From no-go areas on construction sites to emergency exits, ISO 7010, Graphical symbols — Safety colours and safety signs — Registered safety signs, prescribes safety signs for the purposes of accident prevention, fire protection, health hazard information and emergency evacuation.

It features the shape and colour of the sign as referenced in ISO 3864-1, Graphical symbols — Safety colours and safety signs — Part 1: Design principles for safety signs and safety markings, and the design of the symbol is according to ISO 3864-3, Graphical symbols — Safety colours and safety signs — Part 3: Design principles for graphical symbols for use in safety signs.

Mr Jan-Bernd Stell, Chair of the ISO technical committee that developed the standard, said lack of harmonization and standardization in this area could lead to confusion and accidents.

“International standardization of safety signs means everyone speaks the same language when it comes to safety. This provides a simple solution for everyone, both in workplaces and public areas like airports where many nationalities converge.

Examples of safety signs documented in the standard include everything from warnings around deep water, electricity or barbed wire to instructions such as ‘do not walk or stand here’, or to not use lifts in the event of a fire.”

ISO 7010 was developed by ISO subcommittee ISO/TC 145/SC 2, Safety identification, signs, shapes, symbols and colours, the secretariat of which is held by DIN, ISO’s member for Germany.

It is available for purchase from your national ISO member or the ISO Store.

1. First stop: The tourist office

When new to a city, often the first port of call is the tourist information office to make a plan of where to go and what to see. ISO 14785, Tourism information offices — Tourist information and reception services — Requirements, will help make such places more accessible for everyone, by considering things like getting through the door (the entrance and parking) as well as being able to access the information they distribute, taking into account hearing and sight abilities. It also recommends that tourist offices should assist those with disabilities get the most out of their visit, by providing a list of the best-accessible hotels, activities and adapted transport.

2. Accessibility at every step of the journey

Most, if not all, travel and tourism operators want to make their experience enjoyable and accessible to all clients, so a good place to start is ISO 21902, Tourism and related services — Accessible tourism for all — Requirements and recommendations. These internationally-agreed guidelines and recommendations are aimed at helping them improve their current accessibility provisions, covering information on everything from policy making, strategy, infrastructure, products and services, it is relevant to the whole tourism supply-chain. It is applicable to all kinds of stakeholders including the public sector, urban and rural tourist spaces, accommodation, tour operators and more.

3. Beaches for all

When sun-and-sand is on the agenda, it is important that beach operators take into account the needs of those for whom accessibility to such places can be a challenge. ISO 13009, Tourism and related services —Requirements and recommendations for beach operation, highlights the importance of making beaches accessible to all. It outlines recommendations for the accessibility of beaches such as design of access ramps and boardwalks, as well as facilities on site including toilets, showers and drinking fountains.

4. Tourism for all the senses

For blind or visually-impaired travellers, universally-understood braille is an essential part of life. ISO 17049, Accessible design — Application of braille on signage, equipment and appliances provides requirements for braille used all over the world, enabling visually-impaired travellers access to information wherever they are. In addition, ISO 23599, Assistive products for blind and vision-impaired persons —Tactile walking surface indicators, helps them visit new places more easily and safely.

5. Accessibility in all standards

ISO takes the needs of people with disabilities very seriously. That is why it developed ISO/IEC Guide 71, Guide for addressing accessibility in standards. This advises ISO technical committees to take the needs and challenges of persons with disabilities into account in the development of standards, particularly those that focus on systems that people use, interact with or need to access. This means they are considered in standards that relate to anything that has an impact on their lives, wherever they are.

Looking for more travel titbits? You’re in luck! If you are prone to catching the travel bug, and your feet itch to discover new places, follow Cath’s journey on social media as she travels around the world looking for tourism standards from 10 July to 9 August.

“Hello world! I’m Cath! Today marks the beginning of my journey around the world! I’ll be sending postcards from every country I visit while looking for #tourism standards that support
👊 Sustainability
👊 Accessibility
👊 Safety
See you soon 😉”#TravelDiaries #TravelStandards pic.twitter.com/ubCVdmSN7z

— ISO (@isostandards) 10 juillet 2019

For those who care about our impact on the planet, who want to experience new thrills with no compromise on safety, and think that travel should be accessible to all, you’ll find the hottest standards and stories from our members around the world. 

Follow us: #travelstandards

1) UN World Travel Organization: Accessible Tourism

1. Sustainable accommodation 

One of the first considerations when planning a holiday is where to stay. But wherever you decide to lay your head these holidays, make sure it is doing something positive for the planet and its people.

ISO 21401, Tourism and related services — Sustainability management system for accommodation establishments — Requirements, helps accommodation providers do just that by reducing their impact on the environment, promoting social exchange and making positive contributions to their local economies.

2. Festival Fever!

Summer means music festivals, sporting events, open-air theatre and many other outdoor events that are good for both body and soul.

Thanks to ISO 20121, Event sustainability management systems – Requirements with guidance for use, which was used for the London 2012 Olympics, organizers of any kind of event can manage their operations in a sustainable manner. This includes such things as effective use of resources, upholding workers’ rights, and assessing impact the event has on the local community. A win-win situation for all.

3. Diving into clear waters

Planning on plunging deep into the sea this summer? ISO has a number of International Standards for recreational diving, including those for training programmes. The upcoming standard ISO 21416, Recreational diving services – Requirements and guidance on environmentally sustainable practices in recreational diving, for example, will help dive centres and services be kind to the aquatic environment. It features international best practice such as deterring divers from feeding or removing aquatic life, or how to operate boats in an environmentally-friendly manner.

It will be joined by ISO 21417, Recreational diving services — Requirements for training on environmental awareness for recreational divers, which aims to educate divers on the environmental impact of their sport so that they are in a better position to reduce the risks of harming our waters.

4. Off the beaten track

Looking to get back to nature? ISO 18065, Tourism and related services —Tourist services for public use provided by Natural Protected Areas Authorities — Requirements, helps the authorities of such nature hot spots as protected forests or conservation areas meet the needs of visitors while giving priority to their conservation objectives. Tourists can thus experience the natural environment while respecting it at the same time and learn more about the importance of conservation.

5. Sustainable adventures

Looking for a few thrills and spills when you travel? Adventure tourism is booming as tourists seek more challenging experiences. ISO 20611, Adventure tourism — Sustainability good practices — Requirements and recommendations, gives adventure tourism providers the guidance they need to minimize, or mitigate, the negative environmental, economic or social impacts of tourism and enhance the positive ones.

Looking for more travel titbits? You’re in luck! If you are prone to catching the travel bug, and your feet itch to discover new places, follow Cath’s journey on social media as she travels around the world looking for tourism standards from 10 July to 9 August.

“Hello world! I’m Cath! Today marks the beginning of my journey around the world! I’ll be sending postcards from every country I visit while looking for #tourism standards that support
👊 Sustainability
👊 Accessibility
👊 Safety
See you soon 😉”#TravelDiaries #TravelStandards pic.twitter.com/ubCVdmSN7z

— ISO (@isostandards) 10 juillet 2019

For those who care about our impact on the planet, who want to experience new thrills with no compromise on safety, and think that travel should be accessible to all, you’ll find the hottest standards and stories from our members around the world. 

Follow us: #travelstandards

1) UNWTO Tourism Highlights: 2018 Edition

The World Standards Day #futurevideo contest challenges entrants to imagine the future of video and capture it in a film of no more than 20 seconds.

Your video should illustrate a future scenario that imagines one of the many ways that video could impact our lives in the near or distant future.

The winner will be awarded a cash prize of 1,500 Swiss francs, and the contest’s three runners-up will each receive a prize of 500 Swiss francs. The winning videos will be decided by a public vote.

The deadline for submissions to the contest is 20 August 2019. Contestants are welcome to submit up to three entries.

Find the rules of the contest and details on how to submit your entry.

The contest’s Facebook page will provide interactive guidance to potential entrants throughout the course of the contest.

The contest’s Twitter account will announce key dates and point followers to relevant supporting information.

Video standards create a global stage

The #futurevideo contest is part of the build-up to World Standards Day, 14 October, which this year takes the theme: “Video standards create a global stage”.

World Standards Day, 14 October, is an international day of observance recognized worldwide since 1970. Coordinated by IEC, ISO and ITU, World Standards Day celebrates the collaborative efforts of the thousands of public and private-sector experts that dedicate their time and expertise to the development of international standards.

The innovation of recent decades has driven a huge leap forward in video quality. And video has also become more accessible, helping people worldwide to share their stories in vivid, moving pictures. These gains in both the sophistication and accessibility of video are built on International Standards.

The video compression algorithms standardized in collaboration by IEC, ISO and ITU have been honoured with two Primetime Emmy Awards, recognizing that these standards are central to industry’s ability to meet rising demand for video, one of the most bandwidth-intensive applications running over global networks.

Learn more about the theme from the World Standards Day 2019 message.

Paul Webster, 43, from Highbury, London, is a seasoned medical tourist who has travelled abroad for a variety of procedures over the last five years. These include cosmetic surgery in Thailand, a knee arthroscopy in India following a rugby injury, and a slipped disc in Cape Town, South Africa, where he spent his recovery time relaxing by the pool. Paul opted to go abroad for surgery as he was able to avoid a waiting list at his local hospital and the cost of treatment was around 30 % of the cost of private treatment at home. More recently, having struggled to find a good local dentist, Paul’s dental clinic is now in Krakow, Poland – a low-cost flight away.

It’s not something most people would choose to do unless they really had to. Illness, short or long term, is unpleasant and painful enough, but to travel whilst ill would, to many people, seem unconscionable. And yet, to many more, it is exactly what must be done. Quite simply, if an individual’s home country is unable, for whatever reason, to provide the requisite healthcare, why should they not seek it elsewhere? Medical tourism, as it has become known, is a booming and massive industry.

The organization Patients Without Borders estimates that “the market size [for medical tourism] is USD 65 to 87.5 billion, based on approximately 20 to 24 million cross-border patients worldwide spending an average of USD 3 410 per visit, including medically-related costs, cross-border and local transport, inpatient stay and accommodations”¹⁾. By any consideration, therefore, medical tourism is already a huge market and one that, in the short and medium terms, is only likely to grow.

Healthcare elsewhere

A word should first be said about what exactly is meant by the phrase “medical tourism”. Monica Figuerola Martín has been the Managing Director of Spaincares (the Spanish Health Tourism Cluster) for the last two years, as well as General Director of Tourism in the Government of La Rioja for 12 years; she also holds a PhD in tourism. As Convenor of working group WG 2, Health tourism services, of ISO’s technical committee on tourism (ISO/TC 228), which is developing the future ISO 22525, an International Standard for medical tourism, she is keen to draw a distinction between “medical tourism” and “touristic medicine”. At its simplest, the latter is “when someone is travelling and falls ill or has an accident and has to go to hospital”. She prefers the word “travel” because tourism is something more superficial – but when someone travels for medical reasons, they are not tourists, they are patients. The primary motivation is to travel for medical treatment not available in their home countries. Indeed, it is for this reason that Figuerola Martín would prefer to go even further and for the phenomenon to be referred to as “medical travel”, for the avoidance of any ambiguity at all.

So what are the most common conditions for which people become medical tourists? The short answer to this seems to be almost anything. Patients Without Borders publishes a long list of illnesses and conditions: from non-life-threatening cosmetic surgery and dentistry to cancer and reproductive care. And it is precisely because there are so many different treatments now on offer for so many different conditions that International Standards are so vital for the world’s medical travellers.

Another question closely related to this, of course, is why do people travel for medical care? The obvious answers are the high costs for treatment and lengthy waiting times for medical procedures in many countries, supported by easier and cheaper international travel. But these are not the only reasons. Some patients value the better quality of the medical infrastructure in certain countries and undergo measures that cannot legally be offered at home, such as fertility treatment for those who want children.

Sometimes, a particular country may have an excellent reputation for treatment of a certain condition and patients may even opt for a medical trial that is not taking place anywhere else in the world, let alone their home country. 

Sometimes the reason for travelling can be something as seemingly banal as the weather: many people find dialysis, for instance, much more comfortable when they can receive treatment beside the sea and under a sunny blue sky.

Staying safe

So what challenges does medical tourism face and how can International Standards help? Safety is without doubt the top priority. Most of the treatments under offer are very expensive and many countries propose various and varying medical treatments. However, this does not mean that every country is offering the same, let alone best, treatments. Safety needs to be improved along with protocols because as far as it is possible within the parameters of any given procedure, there needs to be a guarantee that the treatment is going to be successful, that the patient experience is going to be the best it can be.

More broadly, there is a huge number of stakeholders in medical tourism and the value chain for medical tourism is long and often complex. It stretches from the very first moment a company contacts a hospital to request a quotation to post-treatment when the patient goes home. There are very many critical points along the way and it’s important for certain countries to develop this kind of business – as long as it is undertaken in a very secure way.

Yosr Nefzaoui, Project Leader of ISO 22525 on medical tourism, is the manager of Tunisia-based travel agency SAFAR – a subsidiary of the Service Medical International Group (SMEDI) which has been operating in Africa since 2007 – as well as holding the presidency of the Medical Tourism Committee at the Tunisian Federation of Travel and Tourism Agencies. She points out that Tunisia is receiving many patients from North and sub-Saharan Africa where the healthcare systems are not meeting the needs of patients.

Tunisia’s current stance on healthcare is very impressive, in both the public and private sectors. A brief look at the statistics says it all: there are 115 health clinics, with 4 700 beds, 100 haemodialysis centres, 150 diagnostic X-ray centres, 232 laboratories for medical analysis, over 5 300 GPs’ surgeries, over 1 600 dental offices and nearly as many pharmacies. And yet it is probably fair to suggest that Tunisia does not have the reputation in healthcare in the same way that countries like Germany and Switzerland do. These two countries are renowned for being organized and efficient but there is no real reason why Tunisia, and similar countries, should not receive some recognition and that is where International Standards will bring so much benefit.

Keeping up with market needs

The first step in the development of an International Standard is to confirm the market demand and it has been long established that the number of people travelling for healthcare has increased dramatically in recent years. As a consequence, there has been a crying need to develop International Standards which define, at international level, the minimum quality requirements for the whole process. Medical tourism introduces a range of attendant risks and opportunities for patients, along with many stakeholders. ISO 22525, still in draft, but to be published very soon, will focus on intermediaries in the value chain where control is non-existent but where the risk is high.

To avoid any harm to the health of travellers, all players in the value chain should comply with certain requirements in order to limit the risks. International Standards will define the very broad range of requirements for various sectors concerned, from the organization of the stay by travel agencies to the quality of care delivered by the healthcare facilities.

In this case, the International Standards under development are focused on four areas:

• Pre-travel and pre-treatment process
• Treatment process
• Post-treatment process
• Return home and follow-up

Clinical excellence

For the end users, this standard aims to restrict the healthcare participants who do not respond to these norms, thereby limiting the risks and ensuring better care. Paradoxically perhaps, patients may often have little idea about the concept of “standards” and are probably unaware that they are required by health centres and other stakeholders. But it is for these centres that International Standards are so important because they are taking more and more patients from abroad. Centres of healthcare need certification, otherwise governments will simply refuse to recognize them. Medical excellence along with international accreditation are the key factors fuelling a majority of international patient flows, continually boosting international medical tourism.

Overall, standardization of the patient’s experience of medical tourism will improve the quality of care and patient safety as well as the satisfaction of the patient. This can be of great value not just to patients but to all stakeholders, and to all of us. And, as so often, the committees who draft and deliver International Standards are undertaking vital – and in the case of medical tourism, perhaps even life-saving – but invisible work.

 1) Patients Beyond Borders: “Medical Tourism Statistics & Facts”, (accessed April 2019)

Tourism creates jobs – lots of them. In fact, 1 person in 10 is employed in a tourism-related job. As travellers become more prosperous, and travel more accessible, it is estimated that the tourism sector could outperform the global economy over the next decade. It’s no surprise, therefore, that most destinations seek to expand their tourism sector for a larger slice of the pie.

The tourism industry is also important in building a culture of peace between countries and is ideally placed to contribute to many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) working towards a fairer, more equitable world. When it is well managed, tourism provides an incredible economic boost to host communities. Yet negative effects on the environment are inherent to the industry. With increasing numbers of travellers flocking to the same sought-after locations, resulting in overcrowding and stretched facilities, the emission of greenhouse gases, waste generation and degradation of local ecosystems are almost impossible to control.

For all the many destinations that have tourism strategies in place to help alleviate poverty and conserve their natural and cultural heritage, just as many world heritage sites, which are recognized by UNESCO for their outstanding universal value, have no adequate management plan to prevent the adverse impacts of tourism. This begs the question: can tourism ever be sustainable? ISO is working towards that end.

It all started on a peninsula…

The Sinai Peninsula embodies adventure tourism. Every year, millions of tourists flock to this triangular desert for its sunshine, famous coral reefs, and to trek within its mountainous interior. Martin Denison, a keen scuba diver, first visited the Sinai desert 40 years ago. He aimed for the Red Sea, a haven for divers because of its breathtaking coral reefs and captivating multicoloured fish. Denison made his passion for the deep a profession, as a trainer, instructor and dive leader. His work later led him into standards development, becoming the convenor of the ISO working group that developed 11 ISO standards for diver safety, training and dive centres. These standards have since become the lingua franca for divers and diving centres worldwide.

In recent years, Denison has headed a working group in ISO technical committee ISO/TC 228 for sustainable tourism to develop two new standards focused on sustainable diving. The numbers for Sharm El Sheikh – the small city at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula – vividly explain why we need these standards. “Forty years ago, there were just a handful of buildings there and three diving centres in the whole peninsula,” recalls Denison. Now Sharm El Sheikh is a city with an international airport, dozens of hotels and a population of over 70 000. “About 1.6 million divers and snorkellers visit Egypt every year and now there are around 300 diving centres,” he says. The Sinai alone boasts 141 diving centres, as well as some 130 liveaboard diving boats, to meet the demand for underwater adventures.

Scuba diving in the Red Sea on the coast of the island of Tiran is a tourist attraction in Egypt, where instructors are promoting diving techniques that preserve and protect coral reefs.

A deep dive into the world of standards

Diving, like any other outdoor activity, can have significant environmental impacts if not controlled. As the sport has increased in popularity, this in turn has highlighted the need for sustainability, or the diving sector will undermine the aquatic foundations that support it.

With that in mind, under Denison’s convenorship, a dedicated working group in ISO/TC 228, Tourism and related services, is busy preparing two standards for sustainable diving. The first standard, ISO 21416, Recreational diving services – Requirements and guidance on environmentally sustainable practices in recreational diving, describes what diving centres and services need to do to conserve and even enhance the aquatic environment. The standard includes several examples of best practice, such as how diving centres need to conduct activities (e.g. deterring divers from feeding or removing aquatic life) or how to operate boats in a way that does not damage the environment. For example, ISO 21416 specifies that boat pilots must use moorings instead of anchors, which can damage corals.

Snorkelling sites in Egypt are famous the world over due to the diversity and abundance of coral reefs.

The second standard, ISO 21417, Recreational diving services – Requirements for training on environmental awareness for recreational divers, is based on the premise that if divers are aware and understand the environmental impacts of diving activities, then they will be better placed to control them. So the standard describes how divers can either eliminate or minimize both potential and actual negative risks to the environment. It also formalizes the theoretical knowledge that instructors and divers need to receive before and during the dive, and will form the basis of training courses.

Additionally, the standard outlines the positive impacts divers can have on the environment, such as using their diving skills to clean up waste, take part in surveys of aquatic life and create artificial reefs. “We wanted to address activities that other standards did not cover,” explains Denison, “such as proper conduct of diving activities, like operating dive boats. The standard will also describe how to interact with aquatic life; for example, not collecting, hunting or feeding aquatic life,” he adds. Moreover, it will include measures for conserving heritage sites, such as wrecks and artefacts, which are popular with divers.

So how will diving centres and training providers apply ISO 21416 and ISO 21417? The Ministry of Tourism in Egypt, for example, employs a number of inspectors to assist diving centres in meeting the requirements of the many ISO standards for recreational diving. “The new sustainability standards will be no exception, as I am convinced that diving operators are well aware that tourists are much likelier to return to an intact, pristine underwater environment than to one that has suffered from bad practices,” emphasizes Denison.

The working group developing ISO 21416 and ISO 21417 has been widely represented. “We have had representatives from training organizations, diving centres, the consumer protection sector, marine biologists and other scientists. We were also happy to have the professional input of a United Nations Environment Programme group called Reef-World, which developed the Green Fins standard for responsible diving near coral reefs. They were very positive about the final drafts,” he enthuses.

Eco-friendly retreats

Like many holiday destinations, the settlements of the Sinai Peninsula have grown rapidly into large resorts. All these buildings can have significant environmental, social and economic impacts. For this reason, at the end of 2018, ISO published ISO 21401, Tourism and related services – Sustainability management system for accommodation establishments – Requirements, a new International Standard that helps the hospitality industry reduce its impact on the environment, promote social exchange and make positive contributions to local economies. This standard is based on the same High-Level Structure now applied in all ISO management standards, such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, meaning it can be easily integrated into any existing ISO management system.

So what prompted its development? The answer lies across a continent and an ocean to the west of Sinai. In the early part of this century, there were growing concerns about the negative impacts that the tourism sector, especially hotels, could have on the environment and society in Brazil. Alexandre Garrido, the Convenor of the working group that developed ISO 21401, takes up the story. “ISO 21401 was built based on Brazilian standard ABNT NBR 15401, which the Brazilian hotel industry has applied since 2006,” he explains.

“In 2003, we launched a project to look at sustainable tourism and decided to start with hotels. We formed a wide-ranging group including travel specialists, representatives from the hotel sector, trade associations, NGOs, communities, government and agencies, deciding to approach sustainability through management systems,” explains Garrido. The working group considered best practices, embedded these within a management system structure and the result was ABNT NBR 15401.

The Brazilian standard was so successful that ISO/TC 228 adopted it as a basis for the new ISO standard. The aspects covered by ISO 21401 include biodiversity, energy efficiency, conservation, waste management, effluents, emissions, water use, resources, work conditions, cultural aspects and the needs of native populations. “ISO 21401 is a specific sustainability management system standard that covers all dimensions of sustainability, providing a modern vision for accommodation management,” concludes Garrido.

Sustainable adventures

Along with diving, ecotourism and other types of adventure travel have mushroomed. So in 2018, based in a proposal from Portugal, ISO published ISO 20611, Adventure tourism – Good practices for sustainability – Requirements and recommendations. This standard describes how adventure tourism organizations can operate sustainably and promote benign practices for both participants and local communities. Environmental sustainability, for example, can be upheld by careful planning and risk assessment, such as using renewable energy sources, having an awareness of waste regulations and areas with fragile ecosystems.

ISO 20611 also demonstrates how communication between the host, participants and local communities can be used to raise awareness of sustainable practices such as recycling, as well as informing the local community as to why adventure tourism is beneficial. For example, operators may wish to educate the local community in skills that enhance the tourism industry, which in turn further strengthens relationships.

So what types of environmental impacts motivated ISO/TC 228 to develop the standard? “In both adventure and ecotourism there is a potential risk to increase the flow of tourists in destinations without the necessary measures in place to mitigate negative impacts in these areas, especially fragile ecosystems. The standard both promotes the conservation of natural habitats as well as developing respect for the communities who receive tourism,” explains Leonardo Persi, who led the working group that developed ISO 20611. In other words, the standard fosters a win-win.

Boat excursion for wildlife watching in Pantanal, Brazil.

Pillars of performance

Like ISO 21401 for sustainable accommodation, we can discover the origins of ISO 20611 in Brazil, supported by similar proposals from Portugal’s national standards body. “In 2004, we were having a growing number of accidents, including fatalities. At that time, the Brazilian Ecotourism and Adventure Tourism Association (ABETA), together with the Ministry of Tourism and SEBRAE – the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service – decided to develop new standards in adventure tourism to address these risks. This work is ongoing and, today, we have 38 Brazilian national standards for adventure tourism in the portfolio of ABNT, ISO’s member for the country,” explains Persi.

The first standards focused on safety, such as a management system standard for adventure tourism (ISO 21101) and a standard dealing with information to participants (ISO 21103). However, since 2014, sustainability has made an increasingly bigger image on the tourism radar, so Persi and other like-minded people began working on the combined environmental, social and economic theme, the three main pillars of sustainability. The result was ISO 20611.

Horse-riding in the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands ares, located mainly in Brazil, is a popular tourist activity.

“This new standard brings good practices for adventure tourism activities, specifies requirements and provides recommendations to apply them,” adds Persi. So how have travel companies received the standard? According to Persi, the tourism sector and its stakeholders are highly cohesive in Brazil. He reports that travel companies in particular support and apply standards. “The first paradigm was to ensure that small companies – which make up 98 % of the sector – could successfully apply the standards,” he explains.

That way, all interested parties had their role in the adventure tourism and ecotourism market, making it possible to offer participants a better service. “Besides that, if all adventure tourism operators conserve the environment, then we can maintain the communities involved and work to improve the social, cultural and biodiversity of the places adventure tourists visit,” he concludes. Exploring the world is a privilege and it needs to be sustainable so we don’t destroy the very things that make it so appealing and rewarding.

By all accounts, tourism has the potential to be sustainable, with the goodwill of all and a little help from ISO standards.

1) “International Tourist Arrivals Reach 1.4 billion Two Years Ahead of Forecasts”, UNWTO press release, 21 January 2019