Sustainable Tourism : Alternative Tourism

Tourism is the world’s largest industry with nature-based ecotourism seeing rapid growth since its initial arrival in the 1980s. It is estimated by the World Tourism Organisation that nature tourism generates 7% of all international travel expenditure (Lindberg, 1997) and this figure will have increased rapidly over recent years. It’s increase in popularity is due to a number of factors; tourists becoming increasingly bored of the typical sun, sea and sand holiday’s, the increase in global awareness or environmental issues such as global

Sustainable tourism development merges environmental concerns with economic policy (Dresner, S. 2008: 69) and allows for tourism’s products in the form of intangible services or the natural environment, to be environmentally cautious through a responsible trade off between production and use of assets. Some influences apparent are environmental, social, and economical and it is further important to emphasize that one or a combination of the aspects, with market cooperation, creates a sustainable agenda. Travel services are increasingly seen as less of a luxury good and more as an everyday purchase (Page, 2003:3) due to marketing becoming more prominent which means organisations must complete vigorous promotion strategies for long-term viability. Marketing therefore has a highly important role, as Holloway (2004) explains marketing understands the needs and wants of customers, ‘to what can be sold, to whom, when, where and in what quantities’ (Holloway J.C. 2004:7). Holloway (2004) writes that successful organisations anticipate demand “recognising it, stimulating it and finally satisfying it” (Holloway, J.C. 2004: 7). Marketing is absolutely crucial within creating and maintaining a sustainable agenda in a variety of ways, moreover reference to consistency among stages of development, unique benefits produced from varied strategies, relevancy of market research, adapting to changing market demand and the positive outcome of identifying new markets.

Making tourism more sustainable is not just about controlling and managing the negative impacts of the industry. Tourism is in a very special position to benefit local communities, economically and socially, and to raise awareness and support for conservation of the environment.

Tourism plays a significant role in sustainable development and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Tourism Organization (WTO) wish to encourage all countries to make sure that their policies and actions for its development and management fully embrace the principles of sustainability. Likewise, policies to promote sustainable development should take full account of the opportunities offered by tourism. Various international conventions and declarations have put forward principles and guidelines for sustainable tourism and the importance of tourism and its sustainability was underlined at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. Many countries declare that they are pursuing, or wish to pursue, policies for ‘sustainable tourism’. Despite this interest, there remains a degree of uncertainty over the scope and priorities for making tourism more sustainable and only partial appreciation of how to put this into practice (Making Tourism More Sustainable, 2005).

When it comes to the topic of ecotourism, most of us will readily agree that it is a less harmful alternative to mass-tourism and that it promotes responsible and low-impact travel to areas where flora, fauna and cultural heritage are the primary drawing power. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of what the impact of ecotourism actually is and what its long-term consequences are. Whereas some are convinced that ecotourism provides the basis for sustainable development, particularly in places that suffer from exploitation and excessive resources’ usage, and that could only improve the general conditions of the local people, others maintain that we are still far from true ecotourism, for many are those in the

You know that feeling you have when you are in a place so beautiful that it takes your breath away? That’s exactly what it feels like to be in Brazil. I have never been to a place more colorful, unique or magnificent than Brazil. And I believe that I would not have had such an amazing trip if I had not chosen to travel with Ideia Tours. I choose Ideia Tours because they are a certified sustainable tour operator and I wanted to have an experience that was conscious about the impact tourism has on a destination. Before traveling, I wanted to find out where Ideia’s sustainable certification label came from and how it adheres to the World Tourism Organization’s three main aspects of sustainable

Ceballos-Lascurain (1993) defined ecotourism as, “Environmentally responsible travel and visitation to relatively undisturbed natural areas, in order to enjoy and appreciate nature (and any accompanying cultural features - both past and present) that promotes conservation, has low negative visitor impact, and provides for beneficially active socio-economic involvement of local populations”.

As mentioned by Rimmington & Morrison (2009), the assistance from different parts of the world presents a new and diverse outlook for future research including theoretical innovations and revelations, cultural and environmental aspects, tourist destination and other ecotourism and recreational aspects of tourism and hospitality industry (Brotherton,

The core areas of the three pillars are the social science, economic and Environmental protection of sustainable development. These pillars form the backbone of the core areas that the world now faces. In short, social science is caring about the awareness of the health of people from pollution and other harmful activities of the all-round business industry. For example, if we relate this to the hospitality industry. How can we build a sustainable hotel, with sustainable material. Next to this, we have the economic development, this is about getting what we consume and giving people what they want without compromising the quality of life. At last, but also the most important core in the pillars is the environment protection. By recycling and reducing our use of electric power and water saving we protect the environment. The technological advantages can help the hospitality in this, but can also be a damage for in the

Tourism is a fast growing industry and a valuable sector, contributing significantly to the economy (“The Social & Cultural Impacts of Tourism”, n.d.). It has been generally accepted that tourism is, for the most part and with relatively few exceptions, beneficial to both generating and destination countries (Holloway, 2009, p. 114). Some researchers are less sure that this is the case. This essay will discuss the environmental and social impacts of tourism in the UK considering whether the benefits exceed the costs.

At last, the ecological element is also important when investigating the business environment and the CSR has gradually ended up coordinated in numerous associations' business goals. For a hotel industry to be socially, dependable it must finish numerous approaches, for example, submitting to the energy consumption laws, lessening carbon footprint, and connecting with the local community. Then again, the natural disaster has turned out to be incessant. Subsequently, numerous destination spots are intensely influenced and sustainable tourism must be practiced to save natural resources (Levonsky & Conley, 2004).

The Travel and Tourism industry is still one of the largest single businesses in world commerce and its importance is widely recognized. The tourism industry is now one of the largest sectors earning foreign exchange. In the face of many benefits, many countries have started assigning due weight age to the tourism industry in their national development agenda. Tourism is an industry that operates on a massively broad scale: it embraces activities ranging from the smallest sea-side hotel; to air-lines, multi-national hotel chains and major international tour operators. Originally, non-traditional industries such as tourism emerged as a solution to strike a balance between ecology and industry

Retention of Visitor spending: The key to achieving economic sustainability for tourism in (i.e. California and Giants Causeway) is maximising the economic retention of tourist spending in your local economy. The sustainable tourism businesses need to develop strategies that are capable of meeting the long-term economic needs and aspirations of the local community. If the communities are engaged by tourism organisations as stakeholders in tourism, and economic partners in the tourism industry, this will actively support local tourism businesses. Tourism is a rapidly growing industry and has far-reaching economic and environmental impact across the destinations; hence, if tourism is an important source of local employment and a significant

There are a lot of people want to see the unseen and discover the unknown so, some of people use various means such as reading books and others watching document movies but the best mean is travelling for tourism because it give them the chance to increase their knowledge and experience by a visual knowledge. The meaning and the concept of Tourism is vary and different according to the language and the region so, it can be defined in different ways. Also, the present day tourism is not the same as travels of the early periods of human history. Tourism as a modem term is the temporary movement of people to destinations outside their normal place of work and residence. Such a pleasure-seeking tourist is a traveler moving from place to place or visiting the same place time and again. There are a lot of benefits of tourism for the tourists and for the countries which they visit. First for the tourists, the tourism has educative value such as, trade, commerce, history, languages, culture, geography, and costumes. Second for the countries, the tourism has economic impact such as it increase the international income. Also, it has socio- cultural impact, and environmental impact. For all these reason tourism is very important for the people and societies. The purposes which make people travel from place to another is various and different. Some of the important classifications of tourism are religious tourism, ecotourism, and medical tourism.

Planning and development are both extremely important factors within the tourism industry and can have both positive and negative effects on the environment, local communities and tourist destinations. “Destination planning aims to limit the negative impacts of cultural tourism upon the history and lifestyles of the local community. An understanding of sustainable tourist development allows for the development of culture without loss of its authentic identity” (Maidment. T. 2012). This statement discusses the importance of planning to avoid having any negative impacts on environments and communities. Because the effects of tourism are so severe to destinations, many natural and cultural resources have been destroyed, therefore tourism planning is vital to preserve and maintain these places for future generations.