Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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Officials  in my Department have commenced work on a new national tourism policy which will place sustainability at the heart of tourism in Ireland going forward. A working group was established under the Tourism Action Plan 2019-2021 to review international policy and best practice in sustainable tourism and propose guiding principles for sustainable tourism development in Ireland. 

To maintain momentum on the sustainable tourism agenda, the working group prepared an interim action plan which I brought to Government late last year. The report identified a suite of actions that aim to promote sustainable tourism practices out to 2023. These actions are being delivered by my Department, the tourism agencies and the tourism sector. 

Driving climate action is a strategic priority for Fáilte Ireland and their aim is to drive change at the level of the business and the destination to ensure that tourism plays its part in reducing emissions. Measures include the development of a bespoke carbon calculator which will allow tourism businesses to measure and understand their carbon footprint, set targets for emission reductions and benchmark their business both with themselves over time and other tourism businesses.  

Understanding the imperative of a step change required at the level of the individual business, Fáilte Ireland has already designed a suite of tactical supports around food waste, water and  energy that provides businesses with the relevant and necessary advice and guidance to address imbalances and ensure that positive change can happen.  

Fáilte Ireland is working to produce a ‘Climate Action Roadmap’ along with a series of guides to explain sustainable tourism and in particular, to set out the areas of climate action required to reduce carbon emissions. It will focus on the priority areas including energy, water and food waste, explaining the terminology and providing practical tips and advice on how to start and progress the journey. A range of best in class case studies will demonstrate the net benefits to starting on the sustainability journey and a repository housing all the latest information and advice is also being developed. Fáilte Ireland plans to launch this later in 2022. 

I can also confirm that Tourism Ireland will create new sales and marketing opportunities for those sustainable tourism businesses that want to grow their international business. 

Measures such as these will shine a light on areas and destinations at home that are striving to be best in class in terms of sustainability and provide better access to information and tools for the tourism industry and visitors to practice responsible tourism. 

As we rebuild our tourism sector we will seek to realise Ireland’s ambition to be amongst the world-leaders in sustainable tourism practices and set out a path for a green transition of the tourism industry and our destinations to become a leading sustainable tourism destination.