Advancing regenerative and climate friendly tourism for sustainable transformation in the Hindu Kush Himalaya

About the workshop

The workshop aims to foster and promote regional dialogue and equip tourism stakeholders with the knowledge and tools to co-develop and implement strategies that promote regenerative and climate friendly tourism in the HKH region for its sustainable transformation.

The focus of this event is to showcase and disseminate recent progress in regenerative and climate friendly tourism policy frameworks, research and development cooperation, industry practices and identify common goals and opportunities to foster collaboration across the HKH region.

Objectives

• Understanding of regenerative and climate friendly tourism, the state of know-how and policy direction at regional, national and local levels.
• Sharing innovative approaches and best practices on co-developing and promoting regenerative and climate friendly tourism destinations, business and services.
• Sharing knowledge and tools to develop and implement strategies that promote research and development cooperation on regenerative and climate friendly tourism.
• Forging regional networks and collaboration to advance regenerative and climate friendly tourism.

Expected outcomes

• Policy alignment: Actionable recommendations and regional policy coherence for regenerative and climate friendly tourism.
• Knowledge and experience sharing: Practical tools and case studies to support advancing regenerative and climate friendly.
• Research and capacity building: Priority research areas and training plans for stakeholders.
• Regional collaboration: Strengthened networks and joint initiatives for long-term cooperation.

Target participants

The event will convene diverse stakeholders, including:

• Policymakers of regional, national and local levels
• CEOs and senior representatives of Destination Management Organisations (DMOs)
• Representatives from international organisations
• Academics, researchers, and heads of tourism and hospitality institutions
• Leaders and representatives from tourism industry associations and private sector
• Tourism students and young professionals and
• Media representatives

Background

Tourism is one of the most important priority sectors to bring desired sustainable mountain development in the 8 regional member countries (RMCs) of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. The RMCs recognize tourism as a transformative means to bring high economic growth through increased productivity and building tourism competitiveness. However, major long-term trends, brought by environmental and socio-economic changes such as natural resource scarcity, biodiversity loss and overtourism pose great challenges to the sustainability of mountain tourism. Changing climate such as warming Himalaya and resulting extremes, including cloud bursts, flash floods and drought serves as a threat multiplier, accelerating the risks to mountain tourism economies and communities.

Going forward, the future of tourism in the HKH region is not just about ensuring economic growth but also transforming the whole of the tourism system to become greener, inclusive and climate resilient. In doing so, countries must embrace regenerative and climate friendly (mitigation and adaptation) strategies and actions, focusing on health of the environment, societal/community benefit and bringing sustained economic growth.

Guided by the Moving Mountain 2030 strategy and tourism policies of respective RMCs, ICIMOD is committed to promote a greener, more inclusive and climate resilient HKH, in support of their mandate to address sustainable development agenda – Paris Climate Agreement, Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, Sustainable Development Goals, National Adaptation Plan (NAP) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and Gender and Climate Policy.