The tourism industry is very dynamic and growing sector, and it contributes to the growth of many economies. Tourism activities involves special relationship between visitors (customers), the industry, environment and local communities.
This special relationship arises due to, unlike most sectors, tourists travels to the producer and the product. This results to three important and unique aspects of the relationship between tourism and sustainable development:
- Interaction: The nature of tourism, as a service industry that is driven by delivering an experience of new places, leading to indirect and direct interactions between hosts, visitors, and local environments.
- Awareness: Tourism makes visitors and hosts become far more conscious of environmental issues and differences between nations and cultures. This can influence attitudes and concerns for sustainable issue snot only while traveling but throughout people’s lives.
- Dependency: Tourism is based on visitors seeking to experience intact and clean environments, attractive natural areas, historic and cultural traditions and welcoming hosts with whom they have good relationship.
For an industry to succeed these attributes need to be in place and one must recognize that businesses that implement sustainable methods is guaranteed to have added value. Tourism can contribute to sustainability by:
- optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural resources and biodiversity.
- Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.
- Ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.
Sustainable tourism development requires the informed participation of all relevant stakeholders, as well as strong political leadership to ensure wide participation and consensus building. Achieving sustainable tourism is a continuous process and it requires constant monitoring of impacts, introducing the necessary preventive and/or corrective measures whenever necessary. Sustainable tourism should also maintain a high level of tourist satisfaction and ensure a meaningful experience to the tourists, raising their awareness about sustainability issues and promoting sustainable tourism practices amongst them.
Uniglobe – Let’s go travel reduces the consumption of primary raw materials including fossil fuels, water and energy, encourages sustainable practices by staff, travel partners such as hotels and airlines and clients and partner with conservation organizations that support environmental, community and wildlife protection.
Benefits of Sustainable Tourism
- It benefits the local community.
To offer not just employment opportunities to local residents but through non- profits, has created a market where people want to contribute and visit locally owned businesses that give back to the community. This will lead to long term profit for businesses and local communities. - It helps conserve precious natural resources.
Majority of the earths unique ecosystems are not renewable. Whatever costs it may take to preserve it, we should take. - It gives tourists a more honest look into the local area.
By supporting locally-run tour guides and businesses, this will result in your customers learning about the truth about their culture and environment, from locals who reside there. You won’t be fed the traditional scripted tourist-friendly information, but rather will get a first-hand glimpse into life as a local and learn to love the community for what it is. - Sustainable Tourism isn’t just about creating better places to visit, it’s about creating better places to live.
Traditional tourist-heavy areas rely on tourist money pouring into their hospitality and services to keep their local economy afloat. There are two possibilities as to how that scenario plays out which are namely:- Heavy tourist traffic will deplete the natural beauty and culture of the area, leaving a ghost town for locals to live in.
- The tourism industry helps to maintain the natural land and culture of the area, while also employing and empowering locals who get to live in their community year-round without having to change it all for tourists.
- It can help avoid the displacement and resettlement of local communities.
Unfortunately, often the consequence of tourism coming to a location previously untouched by major businesses, leads to displacement and resettlements of local communities. For example, when a new beach town is “discovered” by tourists — typically from the First World — major hotel and food companies come in to benefit from the influx of potential customers. They don’t tend to care about the survival of local life that was there before. Sustainable tourism does, and it advocates for finding the best combination of exciting and profitable tourism and the continued existence of indigenous communities. - It prepares us for the future.
The traditional tourism industry, with its very large eco-footprint (supporting heavy vehicle traffic, traveling and construction of large hotels, misuse of water and electricity) is not sustainable. Travel will become more expensive, and rarer. Every major tourist destination may start to conform and look the same, contorting themselves to offer the same services and experiences. Therefore, if the tourism industry adapts to sustainability and inclusiveness from today, there will be a better tomorrow. - Supporting sustainable tourism is simply a responsible.
You lose nothing by taking part in it, and you get a guarantee that the beautiful forest, mountain town or pristine beach you spent a few delightful days in will still be thriving far into your future. And when you return in the future it will be there waiting for you in a way that has enhanced your quality of life.
