SUSTAINABLE TOURISM is defined by the UN World Tourism Organization as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.”
Despite the pandemic, overseas travel appears to be a popular activity, with many German adults travelling to multiple destinations.
With travel restrictions easing and more countries opening up for international visitors, we need to make destinations safe for children.
While majority of German adults we surveyed based their travel decisions on the overall quality of the destination itself, almost 20% of young audiences aged between 18-34 years old took child protection and human rights standards in a country into consideration.
While nearly two thirds of all German adults consider ‘environmental protection’ as the defining characteristic of ‘sustainable and responsible tourism’, almost half of the adults consider child protection from sexual exploitation as an equal co-principle of sustainability.
1 in 3 adults believe that travel companies have a responsibility to conduct their businesses ethically by actively taking steps to protect children from sexual exploitation.
In addition to implementing environmental initiatives, half of the German adults surveyed ranked protecting children from sexual exploitation as a top priority.
20% of German respondents also think that all German travel companies should have a legal duty to train tourism professionals to report suspected child sexual exploitation and abuse cases.