The Tourism Industry - Essay Example

Managing the environment for tourism and events

To begin with, each topic shall be decomposed on major keywords having been understood. These are the environment and environmental sustainability, environmental management system and tourism. According to the Cambridge explanatory dictionary, environment – the conditions that you live or work in and the way that they influence how you feel or how effectively you can work (the air, water, and land in or on which people, animals, and plants live); environmental sustainability – the idea that goods and services should be produced in ways that do not use resources that cannot be replaced and that do not damage the environment; environmental management system – a system that a company uses for making certain that it does everything possible to protect the environment and obeys all laws relating to the environment; tourism – the business of providing services, such as transportation, places to stay, or entertainment, for tourists (Cambridge Business English Dictionary, 2011).

In the last 20 years, the topic of the relations between the event industry and the environment gained popularity especially in the field of academic studies. A major global conclusion is that as a result of the recession many countries are facing, it may well be that ‘momentum on progress in environmental management that has built up over many years can be dissipated; it may take a long time to recover' (de Moraes Sarmento Ferreira, 2014).

Though the term ‘tourism' may seem quite comprehensible, it is rather complex and has a structure which needs a fundamental understanding. In this context, tourism is examined less from the side of tourists than from the sides of industry and government. Tourism constitutes a multitude of drives which prompt an enormous mass of people to move temporarily not only within the borders of their countries but also abroad. This movement is the source of opportunities and auspicious conditions for various domains of economy and business, such as transport, hotel and catering business, commerce, advertising and marketing and so on. It is the springs of growing popularity of items of cultural heritage and natural structures which are attractive enough to become a point of touristic destination. A vast number of countries, such as the Bahamas, Seychelles, Macao, Maldives rely on the tourism as the main source of their income (listed countries have more than a half of their Gross Domestic Product obtained from tourism). It creates market demand, occupation for building and service industries because it is impossible to secure the traveling of a huge number of people to destinations without the advancement of services to meet their needs. On the other hand, peoples of the world are faced with such challenges as pollution, globalization and even simplification of their culture, creating dependency on the season, weather or political and economic situation of countries relied on tourism much. As the extent of outbound tourism grows, the scale of benefits and problems grows too.

In short, the tourism industry is interrelated with economic and social and cultural life of the host society. Its impact on the economy is rather favorable, while its impact on social and cultural aspects is subject to argue depended on what to call ‘favorable' or ‘unfavorable'. Anyway, there is another issue to be discussed below – the impact of tourism on the environment. First of all, it is necessary to understand that in theory everything humankind does may affect the Earth and everything humankind does may benefit it. Consequently, the ability to understand, plan and manage tourism will be decisive in deciding the degree to which its relationship with the environment is held to be positive or negative (Holden, 2016).

One of the positive impacts of tourism on the environment is, obviously, preservation of natural structures. This may be done by creating national parks for example. Pristine nature has always been an enticement for many tourists, though not everyone is ready to face the primeval conditions of it. To solve this problem infrastructure which shall be required is built – bank consolidation, roads and routs, fences, steps and banisters, stalls, telephone poles, dry closets etc. Nevertheless creating reserves and parks helps in conservation the nature in the highly industrialized world. Rare animals are also being preserved by virtue of zoos, parks and reserves so that they may become available for tourists to look at and take a photo. One interesting thing related to what has been already said is that creating such parks may be considered as indirect advertising of the host state.

Tourism influences not only the creation of parks, but it also is the source of finance which in turn may be used to subsidize environmental researches, create funds for investigation and preservation of nature. Though money gained from the tourism industry may also be used to improve the condition of surroundings via the creation of recycling plants, developing of renewable energy power-plants, promoting eco-friendly domestic technologies or investments in scavenging. Clean and modern cities tend to attract more tourists, because the latter as consumers are willing to enjoy the appropriate level of services – and facilitating the cleanness of surroundings may be regarded as a special kind of services. Creating clean and the neat city also streamlines the usage of it as a health resort, or simply tourists gain more pleasure to spend their holidays (or business trips) in tidy places thus they are more likely to visit a city as described and spend there not only time but also more money. An attractive environment appeals to tourists, whether natural or built, and the development of tourism in a locality will relate to the surrounding area (Esmaeil Zaei and Esmaeil Zaei, 2013).

In point of fact, there is a contrariwise dependence. Methods of using the improvements of the environment as the advertising campaign for tourists have already been described above; still, tourists may become such campaign for the environment. The attraction of community's attention to region's problems (including environmental) may be done through the tools of leisure for tourists. For example, a flourishing touristic point of destination may expose the public service advertisement devoted to the preservation of rare animals in order to increase the chance of finding volunteers or investors by making the issue talked about.

The last positive kind of impact of tourism to be discussed here is avoiding chemicals in agriculture and cattle-breeding in order to make local food more healthy and pure again as an attempt to attract more tourists. On the other hand, chemicals may make food more attractive and well-looking, but this strategy is good only for the shirt-term period.

Negative repercussions of the growing level of both outbound and inbound tourism appear to more tangible. Tourism makes an enormous pressure on the environment by virtue of utilizing natural resources, such as drinking water, forests, game, and others. Excessive utilization of soil for agriculture leads to its exhaustion. Most of the available natural resources may be used up but may be neither renewed nor created.

The next problem caused by tourism is quite obvious too – pollution. Since there are few recycling plants in most of the points of touristic destination rubbish has been amassing for years and there is no utilizing it. In turn it causes such problems as water pollution (soiling beaches, extinction of fish and seaweeds, unfitting for swimming), air pollution (acid rains, pant, excess use of transport leads to excess exhausts) and land pollution (dirt, insanitary, deterioration of a sown area, accumulation of rubbish outside the city). Noise pollution is also to be taken into account in this context.

Degradation of natural structures and landscapes may also be caused by the excess and/or uncontrolled tourism. It is easier to destroy than to build, especially when nature or human-made landscapes are fragile enough to be broken by accident. Abandoned infrastructure may be mentioned as well like an example of depreciation of a part of a landscape.

Along with growing consumption manufactory shall grow too. This rule works in terms of tourism as well, because the growing number of people visiting country requires the higher burden on the rural economy which may, in turn, lead to the use of chemicals and soil exhaustion as was discussed above. Another backwash may be the extensive growing efficiency of farming by increasing the livestock of oxen or the amount of seeds planted instead of innovations, new technologies and refining the process. Production can increase not only its income but also its outcome; however there are not so many recycling plants for such amount of plastic produced.

These pieces of evidence were given so as to conclude that tourism as well as any other industry is to be smartly managed. For example, there exist an Environmental Management System (EMS) is a set of processes and practices that enable an organization to reduce its environmental impacts and increase its operating efficiency. The assumption is that consistent review and evaluation will identify opportunities for improving and implementing the environmental performance of the organization. The EMS itself does not dictate a level of environmental performance that must be achieved; each organization's EMS is tailored to its own individual objectives and targets (EPA US Environmental Protection Agency, 2016). The most widely used standard for EMS is International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001. Nevertheless, not very many companies stick to this type of management. Environmental management is limited more by the lack of adoption than by lack of technology (Buckley, 2011).

Environmental Management must be supplemented by eco-tourism. In the beginning, it was said that there are two sides of tourism: tourism industry and tourists themselves. While Environmental Management arranges the proper work of the former, the latter should better be introduced to this sound alternative to the conventional tourism. Fortunately, many major problems caused by tourism may be solved if dealt with properly instead of simply wishing away.

Eco-tourism, as the name suggests, deals with the living part of the natural environments. According to the definition provided by Wikipedia, eco-tourism is a form of tourism involving fragile, pristine, and relatively undisturbed natural areas, intended as a low-impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial (mass) tourism. Eco-tourism focuses on socially responsible travel, personal growth, and environmental sustainability. It typically involves travel to destinations where flora, fauna, and cultural heritage are the primary attractions. Eco-tourism is intended to offer tourists the insight into the impact of human beings on the environment, and to foster a greater appreciation of our natural habitats. Its defined objects, as explained by Wikipedia, are: i) to educate traveler, ii) to provide fund for ecological conservation, iii) to directly benefit economic development, iii) political empowerment of local communities, iv) to foster respect for different cultures and for human rights (Eco-Tourism as a Sustainable Alternative to Conventional Tourism, 2015).

Conclusion

Tourism is in the constant development – it is connected with economic, social, cultural and political situations in countries of the world. Undoubtedly, tourism has its own in a class by itself impact on the environment. Moreover, whether it will be positive or negative depends on the proper management of tourism, its extent and the willing of tourists to preserve the nature around them. To the author's point of view, environmental sustainability is practically impossible in such conditions because of the ongoing changes both in tourism and its influence. There are no norms and regulations flexible enough to meet all the alterations in the environmental state. Still, in theory, sustainable environmental development is possible and roughly achievable by the spreading of eco-tourism and Environmental Management and other possible tools of maintaining equilibrium in nature.