In our effort to foster a collaborative approach within the tourism industry, we sought Knowledge Partners working towards the common goal of rethinking tourism as a force for good. We’re proud to have these esteemed Knowledge Partners to guide our journey to grow Sustainable Cities, and collaborate to inspire, educate and compel travelers to make better travel choices.
Tourism Cares is a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is dedicated to advancing sustainability within the travel industry by providing resources, education, and programming. We believe it’s in everyone’s best interest to support the destinations our industry depends on so that communities, travelers, and businesses can prosper. Tourism Cares works to mobilize the entire tourism industry to use its business as a force for good by uniting, activating, and inspiring all sectors to make a positive impact through travel.
The Center for Responsible Travel (CREST) is passionate about transforming the way the world travels. Their mission is to serve as a center of tourism knowledge, empowerment, and action for destination communities. They envision a world where travel benefits both people and the planet, fostering a sustainable, inclusive, and environmentally responsible future for all. They understand that irresponsible tourism can exacerbate pressing challenges, such as overtourism, climate change acceleration, inequality and poverty, and the loss of biodiversity and cultural heritage. They’ve developed a comprehensive 4-pillar approach to tackle these issues: applied research, destination stewardship, advocacy & systems change, and education.
Rooted is a solutions platform at the intersection of sustainable tourism, storytelling, and social impact. Rooted’s mission is to responsibly document, support, celebrate, and share sustainable travel-related initiatives that prioritize local communities and the planet – and to help others do the same.
Singular Places is a global travel planning and booking platform for travellers, looking for great journeys through unique, independent, and meaningful places. Their network of independent places and hosts, with impact at heart, is designed to help make travel better, and turn luxury travellers into meaningful explorers.
Founded and led by award-winning Ethiopian-American travel journalist, author and speaker Lebawit Lily Girma, Tourism Lens is a global storytelling and news platform focused on advocating for a more equitable tourism future—one that centers nature and host communities as key beneficiaries of travel. Tourism Lens also provides impactful examples and tips centered around sustainable, immersive travel, and features global sustainability leaders on the Tourism Lens podcast.
Peter Jordan
Peter, the founder of Gen C Traveller, is a tourism industry strategist, researcher and educator, with over 14 years’ experience in the global tourism sector. He takes fast-moving trends and controversial issues and distils them into insights that make sense and inspire people to take action. His past experience includes working for UNWTO Madrid, and supporting the research team at the Pacific Asia Travel Association in Bangkok. Today, Peter is based in Amsterdam.
Peter regularly analyses supply and demand trends and public policy issues in the tourism, travel, leisure, F&B and wellness sectors, and monitors the challenges and opportunities that these create for destinations, when faced with climate change, urbanisation, tourism growth and the need for social cohesion. Over the past years, he’s led complex projects that have produced ground-breaking recommendations for cities and nations on post-Covid-19 recovery, managing tourism growth, and sustainable tourism planning.
Catharina Fischer
Catharina Fischer is consultant and partner at Realizing Progress. She is currently helping numerous organizations and businesses in tourism with their digital and sustainability (SDG, ESG, common good economy etc.) considerations and strategies. In this context, she can build on over 15 years of experience in the industry as well as in the field of digital marketing and sustainability. Within the projects, she can revert to operational experiences from professional years at Fraport, Dertour or the German National Tourist Board and on the other hand on strategic and methodological knowledge from 7 years of consulting. In addition to her consulting work, she is involved in various industry think tanks and networks and deals with the measurability of sustainability.
