Sustainable Tourism
Question: Are the concepts of sustainable tourism and sustainable development linked? Why is understanding this relationship important?
Introduction
Tourism is one of the fast evolving industries that contribute to the development of the society. Basically, tourism is classically regarded as traveling for recreation although this definition has been expanded in recent years to include any travel outside of one’s normal working or living area. According to Inskeep, (1988), the tourist originated when large numbers of middle class people began to join aristocratic travelers. As societies became wealthier, and people lived longer, it became not only possible but probable that lower-middle and middle class people steadily employed would retire in good health and with some significant savings. In line with these changes, tourism becomes a trend not only to the upper class people but also to lower-middle and middle class people with significant savings. More and more people are now traveling around the globe just to experience tourism. Meaning, there are continues increase in numbers of tourist around the globe. But the question is: “Is tourism provides significant help to the host country?” The issue concerning the impact of tourism in the host country shows advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages of tourism is the increase of profit and employment to locals but its drawback is all about the damages it causes to our environment. In response to drawback, John Ashe (1999) argued that sustainable tourism involves the partnerships that will “effectively conserve and utilize limited resources, based on consumer and market demand and the development of community-based initiatives”. With regards to this, this paper will be discussing the relationship between sustainable tourism and sustainable development.
Discussions
Sustainable tourism is very important because it brings profit into an area. If you want to grow, you need to find a source of capital. When a destination has something that attracts people they will spend money when they come to visit.
Sustainable tourism also means that the infrastructure of the local economy is set up to support the tourism. For example, if the host country has an incredible lake that just cries out for visitors and yet there is no way to get to it because the roads are not built, then people will not come consistently. If the host country have a rodeo but do not provide parking and food concessions, people will stay away. If the host country have a professional sports team in town but the seats of the arena are broken, the roof leaks, the paint is peeling, the food is stale, and there is no climate control people will not come. Sustainable tourism is the entire area recognizing the need for the tourism and demonstrating a willingness to invest in whatever it takes to make it happen.
In addition to this, sustainable tourism also reacts to changes in environment. It is an industry that gives a low impact on the environment and local culture, while giving employment to locals, generate income and the conservation of local ecosystems (Butler, R and Pearce, D (eds.) 1995). Butler, R and Pearce, D (eds.) (1995) also added that it is also conscientious tourism which is both ecologically and culturally sensitive. With regards to the needs of sustainable tourism, is it conformable to sustainable development of the host country? Sustainable development is actually related to sustainable tourism or vise-versa. As we all know that sustainable tourism is useful as it allows the visitor to see what a single country or state what they have to offer with small impact to environment. By advertising for people to come and visit your homeland, brings dollars as people purchase souvenirs to remember they were there. In accordance to sustainable development, the tourists can still come back and use again the preserved natural resources. What happens then, is the tourist wants more out of their visiting experience the next time around. Thus, bringing more demand and stay competitive with neighboring nations. Hence, tourism brings more to a country or state, and in return it would bring more visitors causing sustainable economic development for a particular region.
When we say sustainable development, we are thinking of the resources that we are using today and without sacrificing our future needs. Thus, the call of sustainable tourism to generate income and preserving the environment is actually similar to the call of sustainable development i.e. to use the resources with recognition to the future needs.
However, there are also issues in sustainable tourism that violates the concept of sustainable development. And that is, if the tourism industry did not respond to sustainable tourism properly, let say for example, in spite of many promises to avoid the mistakes of previous developments, the tourism industry continuously alter the environment without preservation caution. Furthermore, most of the jobs that the tourist industry creates tend to be seasonal and fairly low-paying. Even in places like Las Vegas, which are seen as great success stories, wages are not particularly good (And no one would argue that Las Vegas is the epitome of sustainability). And turning an area into a tourist resort tends to split the local community. All in all, tourism is a long-term loser for all but a very few places (and most of those are cities with special attractions), in spite of its short term economic attraction. Thus, this practice is not conformable to sustainable development.
Synthesis
From this we may say, that sustainable tourism is linked to sustainable development. The tourism industry should respond to sustainable tourism in order to gain sustainable development. These concepts are important since it saves not only the future of tourism industry but also our future, our world. But how can we achieve sustainable tourism in response to sustainable development?
It can be done, and it can be truly achievable, if we contribute good, environmentally-friendly acts on our tourism industry. What I can suggest to achieve sustainable tourism are the following:
(1) If possible, use public transportation in order to go to the beach, the forest, or national park. If you must drive, leave the car at a town center closest to the park or beach and use public transport (where available) to reach the destination.
(2) Follow the four (3) R’s: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
(3) Go local over going abroad. There are so much more opportunities to visit parks that are closer to your own home than flying away on an airplane to visit a beach that is comparable to your local beach; or to visit a pine cone forest that you can just walk to a redwood grove.
(4) Prevention is better than repair. It is true that when we hurt our body, we need to cure it to the best we can for medicine. But, when we destroy the environment we are visiting, it may be hard to repair itself from the presence of human wastes (plastics, tin cans, paper plates) because it cannot be absorbed by the soil present. It is better to prevent those situations by bringing in environmentally-friendly products that we can reuse and using less resources that we can actually save for future use.
When we do all of these, there will be a lot of benefits, from saving the environment from degradation, to saving bucks from being into waste from buying non-environmentally friendly products. We can also reduce the amount of garbage we put in the garbage cans and recycle what we use for something else, like plastic cups for decorations and souvenirs, or vegetable peels for fertilizer. And if these things are being practiced then sustainable development is possibly achieved and that is through sustainable tourism.
References:
Ashe, J. (1999). Bluewater Blureprint, Plus Five. UN Chronicle. 36, 3.
Butler, R and Pearce, D (eds.) (1995). Change in Tourism: People, Places, Processes, Routledge, London.
Inskeep, E. (1991). Tourism planning: An integrated and sustainable approach. New York: Van Norstrand Reinhold.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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