Overview of the Incident/ Introduction
Australia has been facing stiff crises related to natural disasters, especially pertaining to the issues of global warming and climate change. New South Wales recently saw the menace of fires, snow and rising temperatures, which have transformed within a weekend to shut down major areas of business (Sewell et al. 2016). The second week of September 2018, the state experienced a sudden surge in average temperature by 10 degrees. Strong north-westerly winds transported high temperatures to the north-east—to the extent that it triggered fire warnings around the southern region. The entire Wales region faced the hot gushing winds that whipped up dust and particles, in all over Broken Hill, Cobar and Mildura. A 113 km/hour storm hit the south-east region of the state near Bombala, following which was another storm at 96km/hour near Bega. The gusts of wind in Bega led to a fire emergency alert, as bushfires have become a common phenomenon in the region.
The bushfire near the Yankees Gap Road, near Bega Valley, had been burning for over a month, consuming more than 17,700 hectares of bush land through the South-East Forest National Park. The recent activities of hot gushing winds on the 16th of September worsened the situation as the fire started spreading with the wind to the south-east (England et al. 2014). The most shocking phenomenon took place when the Snowy Mountains highway had to be closed down on one end due to fire breakouts and almost shut down on the other end due to heavy snowfall.
New South Wales is one of the oldest states in Australia and is known for its major tourist attractions, including exotic physical features as well as glamorous cities like Sydney and Canberra that attract sophisticated travelers, tourists and art-enthusiasts from all over the world. The New South Wales State enjoys a diverse landscape with the Great Dividing Range cutting through the state to naturally divide it into four major climatic and topographical regions (Gill et al. 2015). Tourism and Hospitality industry is experiencing a vast expansion in Australia, especially around South Wales, which holds major tourist destinations like the Sydney Opera House and Harbor bridge in Sydney, the Blue Mountains National Park, the Snowy Mountains, the Hunter Valley and more. The Snowy Mountains constitutes a major part of the Great Divide and is home to Australia’s highest mountain ranges. The UNESCO runs a year-round recreational Biosphere Reserve here, which is a major spot of attraction for many tourists all over the world. Therefore, tourism and hospitality constitute a significant part of Australia’s economy. The latest researches on Australia’s national economy records the contribution of A$47.5 from the tourism industry, comprising as much as 3% of the total income.
Recommended Policy Draft
In order to reduce the fatal impacts of global warming and climate change on the regular business activities of the hospitality and tourism industry, it is important to investigate in detail the various legal and regulatory factors that have been adopted and implemented by the governmental as well as non-governmental organizations, which could be held accountable for the failure of securing safety and sustainability in the external environment (Little 2017).
Environmental Legislation Licenses and Permits are one of the relevant regulatory measures that allow the federal, state as well as local governments to jointly administer the protection of environment and bio-diversity by taking up active steps regarding Environmental Management, especially in business corporations (Worboys 2015). Through the implementation of this process the governments can jointly conduct the assessment of business activities that affects the environmental and cultural concerns (Mann et al. 2016).
Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 in New South Wales introduces the Integrated Environment Protection License, which covers all the other Environment Protection Licenses that fall under different sub-categories of air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution as well as management of waste. In order to keep the legal and regulatory measures up to date it is important to amend and adopt new measures that would satisfy the current needs and requirements (Mason 2015).
In order to ensure the maximum efforts for the protection of environment and culture by an organization, it is important to have a list of objectives that would clearly note down the particular areas of concern and how they can be controlled by taking up various measures and activities. One of the main objectives of the policy would be to include more sustainable practices in businesses and organizations that would bring about a systematic change in the business processes, making a significant change in the environment (Molina-Azorín and Font 2016). One of the largest issues faced by the country is global warming and climate change; therefore, it is necessary to concentrate on the particular activities of an industry that might lead to further global warming issues.
As the state has been facing extreme temperature hike sparked by expanding bushfires, it is important to understand the correlation between the natural driving forces that need to be controlled through appropriate strategies. The policy objectives must be inclusive of both the internal as well as external organizational factors that affect the environment. On one hand active steps must be taken to reduce over-consumption of resources, emission of toxic gas, heat and other undesirable substances into the environment, which is directly responsible for the rapidly depleting balance of nature. On the other hand, it should encourage activities that emphasize on restoring the lost environmental health, by adopting appropriate measures like CSR activities and awareness.
Overview of the Tourism and Hospitality Activity
The major objectives of the policy that aim to improve the regulatory measures for the protection of environmental health in the New South Wales region are briefly stated below:
- Making adoption of CSR responsibilities mandatory in organizations in order to take active part in the restoration of lost environmental balance (Hall, Gossling and Scott 2015). Implementing CSR activities does not only help the sustenance of the external environment but also secures the future of the business organization.
- Taking up the issue of forest fires as of utmost emergency as the recent increase in the spread of fires have brought down a lot of businesses to a standstill, not mentioning the destruction thousands of trees and other natural resources. The amount of heat created by these forest fires also play a significantly role in directly affecting the region’s temperature, as a result of which, dire natural calamities like heavy snowing can be identified.
- Another major factor that should be included in the police objectives is efficient Disaster Management. Along with taking up sufficient CSR responsibilities, an organization must also be well prepared to handle and disasters or natural calamities that might leave a heavy impact on the hospitality and tourism businesses (Franzmann 2016). Having an efficient Disaster Management team also protects organizations from running out of business or shutting down completely. Especially in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry, a Disaster Management team would be responsible for looking after the interests of clients and taking care of their grievances.
The various stakeholders involved in the adoption and implementation of identified policy objectives that have been chosen for the management of natural calamities and disasters include all the governmental as well as non-governmental organizations, the common people of the country and the extended world at large. In order to understand the particular stakeholders, who would be directly responsible for the application of identified measures as well as enjoy their immediate and long term-effects in terms of socio-economic and environmental development, are briefly stated below:
- The National parks and Wildlife Advisory Council
- NSW Aboriginal Land Council
- NSW Forest Products Association
- NSW Trade and Investment
- The Environmental Defender’s Office
- Natural Resources Commission
- Local governments of NSW
- Environment Protection authority
- Nature Conservation Council of NSW
- Property of Australia (NSW Division), and
- RSPCA NSW
The recent incidents of prolonged natural calamities that included a fatal amalgamation of extreme weather conditions, fueled by spreading forest fires and hot winds sweeping through the country have raised subsequent alarms all over the state, bringing several business activities to a close down. The shutdown of both the end of the Snowy Mountain Highway marks an alarming situation of the Hospitality and Tourism industry. With raised levels of temperature the businesses in this sector fall down rapidly as less number of people want to leave the comforts of their air-conditioned home; therefore, global warming directly affects the success and sustainability of organizations in this industry.
In order to secure the future of the industry it is utmost essential to take active measures to protect the various natural resources of the region that attract millions of people from all over the world (Esparon et al. 2015). Not only that, the consumers need to feel safe and secure in order to invest in travelling or touristic purposes in New South Wales region, which has been known for natural disasters. It is important to restore the faith of the consumers by improving the environmental conditions of the place. According to (Gunson and Teixeira 2015), adoption of CSR activities and other regulatory measures is essential because the daily business activities in this sector contribute a significant amount in depleting the environmental health of the reason, the consequences of which have to be faced by all the stakeholders of the industry; hence, adoption of sustainable practices not only help the restoration of environmental health, but also helps the organization to emerge as a responsible and sustainable force in the international business market.
References
England, M.H., McGregor, S., Spence, P., Meehl, G.A., Timmermann, A., Cai, W., Gupta, A.S., McPhaden, M.J., Purich, A. and Santoso, A., 2014. Recent intensification of wind-driven circulation in the Pacific and the ongoing warming hiatus. Nature Climate Change, 4(3), p.222.
Esparon, M., Stoeckl, N., Farr, M. and Larson, S., 2015. The significance of environmental values for destination competitiveness and sustainable tourism strategy making: insights from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 23(5), pp.706-725.
Franzmann, A., 2016. Asset Data for Disaster Claims and Reliable Asset Management.
Gill, N., Dun, O., Brennan-Horley, C. and Eriksen, C., 2015. Landscape preferences, amenity, and bushfire risk in New South Wales, Australia. Environmental management, 56(3), pp.738-753.
Gunson, K. and Teixeira, F.Z., 2015. Road-wildlife mitigation planning can be improved by identifying the patterns and processes associated. Handbook of road ecology, pp.101-109.
Hall, C.M., Gossling, S. and Scott, D. eds., 2015. The Routledge handbook of tourism and sustainability. Routledge.
Little, S.J., 2017. Exploring the Tensions between Bushfire Protection and Biodiversity Conservation in the New South Wales Planning System.
Mann, M.E., Steinman, B.A., Miller, S.K., Frankcombe, L.M., England, M.H. and Cheung, A.H., 2016. Predictability of the recent slowdown and subsequent recovery of large?scale surface warming using statistical methods. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(7), pp.3459-3467.
Mason, P., 2015. Tourism impacts, planning and management. Routledge.
Molina-Azorín, J.F. and Font, X., 2016. Mixed methods in sustainable tourism research: an analysis of prevalence, designs and application in JOST (2005–2014). Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 24(4), pp.549-573.
Sewell, T., Stephens, R.E., Dominey-Howes, D., Bruce, E. and Perkins-Kirkpatrick, S., 2016. Disaster declarations associated with bushfires, floods and storms in New South Wales, Australia between 2004 and 2014. Scientific reports, 6, p.36369.
Worboys, G.L., 2015. Managing incidents. Protected area governance and management, pp.823-850.
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