELTH. “We hired CELTH because of their knowledge and because a sustainable vision of the travel industry cannot only come from the sector but must be scientifically substantiated.” For Radstake the travel sector cannot wait to start the sustainable transition. But like his colleagues in other countries, he still has many questions: “Should we fly less, offer other destinations or change our business model?” There are also difficult questions surrounding aviation: “Why do we have to change if aviation is doing virtually nothing and is growing spectacularly in other parts of the world?”

Despite all the challenges, Radstake is a cheerful person and very happy to be working in this sector: “We make one of the nicest products in the world and it is great to work in it. But when it comes to birthdays, we must explain more and more. There are discussions about growth, about climate, about advertising, you name it.”

The major challenges do not stop Radstake from working in the right direction. “It's always small steps. Not by compensating, but by effectively making less climate impact.”

The ambition that ANVR has developed together with CELTH is certainly not an endpoint. “It is an ecosystem multi-stakeholder approach. This requires that everyone in our supply chain cooperate. We need the right data for this so that we develop in the right direction.”

The starting point of the collaboration with CELTH was the international report 'Envisioning Tourism in 2030 and Beyond' that experts from CELTH developed together with, among others, the Travel Foundation and the NBTC. “That report also offers scientifically substantiated opportunities for tourism growth. That is a very nice perspective because there is a great demand for tourism worldwide.” But growth with a direct reduction in emissions.

ANVR, together with its members, embarks on a sustainable journey with six so-called guiding principles:

1. We must take responsibility now.
2. We act for a social, fair and equal travel industry.
3. We show leadership and set an example for the entire value chain.
4. We are transparent about our progress and honest with customers.
5. We work inclusively and cooperatively.
6. We participate in a broad social movement.

The dot on the horizon is that the Dutch travel sector will be net-zero by 2050. “Then all our trips are 100% socially and ecologically sustainable.” ANVR cannot do this alone. “We need the European Union to make sustainable mobility solutions more accessible.” The first intermediate step is 2030: “We want to achieve a significant reduction by 2030.” This means that travel companies must work hard: “The big challenge is for a travel company to gain a good insight into making all parts of the supply chain more sustainable.”

In addition, making tourism at destinations more sustainable is extremely complicated: “Increasing sustainable tourism at holiday locations is difficult because they are not our destinations. We also don't want to raise the pedantic finger. If you want to change destinations, it is not about telling them how to do it, but about helping them do it.” Radstake believes that we must now take responsibility as a sector. Unfortunately, the consumer is not ready yet: Only 6% of Dutch people take sustainability into account when making a holiday choice. The most important factor when choosing a holiday is the price. We can't wait for travellers to take us in the right direction.

ANVR realised that writing down goals and guiding principles would not get the process started. They have therefore set up a so-called back-casting process together with CELTH. Reasoning from the end goal, they looked at what steps are needed to achieve that goal. “We have to do a million things,” said Radstake, who illustrated this with complicated and, above all, comprehensive illustrations. “There are many tasks and research questions that we must solve. It is, in fact, a major research agenda.” Radstake concluded with “Back-casting our way to a future-proof travel industry”.

Keynote Jos Vranken: New rules for a future of tourism

According to NBTC director Jos Vranken, tourism has lost its innocence and that is painful. This realisation came to Vranken and his organisation in 2018 when a new perspective on the Netherlands as a destination for 2030 was developed. “Not that it is a blueprint for all destinations, but it can be an interesting case.”

Vranken first had to explain NBTC's position to the international audience because the national DMO is not organised this way in every country. NBTC is a public-private foundation. “We stand between government and industry and are therefore the enabler between various stakeholders.” In terms of financing, 75% comes from the government and 25% from the market. Previously it was an equal share.

With Perspective 2030, the Netherlands has shifted its focus from a purely economic growth model to tourism as a means for the broad prosperity of all Dutch people. During the pandemic, there was hope for a tourism reset. “After Covid, we saw that people wanted to travel like there is no tomorrow. Private parties were again fully involved in a growth model, but public parties, on the other hand, wanted more control over the visitor economy. This meant that NBTC's earlier choice to place more emphasis on the public interest in its financing was a good one.

Vranken spoke at the Industry Day for Dutch Tourism about 'New rules of engagement':

• From economic goal to means for different goals,
• from sectoral interest to common interests,
• from economic impact to a net positive impact,
• from promotion to destination management.

This seems logical now, but in 2018 this was a complete paradigm shift. Yet the Netherlands is still in the middle of the transition. One of the pain points is indicators, for sustainable and social goals. “Without good indicators we cannot manage the new goals and the transition will not be achieved. We are now developing these new data, not only economically but also ecologically and socially.

Like Radstake, Vranken also sees that tourism is a composite product and that makes change difficult. “We need to better understand the interdependencies of the tourism system if we want to change it.” At the same time, tourism also needs other domains and that is very difficult: “If we as a domain cannot get our act together, how can we help other domains in their transition with the value that visits can provide?” The new mantra for Vranken is what visitors can add to destinations. “We must move away from the story of more visitors to all destinations. For some destinations, more visitors are a solution to maintain facilities, but for other destinations, more visitors only add extra pressure.” That is very difficult because the travel demand is so great that the only way is to convert the demand. “We must do everything we can to reverse demand, but growth will dampen many sustainable efforts. But if we don't do anything, there will be no tomorrow.”