Climate Change Tops Program on ITB Future Day 2007

The ITB Future Day, part of the ITB Convention Market Trends & Innovations program for 2007, which is scheduled for Wednesday March 7, will as usual be packed with sessions on a wide range of subjects of topical interest.

These will include an update of world travel trends in co-operation with IPK International, discussions on the future of travel demand and the ways in which suppliers will need to adapt to meet the changing needs of consumers.

The ITB Future Day’s highlight will undoubtedly be the planned early afternoon session on Climate Change and the fundamental challenges this poses for the travel and tourism industry.

Climate Change has become an increasingly hot topic for discussion over the past 12 months, with a number of new reports on the subject highlighting the possible negative impacts it may have on some tourism destinations and different market segments.

Lack of snow in many Alpine resorts over the recent Christmas and New Year holiday period drew attention to the problem, receiving widespread media coverage, since it resulted in a massive drop in business for many ski resorts. Other predictions for the short to medium term include sharply rising temperatures, an increasing number of wildfires, rising sea levels, beach erosion, and a further tightening of water restrictions.

And this is only for Europe. In other parts of the world, there will also be more powerful and more frequent typhoons and cyclones, coral reefs will be destroyed and some low-lying islands –such as in the Maldives- could simply disappear.

Reflecting the growing awareness within the industry and government bodies of the potential risks posed by climate change, the Brussels-based European Travel Commission (ETC) earmarked the topic in its publication Tourism Trends for Europe, 2006 as one of the key trends to monitor closely over the coming years.