The Importance Of Sustainable Tourism

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).

After analyzing the typical tourists of HSBR: Business and leisure travelers, I have decided on creating a transformative travel experience marketing strategy that will be integrated with the sustainability aspect. The transformative travel experience will focus on giving the tourist a taste of local experience and give the tourist a feel of what it would be like to stay in the country not to merely pass through. My reason for this strategy is that

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,

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.

In 1996, UNWTO formally WTO phrased sustainable tourism as an alternate form of tourism, which ensures meeting the tourism needs of the current generation, whilst also safeguarding the tourism opportunities of future generations. One form of sustainable tourism is Ecotourism which has become the trend in tourism. Ecotourism is seen a one of the fastest growing sectors within the tourism industry worldwide with an annual growth rate of 10-15% worldwide (Buckley, 2000). According to The International Ecotourism Society or (TIES) which describes ecotourism as responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the quality of life for the local people (TIES, 2010). Ecotourism encompasses three inter-linked components of environment, active learning, sustaining the socio-cultural and natural environments (Weaver,

Moreover, tourism and the environment are balancing sectors in terms of vision and goals. The environment is the right climate for sustainable tourism development, and sustainable tourism focuses on environmental planning. Perhaps the most important element on which eco-tourism is based is not to disturb the ecological balance resulting from human actions, which are represented by the behavior of tourists in the case of ecotourism and the pollution it may cause. In addition, natural areas form the basis for ecotourism from marine tourism and land tourism, and recent studies have shown that eco-tourism generates direct financial resources. What is more, the main objective of ecotourism is to promote and improve the standards of living of the local community (Kuhdairi, 2012)

In recent days new marketing orientations developed. Businesses realised they have to look at the bigger pictures. Not just to satisfy their customer needs, but also to consider their wider community, locally and globally. Businesses need to open up to ethical and environmental commitments to society. The societal marketing takes into account “the long term interest society or consumers have in preserving the environment and conserving resources”(5) Good example for this is Body Shop International, who declares that its value: “We believe there is only one way to be beautiful, nature's way.” 9

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

Professor Wall (2005) also point out that Enterprises and hospitality industry companies are becoming increasingly willing to protect the environment. It’s because they are becoming more and more aware of the potential benefits from developing trend of the market. The nature of environmental management based on the destination Including public and private sector. The way to steady environment management is not only the response to externally imposed government ordinance but also the requirements of consumers which are becoming an important stimulus. In other words, the environment may lead the customers to increase demands directly or indirectly although the cost of environment-related attract might weaken the competitiveness of the destination and can be reflected in lower profits. According to Holden (2006), the customers’ views in consumption have been changing globally

Base on stakeholder participation and tourism sustainability analysis, the main problems current exists can be concluded. Initially, low level local business operators and residents’ participation in decision making process. Secondly, over commercialization and transformation of culture, architecture pollution. Then, in terms of environment, key concerns remain on fishery resource protection and cultivation, without compromise benefits of local residents. In the next section, several recommendations are provided for inspiration, while the feasibility and effectiveness should be further analyzed.

There are many possibilities for a new service oriented business. However, one trend that has been identified is an increased interest in sustainability and people who are becoming more aware of environmental and social issues. Consumers are increasingly considering factors involving sustainability into their purchasing decisions. Therefore, it seems reasonable to expect that the niche referred to as ecotourism will represent one service oriented model that will expand indefinitely. This growing demographics of consumers that consider environmental and social issues will be demand innovative and unique opportunities for leisure that are consistent with their perspective. Marketing to this growing market segment will be a complex task that will require that service providers act ethically on all fronts. The development of the service strategy must consider all aspects of both social and environmental impacts of the business and the services they provide. Furthermore, the promotion of the services must also be consistent with the CSR practices. This analysis will consider industry environment that would be relevant to a new ecotourism business in the near future.

This research report has been written based on the information found on peer reviewed journals, articles, textbook, and Internet sources. This paper carefully reviews three current trends that affect today’s resorts and how resorts are responding to these newly brought up trends to be marketable. However, this paper does not cover estimation of sustainability for each trends and possible new trends that are becoming popular as there are improvements made in various areas in the world. If required, extended research can be done on the effect of trends on economy status of countries and forecast of tourism in the future.

In travel and tourism industry, the focus on the environmentally responsible behaviour has grown dramatically over the years from hardly being talked about to has been a major concern (Gustin & Weaver, 1996). Deterioration of the environment happened from the growth of the global economy, over consumption and utilization of natural resources. Everyone in the world faces great challenges from the climate changes that have occurring now dues to the human-induced greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel combustion. From the climate changes, it can cause severe negative outcomes such as increase temperature, rising in sea levels, increased in the pollution in air and water, loss of animal and plant habitat, oceans circulation disruption, and

ABSTRACT: A rapid and massive movement of tourists within a shorter span of tourist season puts a heavy pressure on tourist resources. The usage of tourist attractions is likely to be damaged beyond repair and their life span may even get shortened. In the absence of innovations or added sources of recreation, the regional tourism soon reaches its saturation point. If such a plateau stage of tourism gets prolonged, it starts cutting short the prolong stay of tourists. Some of them may not like to repeat their visits or may go elsewhere. Innovations must be talked about to pass over this stage. Encouragement of interstate package tours inclusive of the provision of budget accommodation at the wayside prime halting spots becomes obligatory. Only a National Policy can tackle the national level natural disaster which adversely affects tourism over very extensive areas. A regional policy has to take up a number of measures to avoid overcrowding at tourist places and saving them from deterioration even by co-opting private enterprise in the form of investments in socio-religious voluntary services.