Nature of Tourism Industry and Sustainability
Discuss about the Environmental Stewardship In Tourism.
Tourism can be defined as the nature of activities of individuals that can be termed as aliens or visitors who have taken the pleasure to spend time away from their homes or countries. The main purpose is for leisure rather it is the business of disseminating services to persons during their vocations for instance restaurants, trips and hotel services. The unsustainability of tourism in the developing nations is coursed by its inability to come into terms with the major economic gains (Halme & Fadeeva 2010, p. 90). The industry provides employment to many people but it fails to return income that can be used to reinstate the environmental condition back to its purposed good state. The continuous deterioration of the environment raises huge concerns or else it may lead to unsustainability of this sector of economy. The way the tourism industry caries out its activities in the developing nations raises lots of concerns since it tries to work out its ways to meet the demands of the current generation while compromising on the ability of the future generation to come into terms with its needs.
The essence of unsustainability in the tourism industry is due to the fact that the sectors in most of the developing nations fail to take the account of their present and coming environmental and economic impacts (Trupia 2010). The industry has fallen short to address the needs of the environment and the hosting communities. The absence of strict government policies (absence of government tourism authority) on environmental protection have paved way for the industry to tolerate or rather compromise their dealings which have led to degradation of the environment as it has been illustrated below (Halme & Fadeeva 2010, p. 97). There is also lack of integrated planning environmental restrictions that protect the environment from climatic changes thus contributing to the creation of unsustainability in this arena. Talking of sustainability, it implies tacking corrective measures that leads to satisfaction of the current demands paying attention not to temper with the balance of the environment while developing the economic sector. This is what most of the developing nations have failed to take heed of thus leading to unsustainability.
The growing demand of customers that result on strain on the environment and the available scarce resources is complex. Failure to involve the local community by the relevant stakeholders and educating them on how to sustain the environment or protect it also play part in the depletion of the natural resource leading to unsustainability (Lukhele & Mearns 2013). Despite the fact that it is nearly impossible for tourism to be completely sustainable in any country especially the developing nations, we cannot deny the fact that the tourism industry can work its way to aiming to be sustainable since every sector in the economy has got its own implications. Surprisingly, tourism industry relies on nearly everything yet not everything relies on it.
Factors affecting the Functionality of Tourism towards Environmental Sustainability
There are several factors that work together to affect this sector more so environmental concerns. Most of the developing nations are largely affected by the tourism sector especially on the state of environment. When the capacity of tourist usage is fur much more than the ability of the environment to sustain this utilization within the accepted constrains of change, it leads to negative implications on the environment which may intern adversely affect this industry leading to its underperformance.
In order to determine the rate of sustainability or unsustainability of the tourism industry in the developing nations, it is quite rudimentary to view it in to major ways (Halme & Fadeeva 2010). Firstly, the state of the environment as it is currently and secondly the impacts of tourism activities on the environment with reference to the measures put in to mitigate these environmental concerns. Looking at the state of most developing nations, we realize that the conditions of environment especially land, soil, air, and even changes in the atmosphere have resulted in adverse effects for both humanity and the surrounding. Desertification of many rain forests continues to exist. Year in year out, land degradation looms almost every corner of this nations and may end up leading to climate changes and destruction of natural habitat of both fauna and flora. At the end of the day, will there be anything left aside to be enjoyed as tourism attraction center?
Increased soil erosion is fur much lethal than desertification as it leads to imbalance of the soil structure (Kavita & Saarinen 2016, p. 89). For instance, research shows an increased gross loss of 1.5% in agricultural produce in most of sub Saharan regions. Absence of clean water despite the efforts put forth to provide purified water to people and inadequate sanitations. What kind of picture does this pose in the world of tourism? Is there hope for this industry to develop and become sustainable in the developing countries with this kind of situations?
Furthermore, the quality of air is threatening or rather risky, diseases such as cholera and bilharzia that arises because of unhygienic conditions. Worst of them all is the rapid changes in atmospheric conditions. Global warming also effects coursed by green long rays in the green houses, depletion of the ozone layer, and accumulation of toxic gases in the air results into acidic rainfall or increased levels of ultraviolet rays. These lead to infections such as cataracts, cancer and irreversible damage to the immune system of the body (Koens & Thomas 2017, p. 97). The above are the current environmental conditions of the developing nations.
Impacts of Unsustainability: Increased soil erosion
Secondly, there is an adverse effect as a result of tourism in the environment which in turn affects the tourism industry (viscous circle of negative activities that in turn worsens the existing conditions). The unmanned conventional tourism renders impending risks on several natural resources worldwide. The enormous amount of stress and strain on the environment which leads to effects similar to the current state of most of the developing nations as mentioned previously. There is also a growing tension on endangered species posing a threat of forest fire.
The environmental concerns posited by tourism industry that may lead to its unsustainability in the developing nations are as discussed below (Trupia 2017, p. 90). Firstly, there is the excessive use of natural assets that may lead to their extinction. The growth of the tourism sector rather industry is at the expense of the natural resources which may be depleted within no time. Most of these resources are nonrenewable and scarce thus need to be protected or utilized with caution. The excessive use of water bodies by the tourism sector for recreational purposes, personal use and worse of them all is the untreated sewage directed to the water bodies which intern results to a wastage of turns of water. Scarcity of water that may come about because of maintaining golf courses which require tunes of water on a daily basis.
Talk of pressure on the locally available assets and degradation of land. The increased tourist activities in the recent years have led to a dramatic growth of infrastructure such as building to accommodate the tourist and the transportation networks (Koens & Thomas 2015, p. 67). This comes at the expense of the natural resources such as modification of landscapes and overutilization of both renewable and nonrenewable natural resources in the name of providing resources for tourists posits some greater harmful impacts such as deforestation.
Consequently, the rate of pollution that has resulted from tourism activities in the developing nations also raises issues on the sustainability of this industry. Is there any possibility for an environmentally polluted nation to develop industriously in tourism? The answer is actually a tall order for such a thing to happen. Even though this industry provides employment to more than15% of the whole population of the world, with the ongoing environmental pollution, it may be very difficult for some people to get their daily bread us the pollution will propel the extinction or a halt in these industries.
Contribution of Tourism to Unsustainability
Pollution ranges from air pollution to noise (Ekins 2011, p. 9). The increased number of flights by tourists plays a big part in eradicating most of the important gases in the atmosphere such the ozone layer. This in turn results to adverse effects such as ultraviolet rays responsible for cancer and other bodily damages. This vise combined with solid waste material has the ability to create a large amount of destruction on the environment. Improper disposal of this waste products such as plastic paper bags and other non-degradable materials used by the tourists end up finding their ways into the oceans. The implications of this mismanaged waste materials are such that it leads to mutation of certain aquatic creatures as some may get stuck between these wastes which intern interferes with their development. The littering of the environment paints a bad picture of the environment for instance the litters at the slopes of Mount Everest which does not attract tourists anymore.
Having been blinded by the opportunity to make money arising from this developing sector, the stakeholders /the government have compromised the adverse effects that this industry has and can bring to the economy. For instance, the failure of tourism to fabricate and integrate its structure with the nature of indigenous design of the tourism attraction center is essential (Kavita & Saarinen 2016). The construction of buildings and transportation sites that involve mining of sand and other valuable assets from their natural state has deterred the natural scenes and left an ugly area that no longer attracts tourists. Absence of these government tourism policies is the epitome of all the unsustainability in this sector.
A sustainable tourism is supposed to ensure that for every profit gained by the sector it should give part of it to go back and replenish the environment and ensure it is not strained contrary to this, most tourism industries in the developing nations do not give back to the sustenance of the environment thus leading to unsustainable state. Trampling impacts thus being caused on both plants and animals such as loss of ground cover, decrease in air and water permeability.
The excessive construction of restaurants and other tourist related buildings along the shores of the oceans cause immense damage to the aquatic life for instance the nesting of turtles whose natural breeding zones are destroyed (Kyoung-yim & Heejoon 2018, p. 17). The constructions also destroy the natural view and weaken the ground making it vulnerable to destruction by strong waves.
According to Kyoung-yim and Heejoon (2018), the visible impacts of the industry to the environment are evidence. In some tourist attraction centers, underground water is increasingly becoming alarmingly low in amount because it is used regularly for watering the summer gardens made to attract tourist. Aquatic life has no peace with the increasing number of machinery in the water bodies that distorts their peace thus can even fail to reproduce. Environmental degradation destroys the meaning of tourism itself. For there to be corrective measures in place, the government tourism authority has to check on the carrying capacity of any given area and try to ensure that the scarce resource is not strained (Freidberg 2011, p. 90). It is the call of the government to try and evade these irreversible damages on the environment and the tourist attraction centers.
Conclusion
To sum up, the absence of government policies that govern the tourism industry is the major cause of the unsustainability in this sector. It has resulted to land degradation and more and more environmental setbacks such as pollution of the air, changes in atmospheric conditions and unhygienic environment that intern leads underperformance of this sector. With this I strongly argue and support the fact that due to environmental concerns, the tourism industry is destined to be unsustainable not unless corrective measures are taken heed of so as to ensure that integrated planning of environmental restrictions that protect the environ from climatic changes and overstressing of the scarce resources.
List of References
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