Abstract:

The COVD-19 pandemic drew attention to the interconnected and hyper-dependent nature of health with the economy, equity and the environment. While lockdowns and social distancing strategies might have been a welcome respite for the environment, imposing human inactivity devastated livelihoods with under-served communities experiencing the worst hardships. Those in Travel & Tourism (T&T), service and retail sectors were particularly hard hit. To recover T&T and ‘build back better’, we posit placing health and well-being as a fourth pillar of sustainability, sitting alongside the pillars of economy, society and the environment. Healthy people, healthy planet and healthy prosperity for all – this is what sustainability means when we describe a world where no one is left behind[i]. Embracing the wellbeing of people and planet as core strategic drivers of sustainability in T&T could help the sector pivot more powerfully from the pandemic’s impact. Adopting sustainability as a driver of radical systems transformation[ii] is core to sustainable development and could help T&T make a just transition to the ‘next normal’. Here, we make the case for health and well-being as key to advancing sustainable T&T and explore what this might mean for the sector going forward.