Future of Tourism
Jianan Chang
TRVL 3040
Prof. Drohan
December 17, 2012
Future of Tourism
On Tuesday December 4, 2012, I attended an inspiring speech by founder of G Adventures Bruce Poon Tip. Mr. Tip introduced his company catering global tourism services with 1100+ happiest staff, as well emphasized with video presentation how tourism benefits could be generously put to use in changing people's lives where needed and how this is possible all over the planet. His mission is creating the sustainable, responsible and ethical tourism. He believed that product focus is not sustainable. Customer engagement beyond product by changing people's lives and creating happiness as a business model is the way to success. After his speech, I keep thinking about some questions about impacts and future tourism. In this paper, I am going to talk about my opinions.
The first topic is socio-cultural impacts of tourism. The socio-cultural impacts of tourism described here are the effects on host communities of direct and indirect relations with tourists, and of interaction with the tourism industry. It will bring about a lot of socio-cultural impacts.
There are many positive impacts of tourism. As tourism supports the creation of community facilities and services that otherwise might not have been developed, it can bring higher living standards to a destination. Benefits can include upgraded infrastructure, health and transport improvements, new sport and recreational facilities, restaurants, and public spaces as well as an influx of better-quality commodities and food. Tourism can boost the preservation and transmission of cultural and historical traditions, which often contributes to the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources, the protection of local heritage, and a renaissance of indigenous cultures, cultural arts and crafts. Tourism can also add to the vitality of communities in many ways. One example is that events and festivals of which local residents have been the primary participants and spectators are often rejuvenated and developed in response to tourist interest. The jobs created by tourism can act as a vital incentive to reduce emigration from rural areas.
On another hand, there are also some negative impacts of tourism. Negative impacts from tourism occur when the level of visitor use is greater than the environment's ability to cope with this use within the acceptable limits of change. It can put enormous pressure on an area and lead to impacts such as soil erosion, increased pollution, discharges into the sea, natural habitat loss, increased pressure on endangered species and heightened vulnerability to forest fires. Because tourism involves movement of people to different geographical locations, and establishment of social relations between people who would otherwise not meet, cultural clashes can take place as a result of differences in cultures, ethnicity, religion, values, lifestyles, languages, and levels of prosperity. Crime rates typically increase with the growth and urbanization of an area, and growth of mass tourism is often accompanied by increased crime. The presence of a large number of tourists with a lot of money to spend, and often carrying valuables such as cameras and jewelry, increases the attraction for criminals and brings with it activities like robbery and drug dealing.
The second topic is whether the implementation of responsible tourism principles makes better business sense than traditional mass tourism. While responsible tourism is fast becoming a global trend nowadays, some may wonder if it makes better business sense than traditional mass tourism. By defining the words “business sense” from Cambridge dictionary, it means an understanding of the ways in which business works successfully and/or if something makes good business sense, it will help a business to succeed. Tourism is a huge business. Therefore, it is worth to pay a high attention to analyze whether the implementation of responsible tourism really makes the industry flourish.
Mass tourists do not consider ethical or responsible issues like the well-being of local citizens or environmental friendliness when choosing their travel destination. Instead, they consider attractive and popular destinations. It is obvious that if there are more tourists go to the destination, much money would be earned and not only the scenic spot itself but also other things that surround the sight like hotels, restaurants and etc. However, because of mass tourism involves an overwhelming amount of tourists, excluding the benefits it brings, many negative effects will occur as well. For example, the environment can be hurt when millions of people rush to a country and begin using its natural resources, some rich business owners or groups from other countries enter to the country building up beautiful resorts, theme parks and so on that attract tourists, resulting damages to their original living habits. Moreover, very limited share of money spent in holidays actually get to the local community and their traditional cultures would also be detrimental. Different from mass tourism, responsible tourism is a tourism management strategy embracing planning, management, product development and marketing to bring about positive economic, social, cultural, and environmental impacts. Simply put, Responsible tourism is tourism ‘that creates better places for people to live in, and better places to visit’. Besides, responsible tourism is a broad movement but at its heart is the commitment to respecting the places we visit as tourists and the importance of putting the interests of those communities and their environments, natural and cultural. Correspondingly, Responsible tourism and sustainable tourism have an identical goal; it is about taking responsibility individually and collectively for balancing economic, social and environmental in order to achieve sustainable development.