Blue Tourism
The Blue Tourism Innovation Team focuses on enhancing regional and multi-stakeholder collaboration around sustainable blue tourism in the Western Indian Ocean region. It addresses key challenges such as climate change, marine pollution, and biodiversity loss, while aiming to improve the socio-economic conditions of local communities. The Team drives efforts across both existing and new initiatives, such as the Blue Tourism Initiative (Read more), to foster sustainable, inclusive, and resilient blue tourism models.
The innovation team seeks to:
- Promote innovative, resilient and inclusive tourism practices that support environmental sustainability and community well-being across the WIO region.
- Create platforms for practical initiatives, dialogue and knowledge sharing among stakeholders, aligned with regional frameworks such as the Western Indian Ocean Regional Ocean Governance Strategy.
- Leverage the expertise of key partners and ongoing initiatives under OBF framework to coordinate and drive impactful blue tourism actions.
Pillars of the innovation team
1. Research, diagnostics and policy/industry briefs informing and informed by pilot actions and transformative network(s) (or simply Research). 2. Participatory blue tourism actions at pilot sites fostering sustainability, resilience, and inclusivity, followed by pairing initiatives in the region (or simply Blue Tourism Action). 3. Promoting enabling policy and governance mechanisms (in the region and global), ensuring scalability of sustainable blue tourism (or simply Policy Advocacy and Governance Reform).
