Educational Resources

The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) co-developed this online course, supported by Expedia Group, to help build the capacity of tourism and hospitality businesses towards plastic waste reduction and community empowerment. The course guides readers through the steps for minimising the sourcing and consumption of single-use plastics as well as the importance of businesses to sign the UNESCO Sustainable Travel Pledge. 

Length: 64 pages 

Booking.com Sustainability Training is a learning series developed with UN Tourism to support accommodation providers worldwide. The courses offer practical guidance on key sustainability topics, helping hospitality businesses improve operations and contribute to more responsible tourism.

This course helps participants measure and improve their social impact using practical tools and real-world examples. You’ll learn to assess impact through a three-part framework, develop a clear theory of change, and apply Acumen’s Lean Data approach, supported by case studies from leading social enterprises.

Duration: 4 weeks

Tourism Cares Online Training offers courses designed to help tourism professionals embed sustainability and community impact into their work. The platform focuses on practical tools and insights that strengthen responsible practices, build industry resilience, and create positive change through travel.

The Travel Foundation Training provides practical, sustainability-focused learning for tourism businesses and destinations. Its courses help professionals integrate responsible practices into daily operations, strengthening environmental stewardship, community benefit, and long-term business resilience.

The Alliance’s online training platform empowers hospitality professionals with practical modules on sustainability topics such as climate action, water stewardship, and modern slavery. Each course includes real-world examples, tools, and certifications to help hotels and tourism businesses embed responsible practices and build resilient operations.

This introductory webinar will help clarify what every tourism business can do to make travel socially responsible. It is explicitly targeted at small and medium-sized tour operators and tourism businesses and is intended for you to:

• understand your stake – be aware of human rights issues your value chain;
• see the benefit – be clear about the business case to respect human rights; and
• get started – know tools, resources and practical recommendations to implement suitable measures in your strategy and operations.

Duration: 1 hour

This online course introduces sustainable community engagement for accommodation providers, covering key concepts, benefits, and best practices. Includes videos, resources, and quizzes, with a certificate upon completion—perfect for enhancing sustainability in hospitality.

Duration: 1 hour

This course explores how intangible cultural heritage supports sustainable development, resilience, and community well-being, addressing challenges like health, gender, and conflict, emphasising the importance of keeping living heritage alive.

Duration: 6 weeks, with 2-4 hours per week

This course helps tourism professionals create authentic, community-led experiences that benefit locals and visitors. It provides practical tools and examples to integrate equity, sustainability, and lasting connections. By doing so, it fosters responsible tourism that supports and enriches local cultures and communities.

Duration: 1 hour

This course helps professionals create authentic, sustainable travel experiences that benefit locals and visitors by building tools for community-led tourism, fostering stronger community partnerships, and delivering immersive, equitable experiences that last.

Duration: 2 hours

This course examines heritage and tourism development from social sciences and management perspectives, integrating global and local views. It reviews key concepts like authenticity, commodification, and sustainable development, and evaluates topical issues such as marketing strategies and cultural interpretation.

Duration: 1 hour 11 minutes

This course teaches innovative approaches for promoting decent work and social justice in rural economies. Divided into 7 modules, it covers topics such as decent work policies, gender equality, youth empowerment, and a just transition to a sustainable rural economy.

Self-paced, 7 modules

These 10 modules will help any trainer to give others an introduction in adventure tourism.

Self-paced

An introduction course dealing with indigenous people, the importance of supporting indigenous people, codes of conduct and intellectual property rights.

Self-paced

Tourism drives 8% of global emissions, and climate change is already impacting destinations and experiences. This webinar shares practical steps and real business examples to help accommodation providers take climate action, delivered through UNEP’s Transforming Tourism Value Chains project with global partners.

Duration: 1 hour

This session introduces accommodation providers on SIDS to the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism and guides them in creating their first Climate Action Plan. It outlines how they can align with global goals to halve emissions by 2030, reach net zero by 2050, and report progress annually.

Duration: 7 minutes

This session introduces accommodation providers on SIDS to the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism and guides them in creating their first Climate Action Plan. It outlines how they can align with global goals to halve emissions by 2030, reach net zero by 2050, and report progress annually.

Duration: 8 minutes

This session introduces accommodation providers on SIDS to the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism and guides them in creating their first Climate Action Plan. It outlines how they can align with global goals to halve emissions by 2030, reach net zero by 2050, and report progress annually.

Duration: 1 hour

The guide offers a framework or model for sustainabile tourism implementation at a national level.  In recognition that there is no "one size fits all" approach, this incorporates the flexibility to enable it to be applied to a wide range of destinations and regulatory settings.

Lenght: 53 pages

This webinar offers practical guidance on using evidence-based nudging to influence staff and guest behaviors, reducing emissions, improving customer experience, and benefiting hotel sustainability and profitability.

Duration: 1 hour

This workshop highlights consumers' role in sustainability, exploring trends in climate awareness and ethical purchasing. Participants will learn about influencing sustainable choices, improving resource efficiency, and effective communication of sustainability messages to customers.

Duration: 7 minutes

This workshop highlights consumers' role in sustainability, exploring trends in climate awareness and ethical purchasing. Participants will learn about influencing sustainable choices, improving resource efficiency, and effective communication of sustainability messages to customers.

Duration: 10 minutes

This workshop highlights consumers' role in sustainability, exploring trends in climate awareness and ethical purchasing. Participants will learn about influencing sustainable choices, improving resource efficiency, and effective communication of sustainability messages to customers.

Duration: 14 minutes

The Responsible Tourism Handbook provides a comprehensive guide for tourism operators to minimize their impact on the environment and benefit local communities. It offers practical advice on sustainable practices, community engagement, and conservation, promoting responsible tourism in the Magaliesberg region of South Africa.

Lenght: 52 pages

This course helps you plan for more sustainable hotels by learning from global leaders. It covers building green teams, managing water, energy, and waste, and ends with guidance on stakeholder engagement and communicating sustainability.

Duration: 1 hour

This course covers AI-driven digital nudging for responsible tourism, including behavioral economics, chatbot creation, ethical practices, and future trends in AI and behavioral design. Participants learn to design effective, ethical digital nudges using chatbots. 

Duration: 8 hours over 4 weeks

This course covers sustainable destination management principles, stakeholder engagement, innovative marketing, and resilience strategies to ensure long-term, responsible tourism. Gain the skills to lead and shape the future of sustainable tourism destinations.

Duration: 8 hours over 4 weeks

This online course explores human rights, focusing on marginalized groups and global issues. It examines legal frameworks and barriers that hinder rights realization, highlighting their impact on societal stability and sustainable development worldwide.

Duration: 11 modules, with 2-4 hours per module

This training is developed for anyone with an interest in Digital Marketing skills in the tourism & hospitality. Facilitators Handbook.

Length: 16 pages

This training module serves as guidance to train young people in sustainability in the tourism & hospitality sector. Facilitators Handbook.

Length: 17 pages

Discover how to advance employee engagement, on the Pathway to Net Positive Hospitality

Length: 2 pages

The course explores digital transformation in tourism, focusing on customer experience, operational efficiency, and innovation. Through videos, readings, and case studies, participants learn to implement digital strategies and build sustainable tourism ecosystems.

Duration: 7 hours

This Restaurant Operations course sets the foundation for creating a smooth customer experience, from setting the service at a restaurant for both casual and fine dining to covering preparation and closure procedures. You will also study food safety quality standards and learn to integrate sustainability principles, contributing to the UN SDGs by reducing water consumption and waste production and using seasonal, local products to support a circular economy.

Duration: 8 hours

This self-paced course teaches tourism managers and enthusiasts to develop child-friendly tourism, understand child rights, identify negative impacts, promote positive practices, and combat child sexual exploitation in tourism. 

Duration: 1 hour

In this webinar we will look at the different parts in the food system where the hospitality industry can have an influence on from production to consumption. Afterwards, participants will be able to identify actions for the planning, procurement, and management of food within their operations to improve overall impacts.

Duration: 1 hour

This webinar explores sustainable food practices, focusing on SDG 12. It offers practical actions to reduce environmental and social impacts, assessing food production, processing, and procurement practices for responsible consumption and production. 

Duration: 32 min

This workshop focuses on SDG 12.3, addressing food loss and waste. It offers practical actions and tools for hotels to reduce food-related impacts, improve practices, and tackle food waste drivers, benefiting the environment, society, and your business.

Duration: 17 mins

This course explores the link between water security and tourism, helping participants understand tourism's impact on water resources. It teaches tools to assess and manage hotel water use, enabling effective conservation and sustainable practices within hotel operations.

Duration: 1 hour 

This course teaches sustainable food management in hotels, emphasising the benefits of sustainable options and waste reduction strategies. Participants will gain skills to identify and implement measures that align with global sustainability goals, reducing environmental impact and enhancing hotel operations.

Duration: 1 hour

This online course by UNWTO and Booking.com covers sustainable water management for accommodations, including water stewardship, footprint calculation, and efficient technologies. With five interactive modules, it offers practical tips and best practices to help implement effective water management strategies.

Duration: 6 hours over 3 weeks

This online course by UNWTO and Booking.com covers sustainable water management for accommodations, including water stewardship, footprint calculation, and efficient technologies. With five interactive modules, it offers practical tips and best practices to help implement effective water management strategies. 

Duration: 6 hours over 3 weeks

The overall objective of this course is to apply a systems-thinking approach to issues of food security and nutrition, thus contributing to a transformation of food systems towards more sustainable, equitable and healthy diets.

Duration: 2-4 hours per week

This course explores water's role in SDG 6, covering the global water crisis, governance, climate impacts, and links to food, energy, and ecosystems. Through case studies, participants learn how water affects lives and how to promote sustainable water use.

Duration: 9 weeks, 3-5 hours per week

This factsheet explores the issues of water risk and provides recommendations on how to reduce impacts on hotel operations and local supply.

Duration: 4 pages

This workshop explores circular, sustainable hotel procurement, highlighting principles, case studies, and international examples to reduce risks, boost customer engagement, and create socio-economic value through eco-friendly practices.

Duration: 10 mins

This workshop explores circular, sustainable hotel procurement, highlighting principles, case studies, and international examples to reduce risks, boost customer engagement, and create socio-economic value through eco-friendly practices.

Duration: 15 mins

This workshop explores circular, sustainable hotel procurement, highlighting principles, case studies, and international examples to reduce risks, boost customer engagement, and create socio-economic value through eco-friendly practices.

Duration: 18 mins