Sustainable Tourism: Practices, Challenges, And Importance In Developing Countries Essay.

What is Sustainable Tourism?

Discuss about the Unsustainable Tourism Development.

The tourism industry is growing across the world at a rapid pace. It accounts 5% GDP of the global economy. Along with that, it also accounts 8% of employment all over the world. As per the records and statistics, the value of tourism industry is $1 trillion every year. The industry makes up for 6% of the world export. The worldwide tourism industry is expected to record 1.6 billion international tourists by 2020. However, the annual growth of the industry is 3.8% as per the statistics of 2010-2018 (Sharpley and Telfer 2014). The statistics say that the recent growth of the tourism industry has been rapid in the Asia-Pacific countries and the African countries, mainly in Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam (Carley and Christie 2017). In order to discuss the un-sustainability of the tourism industry, it must be discussed what is sustainable tourism in the context of developing countries. The main discussion of the report crucially argues that the tourism industry in the developing industry is unsustainable.

The sustainable tourism refers to the practices that balance between the development of the industry and the social, environmental, economic aspects related to the development. it can be said that sustainable tourism practices play a vital role in the conservation of biodiversity. The sustainable tourism development mainly aims to lower the negative impacts of it on the environment as well as on the society while conserving the natural resources for the future generation. It is worthy to be mentioned that the sustainable tourism has a significant prospect of generating a large amount of income at the same time conserving the ecosystem.  The sustainable tourism development maximizes the positive contribution towards the sustainable development by preserving the resources and also by achieving the common goals of sustainable development (Carley and Christie 2017). Sustainable tourism development includes economic initiatives like spending a part of revenue in the practices of environment conservation. So, it can be said that the sustainable tourism development is the driving force behind the sustainable development on the whole. Sustainable tourism is such an industry through which future employment is generated for the next generation. The sustainable tourism sector is such an industry that mostly impacts on the environment as well as social culture. The sustainable tourism industry is thus growing vastly in the whole world. It is needless to mention that the government of the developing countries support and promote sustainable tourism in order to protect the environment. The sustainable tourism development ensures that the members of the tourism industry are practicing keeping the sustainability of environment in mind.

Importance of Sustainable Tourism Development

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), sustainable tourism intends to meet the requirement of the tourists while taking the steps ahead towards protecting the environment (Sharpley and Telfer 2014). The sustainable development can be one of the best ways through which the future opportunities for nature can be enhanced. The traditional tourism development follows precisely the opposite approach by not giving attention to the protection of the environment. The main purpose of promoting sustainable tourism is that the conservation of the natural resources as the industrial development has become a threat to the environment. It must be mentioned that the sustainable tourism does not completely reject the development. Instead, it ensures that tourism industry generates more revenue from the industry while adopting the environment-friendly approach. Therefore the objective of sustainable development is to secure the standard economic flow while mitigating the negative impact of industrial development in nature. By conserving the nature, sustainable development indirectly ensures that the socio-cultural impacts. The practices of sustainable development mainly include the performances which balance development as well as procurement.

It is worthy to mention that tourism is one of such industries that contribute significantly to the business sphere globally. Rather tourism industry can be considered as the major socio-economic activities across the world. Over the recent years, sustainable tourism development has been adopting largely. From developed countries to underdeveloped countries, took part in the drive in order to protect the environment (Sharpley and Telfer 2014). Many researchers have stated the need for sustainable tourism mainly for the developing countries. While at the same time there are some challenges exist related to the sustainable tourism development.

One of the major challenges of sustainable tourism is that there are lacks of incentives within the tourism sector itself in order to operate the sustainable practices in terms of tourism. Though sustainable tourism is grossly adopted all over the globe, the incentives or return from its business is lesser than the traditional approach of sustainable tourism (Page 2014). Henceforth compared to the traditional approach of tourism is being more adopted than the sustainable approach of development.

Another major challenge of sustainable tourism development can be mentioned is that the very few members of the tourism industry have the adequate knowledge about sustainable tourism. Being new in the industry, the sustainable approach of tourism development has been largely undiscovered. As a result, most people often avoid this approach. Especially in the developing countries, sustainable tourism development considered to be costly to implement in the business. Both the public and private sector do not possess the adequate knowledge of how to implement the sustainable practices in the industry (Mowforth and Munt 2015). The public sector due to having inadequate resources to develop sustainable practices for the tourism industry, avoid sustainable tourism approach. At the same time the private sector not having the proper infrastructure to implement sustainable development practices.

Challenges of Sustainable Tourism Development

Among the other challenges, the lack of demand of the sustainable tourism development in within the market deserves mention. The demand is less both among the tourists as well as among the members of the industry. Most of the tourists do not even know what is meant by sustainable tourism development. Basically most of the tourists do not consider this aspect while planning trips, booking resorts or hotels (Graci 2013). The comforts and other facilities are the main concern of the tourists while they make plans for holidays. On an average, most of the people are unaware of the fact that which companies or resorts or hotels practice sustainability in their business.

In the developing countries, the tourism sector does not have proper regulation over the tourism industry. Even though, in some countries, the government promotes sustainable development in the tourism sector, the lack of regulation results in the unsuccessful implement of the sustainable development (Gössling, Scott and Hall 2013). In this regard, it will be right to mention that the sustainable practices in the tourism industry of the developed countries are maintained and operated in a good manner that the developed countries have become enabling to address the issues of traditional development approach of tourism while conserving the natural resources. Thus it will be right to assert that the weak enforcement of laws, regulations and policies is the one of reasons why the developing countries are lagging behind in terms of sustainable development of tourism industry.

Apart from this, it needs to be mentioned that the developing countries do not get the adequate support of technology to implement the sustainable practices in the tourism sector. The government in the developed countries provides the tourism sector with proper and adequate technological support so that the members of the industry can successfully implement the practices of the sustainability in the industry.

Sustainable tourism practices play a vital role in the conservation of biodiversity. The sustainable tourism development mainly aims to lower the negative impacts of it on the environment as well as on the society while conserving the natural resources for the future generation. It is worthy to be mentioned that the sustainable tourism has a significant prospect of generating large amount of income at the same time conserving the ecosystem (Gössling, Scott and Hall 2013).

The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) defines that the sustainable tourism intends to meet the requirement of the tourists while taking the steps ahead towards protecting the environment. The sustainable development can be one of the best ways through which the future opportunities for nature can be enhanced. The traditional tourism development follows precisely the opposite approach by not giving attention to the protection of the environment. The main purpose of promoting sustainable tourism is the conservation of the natural resources as the industrial development has become a threat to the environment. It must be mentioned that the sustainable tourism does not completely reject the development (Ghimire 2013). Rather it ensures that tourism industry generates more revenue from the industry while adopting the environment-friendly approach. The sustainable tourism industry is growing vastly in the whole world. It is needless to mention that the government of the developing countries support and promote sustainable tourism in order to protect the environment (Ghimire 2013). The sustainable tourism development ensures that the members of the tourism industry are practicing keeping the sustainability of environment in mind.

Conclusion

To conclude it will be right to state that the tourism development in the developing countries largely unsustainable for not having proper amenities. Hence the report focuses on the topic as it needs immediate attention in order to protect the environment even though, the tourism industry is growing all over the world at a rapid pace. The immediate attention is therefore required because the tourism industry accounts 5% GDP of the global economy and along with that, it accounts 8% of employment all over the world. It must not be forgotten that as per the records and statistics, the value of tourism industry is $1 trillion every year. The industry makes up for 6% of the world export. The worldwide tourism industry is expected to record 1.6 billion international tourists by 2020. However, the annual growth of the industry is 3.8% as per the statistics of 2010-2018. The statistics say that the recent growth of the tourism industry has been rapid in the Asia-Pacific countries and the African countries, mainly in Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. In order to discuss the un-sustainability of the tourism industry, the report discusses the sustainable tourism development at first in the context of developing countries and in the later part the discussion, highlights how the tourism industry is unstable in the developing countries by elaborating the challenges and issues.

References

Carley, M. and Christie, I., 2017. Managing sustainable development. Routledge.

Ghimire, K.B. ed., 2013. The native tourist: Mass tourism within developing countries. Routledge.

Gössling, S., Scott, D. and Hall, C.M., 2013. Challenges of tourism in a low?carbon economy. Wiley interdisciplinary reviews: Climate change, 4(6), pp.525-538.

Graci, S., 2013. Collaboration and partnership development for sustainable tourism. Tourism Geographies, 15(1), pp.25-42.

Mowforth, M. and Munt, I., 2015. Tourism and sustainability: Development, globalisation and new tourism in the third world. Routledge.

Page, S.J., 2014. Tourism management. Routledge.

Sharpley, R. and Telfer, D.J. eds., 2014. Tourism and development: concepts and issues (Vol. 63). Channel View Publications.

Sharpley, R. and Telfer, D.J., 2015. Tourism and development in the developing world. Routledge.