A Platform for Government Engagement

As the trusted voice in Travel & Tourism, WTTC is a unique platform for governments to engage with businesses to jointly shape the future of Travel & Tourism and ensure its long-term competitiveness, inclusivity, and sustainability.

We participate in high-level governmental events and actively engage in multi-stakeholder dialogue with federal, regional and city governments to achieve sector-wide alignment; ultimately ensuring that Travel & Tourism remains a strong sector, for government, businesses and the local communities alike.

To inform public sector decision-making, WTTC continues to produce robust research, insightful thought-leadership reports, from crisis readiness to Destination 2030, as well as quantifiable best practices ranging from security, workforce development, and the promotion of destinations to sustainability, destination stewardship, and infrastructure. These include:

• Destination Stewardship
• Best Practices Enabling Growth
• Travel Policies during the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 Pandemic

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been working with Governments to help the sector recover and have been asking for coordination between governments.

Collaboration with the G20
On 7 October 2020, history was made as the G20 Tourism Ministers, under Saudi Arabia’s leadership, hosted more than 45 CEOs and WTTC Members, who presented a plan to save the ailing Travel & Tourism sector and 100 million jobs globally. Past crises have demonstrated that the G20 is the best platform for international collaboration.

During their G20 Chairmanship, Saudi Arabia requested the collaboration of the Travel & Tourism private sector in developing a path to recovery. In response, WTTC’s Members developed and presented a concrete plan aimed at restarting international travel.

G20 Indonesia 2022
As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, Travel & Tourism experienced an existential crisis. Today, the industry is recovering and working together to create a brighter future.
During the Indonesian Presidency of the G20, ministers and WTTC members met in Bali to discuss how this could be achieved.

Achieving destination stewardship

Destination Stewardship is essential for futureproofing Travel & Tourism and making destinations better places to live and visit.

WTTC believes that Travel & Tourism should and can contribute positively to the communities upon which it depends while protecting cultural and natural heritage.

In 2021, alongside several partners, WTTC released a report focusing on “Achieving Destination Stewardship through Scenarios & a Governance Diagnostics Framework”. The report presents four Destination Stewardship scenarios based on different levels of engagement from the public & private sector and provides a framework for assessing the governance model in place to serve to support destination stakeholders in assessing their current context and the pathway towards greater stewardship.

Best practices

Despite the sector’s ability to be a force for good, best practices across Travel & Tourism are not readily available for both the public and private sector, often compelling governments to unnecessarily re-invent the wheel.

In this context, the World Travel & Tourism Council has embarked on a journey to compile quantifiable best practices across Travel & Tourism to equip the sector with a wealth of insights that will in turn enable, both the public and private sector, to learn from the successful experiences of other countries as they develop, review and implement Travel & Tourism related policies.

This initiative is an ongoing effort on the basis of desk research and interviews with the government, integrating quantifiable success stories as they become available in our online repository.

Travel policies during the COVID-19 pandemic

Our latest report highlights policies and practices that have effectively enabled Travel & Tourism and helped safeguard jobs in the wake of COVID-19. The policies and practices include:

• Facilitating Travel: highlighting examples of governments that have implemented practical policies to aid this; from funding the repatriation of nationals and rolling out vaccinations swiftly, to encouraging leisure travellers to return with visa facilitation, complementary COVID-19 insurance, and less stringent border entry conditions.
• Worker Protection: examining job retention schemes designed to protect people’s jobs and pay their salaries with help from the government, and the training and re-skilling schemes aimed at equipping individuals with a new skills catalogue to prepare them for future roles.
• Liquidity: highlighting the more notable and generous measures applied to support these businesses.
• Fiscal: highlighting some of the more effective tax and fee exemption measures that helped Travel & Tourism businesses in particular.
• Other Measures: highlighting measures that were not fiscal or liquidity support. Indeed, a number of governments also used the decreased numbers of people in key areas to deliver pre-planned infrastructure upgrades which benefit the recovery of Travel & Tourism.