Technical INSTO Webinar on: Water and Waste Water Management

All Regions
22 Jun 21

Tuesday, June 22, 2021 | 12 pm CEST /Zoom Session

Water is a key resource in tourism and services to tourists are heavily dependent on it. Water can become a constraint to sustainable development, a limit on tourist activities and an issue of conflict with local residents over allocation and pricing, in particular when water is a scarce resource. While new innovative water supplies can be difficult to obtain and costly (e.g. import, desalinization), conservation is one means to reduce or mitigate demand (e.g. recycling waste or grey water).

For measuring water availability and water conservation a variety of indicators exist, ranging, inter alia, from water use per capita per tourist to water saving and recycled waste and grey water, as well as pricing. In addition to these aspects, measuring the quality of drinking water and sea water are also aspects of interest for tourism and require relevant attention by destinations.

As with water also the management of waste water (sewage) is a key concern for tourism and requires relevant monitoring efforts. If not properly managed it can lead through pollution to contamination of its key resources -beaches, lakes, rivers- and can harm wildlife and natural resources and subsequently the destination. Indicators in this area range, among others, from measuring the percentage of waste water receiving treatment to the number of establishments participating in water conservation programmes.

Both monitoring areas- water and waste water management- keep being a major challenge for destinations.

The second webinar discussed experiences and lessons learned by some Members of the UNWTO International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories (INSTO) in the field of monitoring water and waste water management, both mandatory issue areas for them.

Watch the recording here

INTRODUCTION	Dr. Dirk Glaesser, Director of Sustainable Development of Tourism Department, UNWTO
PRESENTATION	Tourism Observatory of the Canary Islands, Spain Ms. Noemi Padron Fumero, Professor, Department of Applied Economics at Universidad de Laguna, Vice-Director of the Chair in Tourism CajaCanarias-Ashotel, Universidad de Laguna See Presentation Sustainable Tourism Observatory of Lake Toba, Indonesia Ms. Nurlisa Ginting, Head of the Monitoring Center for the Sustainable Tourism Observatory, Universitas Sumatera Utara See Presentation Alentejo Sustainable Tourism Observatory, Portugal Mr. Avelino Sousa, Hotel Manager and Environmental Specialist Advisor at Alentejo Tourism Observatory, Navarre Tourism Observatory See Presentation
GUEST SPEAKER	Mr. Vincent Giroud, Sustainable Development Manager, Suez, Spain See Presentation