Gibraltar Showcases Ground-Breaking Nature Positive Tourism Pilot in Seville

Minister for Equality, Employment, Tourism and Culture, the Hon Christian Santos GMD MP, presented Gibraltar’s Nature Positive Tourism pilot to an international audience at the Tourism Innovation Summit in Seville.

Minister Santos took part in a panel bringing together six speakers from destinations, NGOs and the tourism sector to showcase practical initiatives aimed at protecting and restoring the natural environment through tourism.

Daniel Turner of ANIMONDIAL introduced the Nature Positive Tourism (NPT) approach, before Minister Santos outlined how Gibraltar is putting the concept into practice through a pilot project being developed in collaboration with ANIMONDIAL.

The Minister explained why Gibraltar represents a particularly valuable location in which to trial the approach, given the close relationship between the destination’s tourism product and its natural environment, combined with the challenges of managing high visitor numbers within a small geographical area.

He focused on the practical challenges of balancing tourism growth with the protection of Gibraltar’s natural heritage, as well as the opportunities for the tourism sector to become an active part of the solution.

Minister Santos highlighted the potential for improved visitor management, closer collaboration between tourism and environmental stakeholders, greater awareness amongst visitors and businesses, and practical measures that enable tourism activity to contribute positively to conservation.

He also outlined what the Government hopes to achieve through the pilot, including identifying measurable changes that can strengthen the protection of Gibraltar’s natural assets while supporting a resilient, high-quality and sustainable tourism sector.

The presentations were followed by a moderated discussion between the six speakers, exploring how destinations can move from traditional sustainability models towards approaches in which tourism delivers a measurable positive contribution to nature.

Minister Santos’ participation at the Summit provided an opportunity to showcase Gibraltar’s work internationally and to share the destination’s experience of testing the Nature Positive Tourism approach at destination level.