Sustainable Tourism
Sustainable travel. what is it and why should we think about it?
The travel industry makes up almost ten percent of the global GNP with employing almost 200 million people worldwide. There’s a lot of positive consequences to this, like economic benefits to local communities, sharing skills and knowledge and of course cultural exchange and understanding. But sadly there are also some negative consequences to this like pollution and pressure on local nature and communities.
This is where sustainable tourism enter the picture. Sustainable tourism is all about minimizing the negative consequences of traveling and maximizing the positive. So how does it work?
The travel company should help the traveler create a positive impact in a number of ways to name a few examples. In example, the transportation is energy-efficient thereby reducing pollution. The hotel supports the community by hiring locals on good terms. And helps them blend-in with local culture and minimizes impact on nature and wildlife. With this way , everybody contributes to more sustainable tourism and travel.
We’ve loved holidays abroad ever since we’ve had enough time and money to go. In 1958 Boeing introduced the 707 aircraft and the number of international tourist arrivals has grown exponentially since.
Today there are over 1 billion tourists and the growth set to continue with emerging new markets. The nature of tourism is unique among industries. But tourism today operates in a price driven market where margins are increasingly squeezed. If care isn’t taken, quality will be driven down and destinations degrade and the opportunity to offer an enriched holiday experience to customers is mixed.
With a different and more sustainable approach, tourism can offer greater rewards for business and at the same time benefit the environment and communities living in destinations and of course customers. The past decade has seen the world change rapidly, both economically and environmentally.
The pressure for sustainable tourism has got greater and greater, but we can’t turn back the clock. Customers now punish companies who don’t operate responsible. So it’s time for a change. Time to make business as usual something different. When businesses start to actively care for the product, which is the people & tourism experience, something special happens. Doing things differently and doing them right, and creating real competitive advantage.
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