Egypt Red Sea Resort go EarthLung destination

Heba Al Ghais Al Mansoori, Middle East Director of SLTPB

Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt's Red Sea Resort has became the second EarthLung destination of the world. Egypt's Minister of Tourism, Zoheir Garranah, declared the commitment of Egyptian Tourism and said, "Following the initiative of Sri Lanka, we are happy to join the Tourism EarthLung Community with our resort destination, Sharm el Sheikh, committing to work towards becoming a carbon neutral destination in the future".

This declaration was made at the opening of the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) supported Conference for the Middle East and Mediterranean Region on the theme "Tourism: Responding to a Turbulent Economy and Changing Climate" held this week at Sharm El Sheikh's Jolie Ville Convention Centre.

The conference organised by the Egyptian Tourism Ministry and industry associations, had Francesco Frangialli, the outgoing Secretary General of the UNWTO, Dr. Peter Keller, former Chair of the OECD Tourism Committee, Dr. Ghassan Aidi, President of the International Hotel and Restaurant Association, Martin Brackenbury, President of the International Federation of Tour Operators, Dr. Bandar Alfhaid, Head of the Arab Tourism Organisation, Prof. Terry de Lacy of the Victoria University and many other key tourism figures from the region among its presenters.

At the session on Climate Solutions, Renton de Alwis of Sri Lanka Tourism related the story of Sri Lanka's efforts at mitigating climate change with the launch of the "Earth Lung Initiative" at the UNWTO conference on ‘Tourism and Climate Change' in October last year in Davos, Switzerland.

Heba Al Ghais Al Mansoori, Middle East Director of SLTPB remarked: "Sri Lanka has launched a series of initiatives including Green Cover to plant 10 million trees over the next couple of years inspired by ‘Tourism's Earth Lung project that aims for a Carbon Clean Sri Lanka'."