There are many stakeholders who benefit from developments in the travel and tourism industry, both directly and indirectly. When a newly established destination begins to prosper and develop, it has a massive effect on the stakeholders. Take Dubai for example, Dubai has expanded rapidly from almost a desert, to a thriving and enriched tourism destination.
The Dubai government is expected to spend up to $300 billion (£204 billion) in infrastructure alone by the year 2030. Foreign investors have seized the opportunity to buy villas, attain partnerships with organisations and invest in utilities such as gas and oil under new government legislation.
In the year 2004, the Dubai International Finance Centre was established. This global centre brings in top financial institutions and experts from both the East and West, which creates a great resource for investors around the world. Their mission statement: “promote the growth and development of financial services and related sectors with the UAE economy to provide state-of-the-art infrastructure and competitive services to our stakeholders.” (Visit Dubai, 2016)
Dubai has encourages companies to build more extravagant, large and expensive hotels, which will benefit local people due to their being more jobs available and more money into their economy. The increase in economy and visitor numbers will increase the need for more infrastructure, which will in turn bring more jobs, money and tourism.
The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world, at 828 metres with 160 floors. This building alone will bring in consumers from far and wide, it also contains various restaurants, casinos and mosques inside. Dubai’s main airport, Dubai International, has become one of the busiest airports in the wold in recent years. This has also created more jobs, profits and income into the economy. In fact, the airport is so busy that they have needed to build another airport within the desert area to cope for the demand.
This shows that stakeholders can benefit greatly, and in many ways from tourism developments. Countries alone will have a better economy, it will decrease the number of people unemployed, it will bring in jobs for local companies such as builders, and it will also increase the number of investors.
“Public / private partnerships are considered “creative alliances” formed between a government entity and private developers to achieve a common purpose. Other actors have joined such partnerships including non-governmental institutions, such as health care providers and educational institutions; non-profit associations, such as community-based organizations; and intermediary groups, such as business improvement districts.” (Bulin, D., Bogdan., C and Gabriela, C., 2010)
Government and non-governmental agencies create partnerships with tourism development agencies when the project itself will improve their country / company and help the local people. An example of this is the Whitbread, Government and Tourism Partnership. This is a partnership between the government and the tourism and hospitality sector that will focus on improving skills, increasing the quality and quantity of jobs available and to also go about boosting enterprise within the industry.
There are both positive and negative factors involved with these types of partnership. The advantages include: introducing private sector technology and innovation in providing better public services through improved operational efficiency; incentivising the private sector to deliver projects on time and within budget; imposing budget certainty by setting present and future costs of infrastructure projects over time; development of local private sector capabilities through joint ventures and large international firms; creating diversity in the economy by making the country more competitive in terms of it facilitating infrastructure; supplementing limited public sector capacities to meet the growing demand for infrastructure development and extracting long term and value for money through risk transfer to the private sector over the life of the project. The disadvantages comprise of: development, bidding and ongoing costs are likely to be greater than the government can justify; there is costs attached to debt; some projects may be easier to finance than others; some projects may be socially or politically challenging and the government responsibility will continue further than the project.
Booklet:
Welcome to our organisation! Your one stop shop for all things sustainable!
What we do: We aim to carry out surveys and research on sustainability in the tourism sector, providing suggestions for developments based on the data / information gathered, and to assist in different projects which aim to improve the impacts of tourism.
How Sustainable Tourism Began
Year Actions
1972 First United Nations (UN) held a conference on Human Environment
1980 The world conservation strategy of the ‘International Union of the Conservation of Nature’ included a brief chapter on a concept called “sustainable development” – This was one of the first times in a union meeting that sustainable development was mentioned. Due to this, the unions agreed that action was needed to help the environment and local communities whilst tourism is developing in their countries.
1983 Secretary General of the UN asked the Prime Minister of Norway to create an organisation which is independent of the UN to focus solely on the environment and development problems and solutions. This was known as the Brundtland Commission.
1987 The Brundtland Commission’s main focus was to explain the factors that influence issues such as global environment and related developments. This is important in the history of sustainable tourism, due to it showing that the UN finally wanted to take action on helping sustainable tourism in developing countries.
1992 The actions in 1987 strongly influenced an earth summit in Rio. At this summit ‘Agenda 21’ was created and covered 4 main areas:
1. Social and Economic Dimensions
2. Conservation and management of the resources for development
3. Strengthening the role of major groups and;
4. Means of implementation.
The ‘21’ in the title of the agenda refers to the 21st century, and all these actions must be planned and undertaken throughout the 21st century.
1997 5 years after the first Rio summit, Rio +5 was held. At this summit the UN general Assembly held a special session to appraise the status of Agenda 21. This is important because the UN recognised that actions needed to been taken by companies and countries to effectively improve sustainable tourism. This meant that tourism was heading in the right direction with helping companies introduce sustainable tourism into their policies and business ethics.
2002 Rio+ 10 The Johannesburg plan of implementation, agreed to at the earth summit 2002 affirmed UN commitment to “full implementation” of Agenda 21. This meant that after 10 years after Agenda 21 was introduced, every plan created should be fulfilled and implemented in the ways that companies work to improve sustainable tourism.
Here are some tips on how to be a responsible traveller, and to help promote sustainable tourism during your trip/s:
• Be considerate – of the communities and environment you visit
• Don’t litter. Try to carry your own shopping bag to avoid contributing to the plastic problem in many countries of the world
• Try to avoid excessive waste and the use of plastic bottles (in many countries there is no way of disposing of these, therefore creating plastic mountains due to tourism) – bring your own and consider purifying your own water & remove all packaging before leaving home
• Reduce energy consumption. Unplug your mobile phone charger, turn off the lights…
• Conserve water. Take shorter showers… the average hotel guest uses over 300 litres of water per night
• Always ask before taking photographs. If someone says no, respect their wishes
• Educate yourself about the place you are visiting and the people
2002 Agenda 21 for culture; The first world public meeting on culture held in Brazil, came up with the idea to establish guidelines for cultural policies, something comparable to what Agenda 21 was for the environment.
2012 Rio +20 at the UN conference on sustainable development the attending members reaffirmed their commitments to Agenda 21 in their outcome document called “The Future We Want”. This proves that companies and countries have taken steps to help encourage sustainable tourism, and want the future generation to keep this momentum going in hope that in the future all destinations will benefit from sustainable tourism.
Sustainable tourism is extremely important, even when planning new projects. In the long run, your profits will increase, whilst also gaining an amazing reputation. There are many factors which may hinder sustainable tourism, these include:
• Global Recession – Recessions will ultimately reduce the number of people travelling to other countries, which means that countries which rely on tourism as one of their main sources of income, will end up struggling themselves. An example of this is a country in Africa, called Rwanda. Their economy relies of tourists visiting for the mountains and gorillas, with tourists paying up to $500 per hour for a guide who will take them to see the primates. This money from tourism brought in a substantial amount to Rwanda’s economy over the years. The global economic crisis, in 2008, decreased tourist movements which made Rwanda’s economy and local people suffer.
• Cost – The cost of developing sustainable tourism destinations may be something that is hindering poorer countries. They are unable to access money from the government due to their poor economy. For example, Greece and their economic crisis.
There are also factors that will be made substantially worse from not incorporated sustainable tourism into a destination, which include the following:
• Energy and Water Consumption – Destinations that tourists visit frequently often have high energy and water consumption levels, particularly hotels. This means that hoteliers will need to put in place effective measures to reduce this in order to not cause as much damage to the environment. Luxury services including spas, golf courses and every day laundry services are among the services that use up the most energy.
• Waste Production – Each year, around 1 billion tonnes of sewage and waste is dumped into our Oceans by cruise ships. This is affecting many beachgoers, water-sports enthusiasts and sea creatures / fish. Companies need to arrange up to date sanitation device, which will reduce the amount of poisonous gases more quickly and sufficiently than older designs.
Planning Definition
“The process of setting goals, developing strategies, and outlining tasks and schedules to accomplish the goals.” (Investor Words, 2016)
Stages of Planning in Sustainability
Planning is an essential activity to achieve the goals of tourism development, there are staged which should be followed to achieve these goals, these stages include:
• Establish the upfront vision and plan for future sustainability
• Early market testing with key employers
• Develop the business plan and undertake market analysis
• Monitoring progress towards sustainability
• Revising the offer and financial model iteratively so that there is a smooth transition beyond the investment phase
• Having sufficient active involvement from at least a core of employers so that they are not just customers, but also champions of the solution that they shaped and developed
Planning for sustainability is a key consideration for investment projects, the benefits of good planning is that it encourages: better communication between stakeholders; a heightened understanding of the issues; higher quality tourism products; increased support from local communities and increased awareness and understanding of natural and cultural heritage for staff, communities, operators and guests. By going through the stages if planning thoroughly, it can help to build a productive and lasting sustainable system.
Conflicts and Tension
Resolving a conflict of interest
Conflicts of interest can occur between the planner, tour operator, tourist, government, developer, local community and the guest-host relationship. These issues will have economic, social and / or environmental effects.
An example of a conflict is a large tour operator building a resort on a small island and the locals decide they do not want the resort built on their island. There are several ways to resolve these kinds of disputes, these include:
• Compete or fight
• Collaborate
• Compromise or negotiate
The most sustainable variation is to collaborate with the locals, as a large business you will have the power to give these local people jobs, better infrastructure and a better economy. When you collaborate with the locals it is important to let them have their say on what goes on in the resort, you may also negotiate with them to try to achieve as much as your original planning project as possible.
The implications of balancing supply and demand
Supply and demand is a consistent factor when dealing with the travel and tourism sector. There is always demand for new products, for example cheaper holidays, new destinations, ancillary services and better customer services. Tour operators must supply these demands to the tourists in order to gain continuous and new customers.
A tourist destination which supply and demand has impacted greatly is the island of Madeira in Portugal. Tourism contributed up to 20% of their regions’ gross domestic product (GDP). Because of the growth in tourism throughout Madeira, they have seen an increase in infrastructure such as hotels, restaurants and bars to cope with the sheer amount of tourists visiting. The main airport in Madeira had an expansion in the year 2000, which may explain the dramatic increase in tourism, but the coastline surrounding the airport has now been ruined due to the huge island pontoon out to sea which is used to accommodate the extra runway length.
Moral and ethical issues of Enclave Tourism
What is Enclave Tourism?
“Enclave tourism is tourism in destinations where tourist activities are planned and congregated in one small geographic area, in order to allow the tourists to experience the entirety of their travel intentions without having to travel far out into remote areas of the host country. This type of tourism is also cheaper to facilitate by external corporations (corporations whose profits do not stay within the country where the attractions are located), and least profitable to the host country.” (OMICS International, 2016)
Moral and Ethical Issues
There are several issues that enclave tourism faces, such as:
• Tourists money not spent in the country
• Local goods and services not readily used
• Employment seasonality
• Tourists’ will not experience the true country
These issues can mean that making enclave holidays easily accessible can me unmoral and unethical. To reduce the impact, a tour operator may want to ensure that the holiday staff employed such as holiday representatives and hotel staff, are from the destination, therefore giving jobs and helping the economy. They may also want to locally source food for travellers, this will help improve the destinations economy locally, and also give the customers a taste of what the destinations food is like.
Current issues associated with tourism development
Developing Country: Thailand Emerging Destination: Qatar
Socio-cultural Impacts There are many socio-cultural impacts of tourism in Thailand, which include:
• Change or loss of indigenous identity and values: According to Meekaew, N. and Srisontisuk, S. (2012) “The commodification of Thai culture has been extremely successful, as shown by countless tourists who are enthusiastic to have new cultural experiences.” An example of the impact this has had on Thailand is the Chaingkhan District, which has had its cultural and historical aspects deserted due to a boom in tourist numbers, where there was a rapid development of tourist facilities such as convenience stores, hotels and restaurants to help satisfy the needs of the rising number of tourists.
• Culture clashes: Butler (1980) and Pearce (1982) suggest that “The greater the differences of characteristics, appearance, culture, and language between the local residents and visitors, the more evidences of social and cultural impacts.” The converging of a large number of tourists has impacted Thailand, this includes the altering of original features, collection of mementoes from sites leading to vandalism, acculturation which affects attitudes, alters popular beliefs and changes mentalities, plus also accumulation of restaurants, bars and entertainment centres can bring disturbing public behaviour, such as: drunkenness; vandalism; crime and indecency.
• Ethical Issues: One main ethical issue found in Thailand is the mass tourism it generates through the sex trade, although the sex trade contributes greatly to the economy, and maintains enormous profits, it does not improve the image of the country. This gives the reputation of Thailand a bad name, sometimes being seen as ‘one big brothel’. Current statistics suggest that there are between 800,000 to 2,000,000 sex workers operating in Thailand, many of these workers are children. Child prostitution and sex trafficking are big issues in Thailand, which is made a lot worse by mass sex tourism. There are not currently many reported socio-cultural impacts of tourism in Qatar, due to it only being an emerging destination. A few things that may have had an impact include:
• The crime rate may have increased due to tourists carrying expensive items such as iphones, ipads and watches which increases the risk of theft
• Qatar is a prominently Islamic country, many tourists will respect the local customs and culture, but there may be a few who do not wish to follow the rules and therefore have an impact on the local community
Environmental Impacts There are many impacts on the environment in Thailand due to tourism, these include:
• Mountains being stripped for the soil to be used to build around the coastline for tourism development
• Sewage from hotels/ restaurants/ cruise ships polluting the water
• Turtles becoming rarer and rarer due to the increase in number of people which scares the turtles away from laying their eggs on the beach
• Hotels being built inside the national parks
• Loss of waterfalls due to encroachment of hills
• Coral reef destroyed by divers, snorkelers, water pollution, boats, anchors
• Lack of freshwater because of the water used and wasted by tourists The environmental impacts that tourism has on Qatar are as follows:
• Sewage from hotels/ retaurants/ cruise ships pollutin the water
• Jet skis and motor boats causing noise pollution
• More aeroplanes landing and taking-off which creates both noise and air pollution
• Noise pollution can cause stress to wildlife inhabitants
Economic Impacts It is estimated that the tourism industry directly contributes between 9 and 16% of GDP in Thailand, with the percentage rising to above 20% when including the amount this indirectly produces. The main issue with this is that if there were to be a sudden change in the tourist behaviour (e.g. not allowed to travel to Thailand due to a terrorist attach / health epidemic), the economy would go into a recession due to the money coming in being dramatically reduced. It would also affect local communities as many jobs would have been created due to the tourism industry. As discovered by the World Travel and Tourism Council (2015) “Travel & Tourism generated 66,500 jobs directly in 2014 (3.8% of total employment) and this is forecast to grow by 3.6% in 2015 to 68,500 (3.8% of total employment).
This includes employment by hotels, travel agents, airlines and other passenger transportation services (excluding commuter services). It also includes, for example, the activities of the restaurant and leisure industries directly supported by tourists.
The total contribution of Travel & Tourism to GDP… was QAR39.5bn in 2014 (5.1% of GDP) and is expected to grow by 6.6% to QAR42.1bn (5.1% of GDP) in 2015.”
Future Developments
When comparing the developing country, Thailand, with the emerging destination, Qatar, there are clear differences between the two. Where Qatar is emerging there are a lot less negative impacts of tourism, this may be due to the fact there are less people visiting (2.8million in comparison to Thailand’s 24.8million in 2014), and also because of the destination being able to predict and forecast ahead to ensure they have the correct infrastructure and equipment to handle mass tourism before the destination has become a more popular destination.
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