Celebrating Achievements and Progress in the Division – February 2025 Update

Pacific Greetings from the SPTO Division of Sustainable Tourism!

As we continue to build momentum at the start of this year, we take this opportunity to acknowledge the countries, industry stakeholders, and partners who have supported our mission towards Sustainable Tourism Development in the Pacific throughout 2024. We also take this opportunity to honour all the diligent women in tourism as we celebrated International Women’s Day on the 8th of March.

In this February issue, we will focus on the commemoration of Global Tourism Resilience Day, observed on the 17th of February, on the theme ‘Building a More Resilient and Inclusive Tourism Industry’. We highlight compelling stories and testimonies from various community, industry, and partner stakeholders regarding tourism resilience. Furthermore, we also outline our current regional partnerships that have been instrumental in strengthening a resilient tourism sector for communities across the Pacific.

Additionally, we are pleased to present the latest updates from the region regarding ongoing efforts and advancements in responsible tourism development and management. These updates include initiatives from the Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji. This month, we also feature a new report from the United Nations Tourism, as our ‘Must-have Tool for Success’ that aims to support climate action planning in tourism destinations, along with information on upcoming events and opportunities.

From the Division, we are pleased to provide the following updates regarding our activities thus far in 2025:

• Completion of the in-country scoping missions as part of the Sustainable Tourism Enhancement Project, supported by the SWITCH-Asia Initiative. The scoping missions for Fiji and Samoa concluded in February 2025, while those for Kiribati and Vanuatu were completed in late 2024.
• The analysis of information collected from the country missions and wider membership surveys were also carried out by the team and the technical experts.
• Conducted our quarter 1 planning meeting for the division’s workplan including key 2025 activities/projects.
• Commenced planning for the third Pacific Sustainable Tourism Leadership Summit.
• Stakeholder review of the draft Certification Framework and Implementation Toolkit aimed at phasing out single-use plastics in the Pacific tourism industry.
• Commenced planning with UN Tourism and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Gastronomy Project.
• Finalisation of the contents for the online cultural tourism training, which is scheduled for imminent launch.

We invite you to subscribe to our monthly newsletter to receive updates, invitations, and announcements from the SPTO Division of Sustainable Tourism. Please stay tuned for our upcoming Newsbeat in March, which will feature Kiribati as our country of focus.

For further inquiries, please contact us at sustainable@spto.org