Sustainable development goals of Agenda 2030 in the declarations and aims of international tourism organisations

ABSTRACT The study aims to assess the involvement of international tourism organisations in including sustainable development goals (SDGs) from Agenda 2030 in their declarations, aims and reporting goal achievement. The sample covered all organisations (72500) included in the database of the Union of International Associations (UIA). Textual analysis, in particular, content analysis of the UIA website and the websites of investigated organisations, was conducted. Ninety per cent of active organisations include SDGs in their declarations. There were no statistically significant correlations found between the declared goals and organisation type and other features. More than half of active organisations have any relation to SDGs in own aims/missions.


Introduction
Sustainable development is a particularly important aim discussed by scientists, politicians, members of social and environmental movements and representatives of business (Sørensen & Grindsted, 2021;Thongdejsri & Nitivattananon, 2019).It is crucial because its attainment would have a significant impact on the global economy, environment and well-being of societies (Blewitt, 2008).The perceived importance of achieving sustainable development at all levels of action led to the elaboration of the 2030 Agenda by the United Nations and its acceptance by all member countries (Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for . . . 2015;González-Torre & Suárez-Serrano, 2022).The Agenda has become a reference point for strategies prepared at the national (macro), regional (mezzo) and individual company (micro) levels.Seven years after the introduction of the Agenda and in the middle of the 15-year time frame set to accomplish the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) formulated within it, the important question is what has been attained so far, and whether the international tourism organisations are involved in such activities?Thus, many researchers are trying to assess if SDGs are incorporated into the strategies of entities operating on the tourism market at all levels, whether the goals have been achieved and if their implementation has brought about any results (Hall et al., 2023).
With regard to tourism, at a macro level, these investigations focus on the alignment of national policies to Agenda 2030 (UNWTO, 2022;Boluk et al., 2019) -e.g. in Spain (Boto-Álvarez & García-Fernández, 2020), Romania (Firoiu et al., 2019), Bangladesh (Rahman, 2021) or Columbia (Pineda-Escobar, 2019), or a selected type of policy, for example, urban policy (Meschede, 2019).SDG attainment is also explored at a regional level, e.g. in the Caribbean (Milwood, 2020), the Bahamas (Francis & Nair, 2020), and EU (Kastrinos & Weber, 2020;Stanujkic et al., 2020).There are also studies taking a sectoral approach to SDG implementation with respect to: tourism (Hall, 2019;Lohmann et al., 2022), the food system (Iazzi et al., 2022) or tertiary education (Pleśniarska, 2019), and sharing economy (Jaremen et al., 2019).The conclusions formulated by the authors indicate the need to increase efforts and achieve greater efficiency of international organisations in the implementation of SDGs in tourism industry.They also indicate the need for systematic research on the implementation of SDGs.The relationship between SDG achievement and appropriate reporting is also examined (Stefanescu, 2021), revealing the importance of transparent reporting for mobilising to achieve SDGs.The commitment to sustainable development among public institutions was assessed with a great deal of attention paid to universities in particular, which is justified by the role of education in achieving sustainable development (Adhikari & Shah, 2021;Holmes et al., 2022;Kohl et al., 2022;Leal Filho, 2020;Paletta & Bonoli, 2019).At a micro level, investigations focus on companies and corporations, i.e. large companies in Portugal by Santos and Silva Bastos (2021), corporations in Nigeria by Erin et al. (2022), middle and small enterprises in Caribbean by Milwood (2020).The papers reveal variable results both with performance and reporting, from poor (Erin et al., 2022) to moderate (Santos & Silva Bastos, 2021).
For tourism sustainable development is a necessary condition for effective functioning and future success (Cardoso, 2020;Scott & Gössling, 2022;Sigala, 2020), so implementation of SDGs in this sector is of particular importance.Previously recognised need for more inclusive development and now additionally the COVID-19 crisis created new circumstances for tourism service providers to rethink tourism (Cardoso, 2020).The topic of sustainable tourism development has been undertaken by researchers from different levels and perspectives, including considering the future in the light of increasing automation (Tussyadiah, 2020).There are also investigations of national tourism policy -e.g. of Brazil (Lohmann et al., 2022); Nordic countries (Árnadóttir, 2019); African countries (Adu-Ampong & Kimbu, 2020) -formulating recommendations to the authorities responsible for the tourism development strategy and proving that there is a lot of work to be done in the country.
The overall impact of tourism is created by individuals: their attitudes and behaviour.The research reveals that during travel people behave less environmentally reliable than in their normal lives (Ramchurjee & Suresha, 2015), so values, beliefs and norms are not good enough predictors of their behaviours.MacInnes et al. (2022) proved that habit could be better predictors of sustainable tourists' behaviour, thus SDG 12 ("Responsible Consumption and Production") implementation.Bramwell et al. (2017), Hall (2016), Williams (2013) stress that effective sustainable tourism requires not only responsible behaviour of individual actors (tourists, tour-operators and tourist service suppliers) but their behaviour "should be considered in relation to wider social relations and socio-technical structures, including meanings, technologies, institutions, governance regimes and systems of provision" as well.Tourism development principles that could be adopted to build a more inclusive and sustainable economy and contribute to achieving the aims of the SDGs were presented among others by Cardoso (2020) on the basis of an investigation into data published by international organisations with global reach.
The role of international tourism organisations (ITOs) in implementing and reporting SDGs seems to be crucial as tourism institutions should provide a clear and coherent attitude and the principle of intergenerational justice in access to environmental goods and services.They can also provide and broadly transfer knowledge of sustainable development in the tourism sector.The significant role attributed to international organisations in promoting the idea of sustainable development and achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda is demonstrated, among other things, by the fact that in the specially created UNWTO platform dedicated to this agenda (Tourism for SDGS -https://tourism4sdgs.org/),among the five groups of entities distinguished ("Company," "Public Body," "Academia & CSO," "Traveller," "International Organization"), which are supposed to be involved in activities related to the agenda, a separate bookmark is devoted to them [https://tourism4sdgs.org/act/internationalorganizations/− 4.08.2022].Platform "Tourism4SDGs.org" is a co-creation space that allows users to access a wide range of resources, add their own initiatives, findings and projects, motivate discussion and collaboration, and share content related to tourism and sustainable development.Various institutions can inform about their actions in it.This online tool (developed by the World Tourism Organization with the support of Switzerland's State Secretariat for Economic Affairs -SECO) is designed to advance the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals through tourism.UNWTO has also developed some special recommendations for ITOs, where it says that [https://tour ism4sdgs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/T4SDGsRecommendations_-Ios.pdf −04.08.2022]: "International Organizations should continue working with all stakeholders to advance the contribution of tourism to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs in their respective areas of action." The systematic literature review on Scopus reveals no articles in conjunction: Agenda 2030 and the ITOs.To the best knowledge of the authors, an assessment of SDG implementation among international tourism organisations has not yet been conducted.This paper attempts to fill this gap.The study aims to answer the following research questions: (1) Do international tourism organisations include the SDGs in their declarations and goals?(2) Does the type of an international tourism organisation impact its consideration of sustainable development goals?(3) What is the scope of reporting sustainable development goal attainment by international tourism organisations?
All tourism organisations were extracted from the database of the Union of International Associations (UIA) and textual analysis, including content analysis was carried out on the information provided in this database and the websites of these organisations.Statistical analysis was applied.

Literature review
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, approved in 2015, is promoted by the United Nations as a plan of action to achieve a more sustainable future for all.The 17 SDGs (Hall, 2019;Richardson & Erdelen, 2020) and 169 targets laid out within it apply to both developing and developed countries and public and private actions and activities (Santos & Silva Bastos, 2021;UN, 2015).The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) that are expected to transform our world are [https://www.undp.org/sustainable-developmentgoals]: • SDG 1: No Poverty; • SDG 2: Zero Hunger; • SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being; • SDG 4: Quality Education; • SDG 5: Gender Equality; • SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation; • SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy; • SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth; • SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure; • SDG 10: Reduced Inequality; • SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities; • SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production; • SDG 13: Climate Action; • SDG 14: Life Below Water; • SDG 15: Life on Land; • SDG 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions; • SDG 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal.
Agenda 2030 calls for all countries and all industries to engage in global partnerships to achieve social equality, economic growth and environmental protection.World Tourism Organization -as the most important international tourist organisation -declared tourism as a "catalyst" in achieving all SDGs and advancing sustainable development.In the document "Tourism for Development Discussion Paper" prepared on the occasion of the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development (IY2017), UNWTO offers a framework for discussing this contribution and sustainable strategies for tourism sector, by examining the five pillars (UNWTO, 2017, p. 2): (1) sustainable economic growth; (2) social inclusiveness, employment and poverty reduction; (3) resource efficiency, environmental protection and climate change; (4) cultural values, diversity and heritage; (5) mutual understanding, peace and security.
Although in the document "Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" the references to tourism are essentially implicit (i.e. the term "tourism" as such appears only three times in the textsee UN, 2015), the recommendations for each of the 17 SDGs do indicate goals and tasks related to tourism.The hospitality and tourism industry has been encouraged to promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth through "full and productive employment and decent work for all" (SDG 8), "creating sustainable cities and communities" (SDG11), "ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns" (SDG 12) and "conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development" (SDG 14) (see : Milwood, 2020).A very interesting analysis of the importance of tourism for the achievement of the SDGs included in the 2030 Agenda is contained in the extensive (over 20-page) editorial for the special issue of the "Tourism Review" journal.The Editorial, titled "Tourism 2030 and the contribution to the sustainable development goals: the tourism review viewpoint" (Buhalis et al., 2023) analyzes each of the 17 goals, pointing to specific studies and publications showing the usefulness of tourism to achieve them and its limitations (see Figure 1).This work is a good introduction to over 20 articles devoted to various aspects of the implementation of Agenda 2030 and SDG in the tourism sector.
One of the most important UN Agenda 2030 is the principle of intergenerational justice in access to environmental goods and services.It is therefore possible to achieve a certain balance between intergenerational equity -present and future inhabitantsand intragenerational equity -of the present generation (Spijkers, 2018).The scope and pace of implementation of most of the Agenda's goals therefore covers a much longer horizon.Due to the massiveness of tourism and its long-term development -the possibilities of influencing consumption patterns and models of providing services on such a large scale are absolutely crucial and difficult to overestimate (Sharpley et al., 2014).
Research conducted in various scientific disciplines shows that modern tourism is a phenomenon that affects the natural environment, economy, culture and people, both tourists and local communities (Alejziak, 2011;Hall, 2008;Mason, 2020).The wide range of interrelationships and sometimes difficult-to-capture nature of links between tourism and other areas of social and economic life mean that the systems approach is particularly useful in both tourism research and tourism policy.This is especially true because tourism -much like our entire civilisation -is undergoing profound and rapid changes (Horwath, 2015;OECD, 2018;Oxfam, 2020;WTTC & Bloomberg, 2019), generating many questions regarding its further development.First of all, such as: what will be the role of tourism in coming decades, and what functions and tasks should be expected of tourism policy and how do international tourism organisations UN activities and the SDG Agenda 2030 fit into these issues?To answer these questions, it is first necessary to analyse the general conditions and tendencies that mark the course of human development.The forces driving change in the tourism system are presented in Figure 1.Only by studying them is it possible to properly interpret the course of tourism development and tourism policy carried out by countries and international organisations.This requires knowledge not only of tourism itself but also of its surroundings, as many of the factors determining the functioning of the tourism market are located outside the sphere of tourism (Morrison et al., 2018).
Tourism is not only one of the largest sectors of the global economy, but also an important part of the lives of millions of people around the world.After all, these people, as consumers or suppliers of various types of tourist products, or simply as residents of reception areas (destinations), interfere with tourism and its consequences almost on a daily basis.Of course, the range, scale and intensity of the impact and the nature of the effects of tourism may vary significantly (Airey, 2015;Alejziak, 2011), but tourism fundamentally affects the level, style and meaning of life of both tourists and local communities.
The multifaceted and multi-sector nature of tourism mentioned above, as well as the diversity of its impact, means that tourism tends to be perceived as an area within (and through) which sustainable development can be shaped.To a greater or lesser extent, this applies to virtually every single development goal described in the 2030 Agenda.Although the main signatories of the Agenda are individual countries, and the addressees of the postulates contained within it are the governments of these countries, according to the assumptions, in fact, various entities -from both the public and private sectors -can/should also be involved in the implementation of the objectives it proposes.Among the many milieus and entities that are expected to conduct activities consistent with the objectives and tasks enshrined in the Agenda are international organisations, including tourism and so-called para-tourism organisations.The question therefore arises as to which of these organisations carry out activities consistent with the objectives of the Agenda or at least claim to do so, as well as which of the objectives the tourism industry believes are more directly addressed to it.
International relations describe a wide range of mutual relations and contacts among various political, economic and social organisations (Alejziak & Marciniec, 2003;Gunesch, 2017).The scope of international relations goes beyond the sphere of political relations between countries.It also includes economic, cultural, scientific and other contacts.Tourism plays an important role among several domains included in the widely understood area of international relations.Recently, its importance has been increasing.Unification and liberalisation trends in the global economy favour international cooperation.Tourism is an important factor in such contacts, being simultaneously perceived as a type of phenomenon that can substantially contribute to peacebuilding and propagating cooperation between countries (Wohlmuther & Wintersteiner, 2014).Globalisation and the processes of capital accumulation have strengthened the global character of the tourism market.Subsequently, the tourist market requires appropriate rules of conduct and comprehensive global regulations (Alejziak, 2011).One should be aware that the development of tourism, apart from its benefits, can generate several negative consequences.ITOs are established to elaborate and administer such standards.
Currently, international tourism organisations operate in nearly every field of international relations related to the tourism industry: attractions, hospitality, touroperators, travel agencies, cruising, airlines etc. (Alejziak, 2022).Due to the great diversity of international organisations, it is not easy to define them.However, it can be assumed that an international organisation is perceived as a system of cooperation between various entities (actors) from at least three countries, the basic feature of which is the existence of permanent departments, which express the will of the organisation and were appointed to carry out tasks.International organisations are characterised by great internal diversity.

Database description
During a search of the Union of International Associations (UIA) database (https://uia.org/ybio/) of over 72,500 organisations, tourism organisations were identified according to three keywords: tourism, hospitality, travel.The search key took into account the English translations of the names of the organisations formulated in other languages.An algorithm was used to exclude multiple identification of the same organisation in case the keywords were used more than once in the name of a single organisation.Assignment to individual keywords if more than one occurred in a single name was arbitrary: first, the tourism category was analysed, which included all entities with more than one keyword in their name.The hospitality category was analysed second and travel was the third category.A total of 434 tourism organisations were identified.

Preparation of the database for further analysis
The following algorithms were applied to verify the validity of the database: all organisations with categories "H" and "U" (inactive, dead) were checked again.The presence of a website and possibilities for contact (email, contact form) was verified for each organisation from "A" to "U."In case of doubt, social media platforms (Facebook) were also checked.This step influenced the assigned category in terms of activity in both directions (from active to inactive and vice versa).When the record describing the organisation included an English name provided by the organisation itself, it was replaced with the original name in a language other than English, which was entered first.In the absence of an official translation provided by the entity from the database, no translations were provided by the authors.One hundred and eighty-seven organisations (of the 434 identified as tourism organisations) were considered active and thus included in further analysis.Eventually, investigated organisations belong to: Cluster I (International organisations), Cluster II (Dependent organisations) and Cluster III (Organisational substitutes).Cluster IV (National) and Cluster V (Inactive) were excluded.The categorisation -see Table 1.The quantitative statistics of active organisations identified by keywords is as follows: tourism 122, hospitality 14, travel 55.Out of this group, 160 organisations have specified the objectives of their activities by making their mission available in the analysed database or on their websites.In the absence of goals in the UIA database, such organisations that were considered "active" were verified by analyzing their websites and social media.
Therefore, depending on the method of analysis, the studied group was 187 or 160 organisations (all active or only active with specified the objectives) see the Figure 2 Each organisation is described by the following features: name, type (categorisation in accordance with UIA aggregation, https://uia.org/sites/uia.org/files/misc_pdfs/Types_of_organization.pdf), declared SDGs, address website, email, organisational aims (see Figure 3).The list of type organisations subject to further analysis is presented in Table 1.
The tourism organisations specified in Table 1 are all active tourism organisation from UIA database independent on the fact if they include some SDGs to their mission/goals/status.This table includes two types "H"  and "U" -described as inactive.They are in the research sample, because the activity of this small (3 + 11 units) sub-population was identified by the authors.

Applied methods
The first phase was the analysis of SDGs indicated by each tourism organisation in the UIA database.The general form of textual method was applied, verifying which of SDG is/are indicated by each organisation.It can be assumed that indication could be a proxy of an organisation activity in this area.The declaration of SDG implementation/support made by individual organisations is subjective.It seems, however, that due to the very diversified scope of activities carried out by the investigated organisations, it is difficult to find an objective quantitative measure.In the case of enterprises dealing with production or services, such activities can be strictly quantified in financial terms by examining the investment outlays incurred in given areas, or the operating costs related to such activities.In the case of activities based on the promotion of good practices, information exchange, dissemination, etc., such measures do not apply.Therefore, a simple quantitative analysis of selected SDGs was used, considered in relation to the available features of the organisation.
The second phase was conducted to get deeper insights.Content analysis was applied to consider the aims declared by individual organisations.A matrix with dimensions of 17 × 160 consisting of 2720 records was built, with 17 SDGs in columns (in the text format) and 160 organisations (with their missions, goals, etc., in the text format) in rows.Using the WCopyfind 4.1.5program, all SDG goals were compared to all missions identified in the surveyed organisations.

Results and discussion
To answer the first research question, according to textual analysis results it was revealed that a total of 160 organisations indicated a combined 381 SDGs, from 1 to 17 goals per organisation, with an average value of 2.3.It is worth noting that 19 organisations did not indicate any SDG.
Despite the specific activities of ITOs, the research revealed that all 17s SDG appeared in the entries of individual organisations.The number of individual goals identified creates the large asymmetry visible in Figure 4.The most frequent declarations related to goal 11 (Sustainable cities and communities) were 73%, followed by SDG 13 (Climate action) and SDG 4 (Quality education) at 34% and 27%, respectively.Details are presented in Figure 4.
There is a relation between the type of an organisation and the number of selected goals.Verification of this statement was carried out using Pearson's chisquare test (Figure 5).The rationale expectations that serious international organisations (belonging to the First Cluster Type of organisations: A,B,C,D,F -see https://uia.org/sites/uia.org/files/misc_pdfs/Types_of_organization.pdf) with high number of members will pay more attention to sustainability than organisations assigned to lower types with a narrowly defined operating profile has not been confirmed (one-way analysis of variance: F(11,175) = 2.7652, p = 0,00248).Thus, the answer to the second research question is that the type of an international tourism organisations affect the number of SDGs declared by them and impacts the declaration of higher focus on goals particularly related to Sustainable cities and communities, Climate actions and Quality education.Nineteen organisations did not indicate any SDG; however, it should be borne in mind that registration in the UIA database is not an absolute measure of activity/inactivity in achieving sustainable goals.However, the lack of such a declaration shows the low priority of the discussed goals.In this group, the aims of the organisation's operation indicated in the database and on the website were additionally analysed.No declarations consistent with the SDGs were found.The 19 mentioned entities are assigned lower classification types; none of them is described with the codes A, B or C. The analysis of organisations that did not indicate environmental goals in their operational mission allowed the author to conclude that there was no significant statistical relationship between the type of organisation and the frequency of omitting SDGs in the characteristics of the organisation.
Research of the organisations' missions and aims in the second phase using the content analysis gave slightly different results.The analysis of 2720 records led to the identification of 155 repetitions/partial repetitions of texts describing individual SDGs in the missions/aims of the surveyed organisations.The further analysis revealed that in missions/aims of 99  organisations (55%) appeared statements at minimum partially consistent with one of the SDGs.Full convergence of specific SDGs with the declared mission/aims was identified only five times.Details are presented in Figure 6.
From among the 99 organisations identified by program WCopyfind.4.1.5,26 entities mentioned broadly understood sustainability in their goals or missions (number of 26 organisations is a result of goals verification one by one).Such a declaration did not result in an increased number of declared SDGs.There was no statistically significant relationship between the expressed declaration and the number of selected goals.
The comparison of the results of research conducted in both phases shows a higher percentage of subjective declarations of achieving the SDG goals than in the case of the mission analysis of individual organisations (90% to 55%, respectively).The distribution of the frequency of indications is also different.The results of applying both analyses allow to answer the first research question: about half of the organisations have some SDGs in their formulated aims, and the declarations of achieving such goals present 90% of the organisations.
The third research phase was comparison of declared SDGs and indicated aims by organisations to their submission of sustainability reports.The most common framework for sustainability reports is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard (Stefanescu, 2021; https://www.globalreporting.org/).Except this, there are other standards such as Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Integrated Reporting (IR) (WTTC, 2017b, p. 4).Such diversity of reporting formats limits research comparability.In the Travel & Tourism sector, the GRI standard was applied by 58% of entities that published reports (WTTC, 2017a, p. 5).In the Travel Agency/Operator segment, which is not entirely consistent with the investigated group of ITOs but gives some idea of the universality of reporting, only 16% of entities published a report in any reporting format (WTTC, 2017a, p. 3).The analysis of such a limited sample of reports prepared in various formats wouldn't be reliable.
In the studied sample, international organisations categorised into types A, B and C were checked in terms of preparing a sustainability report in the GRI standard.Not a single report was found.This allows to answer the third research question: at the moment, reporting on the implementation of sustainable development goals is not applied by the surveyed organisations.This is in accordance with opinions of other researchers about the weakness of the reporting system of other entities and institutions (Stefanescu, 2021).
As already mentioned, studies on taking into account Agenda 2030 and in particular 17 SDGs by international tourism organisations as a group have not been conducted before, so there is no reference point for comparisons of the results of this study.Cardoso's research (Cardoso, 2020), also in the form of the content analysis of the documents published on the websites of international organisations (not only related to tourism), allowed her formulate five principles that tourist entities should implement in order to achieve SDG at the stage of recovering from the covid pandemic.These are indication for future, so their value is of different characters.
Results of research on reporting of SDGs achievement by other institutions or entities reveal that it is difficult to find entities that report systematically and transparently.Such conclusions were drawn for 10 largest companies in the chemical industry operating in countries from Central-Eastern Europe (Nichita et al., 2020) and 50 biggest Nigerian companies (Erin et al., 2022).However, there were also positive findings like the progress in annual reporting in Romanian companies listed at on Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) in the Premium Tier observed for the period 2017-2019 (Nechita et al., 2020).
Report of KPMG (Threlfall et al., 2020) presenting analysis of reports of 5,200 companies from 52 countries concludes that the majority of the firms refer to SDG in their corporate reporting.However, authors stress that SDG reporting is often unbalanced and disconnected from business goals.The study reveals the most common were the SDG linked to economic, climate change and responsible consumption, while SDGs linked to protecting biodiversity are rare.However, authors claim that 80% of companies worldwide now report on issues of SDG.
Our results may come as a distressing signal.In the case of international tourism organisations, it is difficult to explain their approach of not reporting by the lack of awareness of the need to take into account the SDGs.There are cases where tourism entities are not aware of SDGs, but implement them, which is the case of indigenous tourism entities presented in research results of Scheyvens et al. (2021).But tourism organisations should be particularly committed to this issue.

Conclusions
International tourism organisations are an important element in the tourism system with a significant role in persuading other actors to strengthen their efforts to attain sustainable development.This study contributes to the growing literature in the area of Agenda 2030 impactin particular, the consideration of SDGs by international tourism organisations.
Practical contribution of the study is supplementing the results of other research -concerning mainly companies -with the review of institutions' involvement.Moreover, the investigation concerned international tourism organisations which are in close interconnections with all three issues of sustainability: economic, social and environmental.It was expected that the higher type of organisation in the UIA system would result in greater involvement in the implementation of the SDGs at least in their declarations.The lack of such a relationship may indicate the weakness of established priorities and the absence of sufficient weight being attributed to SDGs by ITOs.Currently, on the basis of organisational declarations and their aims, Agenda 2030 seems to be more of an ethical benchmark or element of virtue signalling rather than the basis of a strategy to guide operational activities.It seems, moreover, international tourism organisations which are in close interconnections with all three issues of sustainability: economic, social and environmental.This conclusion is also supported by the lack of reports of SDGs achievements delivered by ITOs.It seems that international tourism organisations do not see the possibility of their brands' creation or improvement by transparent reporting system.This is also confirmed by the infrequent instances of reporting own activities related to the 2030 Agenda on the UNWTO platform (Tourism4SDGs.org)specially created for this purpose, where there are only a few entries signed by international tourism organisations.

Limitations
This study has its limitations.The organisations were selected using three keywords (in relation to their names).Not all organisations operating in the tourism system have these words in their names.So there is concern about some actors (ITO's) being left out.The idea of subjective supplementation of the database was rejected.The research was based on the self-declaration of organisations.The lack of annual reports from these organisations prevents verification of these statements.Declarations about activities aimed at the implementation of any of the SDGs are, on the one hand, subjective and, on the other, purely descriptive.Even the GRI standards for sustainable reporting do not specify consistent quantitative measures.

Further research
ITOs require systematic studies to examine the compliance of their activities with SDGs, and triangulation of qualitative and quantitative research methods seems to be an effective approach.Any attempts to evaluate SDG attainment require a modification of the reporting systems.Review of the GRI reporting guidelines indicates the need to adapt reporting standards to the specificity of the target group.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Quantitative distribution of selected SDGs in the investigated international tourism organisations.Source: Own elaboration based on UIA database.

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.Quantitative distribution of selected SDGs in the investigated aims of international tourism organisations.Source: Own elaboration.

Table 1 .
Types of the investigated international tourism organisations, together with the sample size.
Source: Own elaboration based on UIA database.