Sustainable Tourism Development #1

Sustainable destination development

Sustainable tourism definiton:
"Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities"

Introduction:

Tourism is responsible for 9% of the global GDP. It accounts for 29% of exports in services around the world, and it might be an especially significant factor for the developing countries – but plays a very big role for every country’s economy.
Besides that, every statistics has shown the growth of tourism from almost every aspect.
UNWTO predicts that the growth trends in tourism will continue, the number of arrivals might reach 1,8 billion by 2030.
While tourism is a major force for development and it boosts the economy, it has negative sides as well –
Tourism contributes to the global warming. Around 5% of global CO2 emission is caused by the tourism industry. Also it tourism can lead to the pollution of land and water at the destination. They might be caused by poor treatment of the nature, and not paying enough attention to the protection of the environment. The hotels and other accomodation facilities usualy use more non-renewable resources like land, energy and water as they should, or as normally people would consume. Cultural heritage sites can be harmed by poor visitor management. And yet one other point is that tourism can generate a lot of jobs, but also poor working environments might occour. Last but not least, it can have an effect on the local society, overhelming tourism might lead to unpleasent living conditions.
These examples prove why tourism is important to be planned, and sustainable destination management plays here a big role.

By building up a sustainable destination management we should pay attention to these 5 pillars:
• tourism policy and governance
• economic performance, investment and competitiveness
• employment, decent work and human capital
• poverty reduction and social inclusion
• sustainability of the natural and cultural environment

Just wanted to share this as they are part of one of my studies.
In the next chapters I will present how to build up a sustainable touristic destination with Barcelona's example.

Follow Upvote Resteem @goodguymate