Pacific Asia Travel Association - sustainability and social responsibility. Helping Not Helping is a campaign to end orphanage tourism and volunteering run by Lumos. This can be achieved by: Protecting natural environments, wildlife and natural resources when developing and managing tourism activities Providing authentic tourist experiences that celebrate and conserve heritage and culture Creating socio-economic benefits for communities through employment and income earning opportunities A few sustainable tourism resources Youtube Video Why sustainable tourism?
A video that explains the basics of sustainable tourism and why it is necessary. We undertook groundbreaking research in Cyprus to measure and monetise the impacts of tourism. The business case for sustainable tourism.
This video explains how the Travel Foundation goes about sustainable tourism projects. Wikipedia Some generic description and explanation of sustainable tourism.
When queues of people are waiting to reach the summit of Mount Everest you know things are out of control. But you can lower your impact by visiting at off-peak times and exploring their lesser-known sites as well as the famous ones here are some of my suggestions for alternative things to do in London and Paris. Look beyond the obvious destinations too — think Albania instead of Greece or the Faroe Islands instead of Iceland.
Try smaller cities or rural destinations outside of the major cities. People tend to be pretty lazy and stick to places close to airports and easy to get to, so if you have to add on a ferry trip or train ride chances are the destination will be less touristy. The old advice to spend locally still stands, so as much money as possible goes into the local economy. In places like the Caribbean , an average only 20 cents of each dollar visitors spend actually stays in the country.
Resources are much scarcer in some countries though, especially water, which makes it even more important to minimise usage. Apparently a guest in a luxury hotel uses litres of water per night versus litres for the average person in the UK. Flights are a major contributor to climate change. Travel by public transport rather than renting a car if possible.
World Animal Protection has a list of the ones we should definitely avoid. Everyone has horror stories of seeing semi-dressed women in Muslim countries or drunken stag dos in Eastern Europe. The local culture is a big part of why people love to travel — try the weird-sounding dish on the menu, learn a few words of the language, eat dinner at the same time as the locals.
Being respectful of the culture also mean you get treated with more respect. Dress appropriately, cover up when not on the beach, ask before taking photos and support charities over giving money to beggars. But take the marketing spin with a pinch of salt and make sure you check out how sustainable tourism businesses really are. Especially for trips like cruises which have a particularly big impact on the places they visit.
Ask what their environmental policies are, do they recycle and conserve water, is food and drink locally sourced, how do they treat their staff, do they invest in the local community? Hopefully one day sustainability will be built into every tourism business, but until then we need to help make it important to them. Read more sustainable tourism posts. A weekend in Cambridge: A hour itinerary. Are there any companies worth mentioning that are doing a great job at the moment to be leaders in this space?
Also, is it always better to drive locally near your home in terms of greenhouse gases compared with taking a flight? Is there a metric ex. Driving a car that gets 24 MPG miles is the equivalency to a 1 hour flight?
There are a few recent start ups like Byway which are focusing on flight free travel as well as Responsible Traveller who've got a range of trips. Thank you for writing this Lucy. But I have a question about buying local.
Tourists are in many cases much wealthier than the native people, especially in developing countries. I recently read another post about how the local shop owners in popular tourist destinations will push their prices up as they know the foreigners will be able to spend more on their goods.
However, this means that it is harder for other locals to buy from these shops as they often have lower income. I do think buying local is better though, as money won't just go to the big companies but will be more evenly spread. Its a hard issue to solve though, but I think if we all try and make tourism more sustainable we will have the situation more under control. Yes there is definitely some complexity around local purchases — though I think if you are buying locally produced items it isn't as bad but rather imported goods prices can get pushed up more, and often there are particular things that aren't really bought so much by locals, such as art and crafts, where your money can really help.
In order to measure results and progress, benchmarks are used. With these benchmarking categories, achieving sustainability in the tourism industry is not just a rhetorical goal; it is tangible, providing measurable benefits and potential economic savings to those businesses who strive for improvement in their daily performance.
By beginning to benchmark activities, businesses can engage in sustainable development while simultaneously reaping the tangible and economic benefits of internal improvements. Sustainable tourism. What is sustainable tourism? The twelve main goals for sustainable tourism laid out in by the World Tourism Organization and the United Nations Environment Program are as follows [2] : Economic Viability: To ensure the viability and competitiveness of tourism destinations and enterprises, so that they are able to continue to prosper and deliver benefits in the long term.
Local Prosperity: To maximize the contribution of tourism to the economic prosperity of the host destination, including the proportion of visitor spending that is retained locally. Employment Quality: To strengthen the number and quality of local jobs created and supported by tourism, including the level of pay, conditions of service and availability to all without discrimination by gender, race, disability or in other ways.
Social Equity: To seek a widespread and fair distribution of economic and social benefits from tourism throughout the recipient community, including improving opportunities, income and services available to the poor. Visitor Fulfillment: To provide a safe, satisfying and fulfilling experience for visitors, available to all without discrimination by gender, race, disability or in other ways. Local Control: To engage and empower local communities in planning and decision making about the management and future development of tourism in their area, in consultation with other stakeholders.
Community Wellbeing: To maintain and strengthen the quality of life in local communities, including social structures and access to resources, amenities and life support systems, avoiding any form of social degradation or exploitation Cultural Richness: To respect and enhance the historic heritage, authentic culture, traditions and distinctiveness of host communities Physical Integrity: To maintain and enhance the quality of landscapes, both urban and rural, and avoid the physical and visual degradation of the environment Biological Diversity: To support the conservation of natural areas, habitats and wildlife, and minimize damage to them Resource Efficiency: To minimize the use of scarce and non-renewable resources in the development and operation of tourism facilities and services Environmental Purity: To minimize the pollution of air, water and land and the generation of waste by tourism enterprises and visitors.
Except the term sustainable tourism there are two other types of tourism that are also focused on creating a tourism in harmony with environment and social-cultural aspects: Responsible tourism - sustainable tourism is often also referred as responsible tourism, which has been adopted as a term used by industry who feel that word sustainability is overused and not understood. Responsible tourism is any form of tourism that can be consumed in a more responsible way.
Responsible tourism puts more emphasis on the responsibility of tourism industry through generating greater economic benefits for local people and enhancing the well-being of host communities, improving working conditions, involving local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances, making positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, providing access for physically challenged people and encouraging respect between tourists and hosts. It also strives to minimize negative social, economic and environmental impacts.
Ecotourism — According to the International Ecotourism Society TIES , ecotourism is defined as: "Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education" Ecotourism should provide direct financial benefits for conservation and local people and is focused on the conservation of natural resources.
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