International Maldives Travel Market (IMTM) has announced that this year’s Sustainable Tourism Forum (STF) will be held at the Manhattan Business Hotel in Male’.
The Maldives tourist industry's stakeholders can communicate with one another on topics related to the social, economic, and environmental sustainability of the industry through the IMTM Sustainable Tourism Forum. With this forum, IMTM hopes to inform and motivate the tourism sector as a whole to transform the Maldives into a truly sustainable travel destination.
The forum, which will be held on December 3 and 4, will ask the question and discuss the topic “What is Sustainable Tourism? Interpretations and Discourses of Sustainable Tourism in the Maldives.” Platforms like the IMTM Sustainable Tourism Forum are crucial given the susceptibility of the Maldives to the negative effects of climate change and the unprecedented growth of the Maldivian tourism industry. The STF is intended to serve as a forum for the exchange of knowledge and experiences about innovative sustainable tourism practices, coping with climate change, and strengthening the industry's and the Maldivian community's resilience. Its objective is to advance knowledge of the scientific factors driving climate resilient development while pointing out potential investment opportunities and ways to improve the Maldivian people's standard of living.
The STF 2022 aims to broaden its scope by providing a forum for discussion as well as a way to design and develop guidelines for sustainable tourism in the Maldives and to produce knowledge-based goods that will advance people's understanding of sustainability in the travel and tourism industry worldwide. Over the course of the two-day forum, there will be five sessions of the STF 2022. Speakers who have expressed interest in making a presentation on their company's sustainability activities will be chosen among the registered participants.
These five sessions are Concepts, trends and policies relating to sustainable tourism, Sustainability in practice, Group work, Group work (continued), Synthesizing, in that order.
Given the complexity of the Maldives tourism industry, different participants have very different definitions and understandings of what a "sustainable establishment" is, and so as a result, a fully natural island's sustainability practices are likely to be different from those of an island that was created by man.
Similar to this, it's possible that big resorts and smaller businesses like neighbourhood guesthouses take various approaches to sustainability practices. In light of current global trends, it is crucial to define, talk about, and debate the idea of sustainability in the tourism industry. To develop a shared view of what constitutes sustainable tourism in the Maldives and other small island nations, it is crucial that lessons learned about present sustainability practices are shared among broader stakeholders.
Finding criteria for sustainable tourism in the Maldivian context and determining how these might be duplicated among other small island countries will be a significant outcome of the STF 2022.
Through this forum, we hope to provide a precise definition of "sustainable tourist establishments" as well as a response to the question "What is Sustainable Tourism?", said IMTM.
In order to increase awareness and direct everyone toward a more sustainable path, IMTM will also compile a comprehensive written report on the conversations held throughout the STF 2022 and submit it to the government, relevant groups, and other parties.
The IMTM appeals to the sector to join them in building networks that will encourage creativity and teamwork in order to boost sustainable tourism. This is a forum created to encourage communication between important figures in the Maldivian tourist sector, global partners, the government, and the local people.
