Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) has become the second tourism board in the world, after the Korean National Tourism Board, to achieve the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard for a sustainability report.

GRI, a network-based organisation which develops and disseminates globally acceptable sustainability reporting guidelines, has confirmed ADTA’s first sustainability report ‘B’ level – just one level below its full disclosure level.

ADTA’s sustainability report, which will be published annually in line with its membership of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Group, encapsulates the authority’s management approach and 2009 sustainability performance.

“This report acts as a baseline from which our annual performance will be measured and presented,” explained Sheikh Sultan Bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman, ADTA.

“It is also a tool to engage stakeholders and present forward commitments to improve our own sustainability and that of Abu Dhabi’s tourism sector.”

The report, which is now freely available via ADTA or GRI, lists the Authority’s targets, which include increasing hotel guest numbers, improving the sector’s Emiratisation rate, increasing the number of licensed tour guides and the number of tourism professionals attending its training courses.

It outlines the authority’s own environmental, health and safety management system targets and those it has set the industry as well as its own internal targets of increasing staff numbers, Emiratisation levels,  while reducing manpower turnover and energy and water consumption.

“This report being openly documented is a major step forward in our promotion of sustainability throughout Abu Dhabi’s tourism industry,” said Sheikh Sultan. “Sustainability is a core ADTA value and our task is to roll it out and reaffirm its necessity throughout all the communities we engage with and serve.”

“Abu Dhabi and ADTA have come relatively late to the international tourism scene yet being late to market does not equate to being behind the market,” he added.

“Indeed the issue of sustainability gives us a chance to surge ahead and demonstrate that when we talk of economic, social and environmental benefits, we do not view them in isolation, but more of an essential trio that when each is judged alongside another, can bring benefits extending well beyond the industry’s immediate community. Sustainability is an issue to be practised by all, for the benefit of all,” he concluded. – TradeArabia News Service