Sustainable tourism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sustainable tourism is a form of tourism that follows the principles of sustainability.

Sustainable tourism in its purest sense, is an industry committed to making a low impact on the natural environment and local culture, while helping to generate income and employment for locals.^[1]

Global economists forecast continuing international tourism growth, ranging between three and six percent annually, depending on the location. As one of the world's largest and fastest growing industries, this continuous growth will place great stress on remaining biologically diverse habitats and indigenous cultures, which are often used to support mass tourism. Tourists who promote sustainable tourism are sensitive to these dangers and seek to protect tourist destinations, and to protect tourism as an industry. Sustainable tourists can reduce the impact of tourism in many ways, including:

Increasingly, destinations and tourism operations are endorsing and following "responsible tourism" as a pathway towards sustainable tourism. Responsible tourism and sustainable tourism have an identical goal, that of sustainable development. The pillars of responsible tourism are therefore the same as those of sustainable tourism – environmental integrity, social justice and economic development. The major difference between the two is that, in responsible tourism, individuals, organisations and businesses are asked to take responsibility for their actions and the impacts of their actions. This shift in emphasis has taken place because some stakeholders feel that insufficient progress towards realising sustainable tourism has been made since the Earth Summit in Rio. This is partly because everyone has been expecting others to behave in a sustainable manner. The emphasis on responsibility in responsible tourism means that everyone involved in tourism – government, product owners and operators, transport operators, community services, NGO’s and CBO’s, tourists, local communities, industry associations – are responsible for achieving the goals of responsible tourism.^{[citation needed]}

sustainable tourism helps maintain the natural environment

Responsible Tourism can be regarded as a movement. It is more than a form of tourism as it represents an approach to engaging with tourism, be that as a tourist, a business, locals at a destination or any other tourism stakeholder. It emphasises that all stakeholders are responsible for the kind of tourism they develop or engage in. Whilst different groups will see responsibility in different ways, the shared understanding is that responsible tourism should entail an improvement in tourism. Tourism should become ‘better’ as a result of the responsible tourism approach.

Within the notion of betterment resides the acknowledgement that conflicting interests need to be balanced. However, the objective is to create better places for people to live in and to visit. Importantly, there is no blueprint for responsible tourism: what is deemed responsible may differ depending on places and cultures. Responsible Tourism is an aspiration that can be realised in different ways in different orginiating markets and in the diverse destinations of the world (Goodwin, 2002).

Focusing in particular on businesses, according to the Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism, it will have the following characteristics:

1. minimises negative economic, environmental, and social impacts;

2. generates greater economic benefits for local people and enhances the well-being of host communities, improves working conditions and access to the industry;

3. involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances;

4. makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of the world’s diversity;

5. provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues;

6. provides access for physically challenged people; and

7. is culturally sensitive, engenders respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence.

Cape Town Declaration on Responsible Tourism available at: http://www.icrtourism.org/capetown.html

Goodwin, H. (2002) The Case for Responsible Tourism, In: Jenkins, T. Ethical Tourism, Hodder and Stroughton

Harrison, L.C. and Husbands, W. (1996) Practicing Responsible Tourism, Wiley.

[edit] Ecotourism

Further information: Ecotourism

Ecotourism, also known as ecological tourism, is a form of Sustainable Tourism, differing by its focus on ecology. Ecotourism focuses on volunteering, personal growth, and learning new ways to live on the planet; typically involving travel to destinations where flora, fauna, and cultural heritage are the primary attractions.

Responsible ecotourism includes programs that minimize the negative aspects of conventional tourism on the environment, and enhance the cultural integrity of local people. Therefore, in addition to evaluating environmental and cultural factors, an integral part of ecotourism is in the promotion of recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation, and creation of economic opportunities for the local communities.^[2] Such changes have become a statement affirming one's social identity, educational sophistication, and disposable income as it has about preserving the Amazon rainforest or the Caribbean reef for posterity.^[3][4]

[edit] Coastal tourism

Many coastal areas are experiencing particular pressure from [[seachange (demography)

|seachange]] growth in lifestyles and growing numbers of tourists. Coastal environments are limited in extent consisting of only a narrow strip along the edge of the ocean. Coastal

areas are often the first environments to experience the detrimental impacts of tourism. 

Planning and management controls can reduce the impact on coastal environments ^[5] and ensure that investment into tourism products supports sustainable coastal tourism.

^[6]

[edit] Community-based management

There has been the promotion of sustainable tourism practices surrounding the management of tourist locations by locals or more concisely, the community. One of the main and important sites to promote tourism in developing countries is www. humanitour.com

This form of tourism is based on the premise that the people living next to a resource are the ones best suited to protecting it. This means that the tourism activities and businesses are developed and operated by local community members, and certainly with their consent and support.

Sustainable tourism typically involves the conservation of resources that are capitalized upon for tourism purposes, such as coral reefs and pristine forests. Locals run the businesses and are responsible for promoting the conservation messages to protect their environment.

Humanitour way, www.humanitour.com, of giving the opportunity to the local people, enable them, to enjoy the fruits of tourism directly. Humanitour.com is an internet portal devoted to promoting local travel related businesses around the world - first and foremost in developing countries. Humanitor aims to connect inquisitive travelers directly, via no commission based middle man, to local business in the specific locations they wish to visit. Thus leading travelers to a real, authentic and truly unique travel experience. These local businesses may be hotels or restaurants, food stalls or fishermen’s boats, and the aim of Humanitour is to give these small businesses, normally unknown, a unique platform to market themselves and offer their services free of charge.

Community-based sustainable tourism (CBST) associates the success of the sustainability of the ecotourism location to the management practices of the communities who are directly or indirectly dependent on the location for their livelihoods.

A salient feature of CBST is that local knowledge is usually utilised alongside wide general frameworks of ecotourism business models. This allows the participation of locals at the management level and typically allows a more intimate understanding of the environment. The use of local knowledge also means an easier entry level into a tourism industry for locals whose jobs or livelihoods are affected by the use of their environment as tourism locations. The involvement of locals restores the ownership of the environment to the local community and allows an alternative sustainable form of development for communities and their environments that are typically unable to support other forms of development.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Stakeholders

Stakeholders of sustainable tourism play a role in continuing this form of tourism. This can include organizations as well as individuals.

[edit] Non-governmental organizations

Non-governmental organizations are one of the stakeholders in advocating sustainable tourism. Their roles can range from spearheading sustainable tourism practices to simply doing research. University research teams and scientists can be roped in to aid in the process of planning. Such solicitation of research can be observed in the planning of Cat Ba National Park in Vietnam.another example is humanitour.com who encourage local people to start new businesses.

Dive resort operators in Bunaken National Park, Indonesia, play a crucial role but developing exclusive zones for diving and fishing respectively, such that both tourists and locals can benefit from the venture

Large conventions, meetings and other major organized events drive the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. Cities and convention centers compete to attract such commerce, commerce which has heavy impacts on resource use and the environment. Major sporting events, such as the Olympic Games, present special problems regarding environmental burdens and degradation. But burdens imposed by the regular convention industry can be vastly more significant.

Green conventions and events are a new but growing sector and marketing point within the convention and hospitality industry. More environmentally aware organizations, corporations and government agencies are now seeking more sustainable event practices, greener hotels, restaurants and convention venues, and more energy efficient or climate neutral travel and ground transportation.

Additionally, some convention centers have begun to take direct action in reducing the impact of the conventions they host. One example is the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California, which has a very aggressive recycling program, a large solar power system, and other programs aimed at reducing impact and increasing efficiency.

[edit] Tourists

With the advent of the internet, some traditional conventions are being replaced with virtual conventions, where the attendees remain in their home physical location and "attend" the convention by use of a web-based interface programmed for the task. This sort of "virtual" meeting eliminates all of the impacts associated with travel, accommodation, food wastage, and other necessary impacts of traditional, physical conventions.

Travel over long distances requires a large amount of time and/or energy. Generally this involves burning fossil fuels, a largely unsustainable practice and one that contributes to climate change, via CO₂ emissions.

Air travel is perhaps the worst offender in this regard, contributing to between 2 and 3% of global carbon emissions ^[7]. Given a business-as-usual approach, this could be expected to rise to 5% by 2015 and 10% by 2050. Car travel is the next worst offender.

Mass transport is the most climate friendly method of travel, and generally the rule is "the bigger the better" - compared to cars, buses are relatively more sustainable, and trains and ships are even more so. Human energy and renewable energy are the most efficient, and hence, sustainable. Travel by bicycle, solar powered car, or sailing boat produces no carbon emissions (although the embodied energy in these vehicles generally comes at the expense of carbon emission).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Further readings

[edit] See also

[edit] References

http://www.humanitour.com Internet portal for human tourism responsible travel

[edit] External links