Sustainability
Sustainability is no longer a niche issue. Politics, business and consumers have realized that in the future everyone will be called upon to use resources responsibly. To this end, the United Nations has outlined the Sustainable Development Goals, which are a set of 17 global goals for sustainability development. In turn, the Swiss Federal Council has pledged to make Switzerland climate neutral by 2050, assigning sustainability a central role in the new tourism strategy.
In 2021, Ticino Turismo pushed the accelerator on sustainability achieving Level II - Engaged of Switzerland Tourism’Swisstainable program. In February 2021, the national body launched the program with the goal of making our country "one of the most sustainable travel destinations" by 2023 through the involvement of more than 4,000 businesses and organizations. Ticino Turismo decided from the get-go to take the necessary steps to obtain the second level – this certification came in May of the same year. In addition to the launch of a new platform that showcases the region’s excellence in sustainability, an action plan was defined in collaboration with a leading company in the field that will allow Ticino to profile itself as a leading destination in sustainable tourism.
In order to obtain the Swisstainable label, we signed a declaration of commitment, and defined three goals to be achieved over the next two years. The first concerns the implementation of a decarbonization strategy that will will allow us to reduce fossil fuel consumption to zero. The second one closely touches the mobility of the whole canton and, in particular, the Ticino Ticket, with a commitment to ensure its long-term existence and fully digital. The third goal is the enhancement of communication to incentivize tourists and partners to have a more sustainable behavior.
Since 2019, Ticino Turismo has been on a path to decrease its Co2 emissions and has been offsetting its emissions through MyClimate.
It also collaborates with the Camera di commercio, dell’industria, dell’artigianato e dei servizi del Cantone Ticino (CC-Ti), which developed, in collaboration with the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) and the Dipartimento delle finanze e dell’economia (DFE) a simplified CSR report template. Ticino Turismo has prepared its own simplified CSR report as well as the self-assessment.
By joining various initiatives and collaborating with a variety of partners working in the field of sustainability, Ticino Turismo is committed to improving its sustainability and promoting a more sustainable tourism to its partners and visitors. Among these projects we find the collaboration with ProInfirmis, OK:GO and Claire & George, which allow to improve the tourism experience of people with special needs by providing support and necessary information regarding the accessibility of various facilities. Another collaboration carried out in the year 2022 is the one with BeSmart and 6 regional pilot partners. These businesses have been able to improve their sustainability and promote more sustainable tourism by identifying goals and introducing measures to change visitor behavior. At the end of the project, an interactive document now available to other tourism stakeholders to learn more about the issue and draw insights to adopt in their own businesses has been created.