The Impact Of Global Tourism

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Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world world, with a contribution of more than $7.5 trillion to the global economy alone in 2014. This revenue figure includes revenues generated from all the activities associated with tourism such as accommodation, travel, etc. The projected contribution of the global tourism industry to the global economy for 2015 is said to grow by 5-6% compared to the previous year. Refer to Figure 1 in Appendix for infographic that shows tourism industry’s contribution to global economy. Tourism contributes significantly to the global economy – leading to infrastructure development, employment, generation of capital, but it has also led to severe problems especially for earth’s environment and natural resources.…show more content…
The main aim of all the discussions have been on the ways in which the global tourism industry can – (a) reduce resource consumption especially the critical resources such as water, energy, land (b) benefit the local communities. The term ecotourism was coined in 1983 by a Mexican environmentalist named Hector Ceballos Lascurain, and was initially used to describe nature based travel. In layman terms, Ecotourism is a form of tourism which is more oriented towards nature, learning and experiencing about the locale- its flora, fauna, landscape, as well as the culture of the people living in those areas. Experts have been divided over the potential of ecotourism to help achieve sustainability in tourism. There have been multiple studies which criticize ecotourism and there have been researches that laud ecotourism and consider it to be the next big thing that will integrate tourism and…show more content…
To measure the success of ecotourism activities, appropriate metrics will have to be developed which capture ecological, economic and social benefits of ecotourism activities. Sustainable tourism requires the informed participation of all stakeholders, as well as firm political leadership to ensure wide participation and consensus building. It is essential to monitor the impacts of ecotourism activities, and necessary preventive and corrective measures whenever they seem necessary. Sustainable tourism should be designed keeping in mind the expectations of the tourists. It should satisfy the tourists as well as raise their awareness about sustainability issues and promote sustainable tourism practices amongst them. Existing trickle-down methods that are used for economic development do not address most people’s needs; moreover, such methods usually lead to depletion of the world’s natural wealth and to a deterioration in the quality of our natural

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