The current assignment focuses on the concept of ensuring tourism is sustainable. Thus, a number of environmental, societal and economic considerations need to be taken into consideration for ensuring sufficient resources are maintained for the betterment of the future generations.
Definition of sustainability
“Sustainability is an approach undertaken in thinking about the future in which environmental, economic and societal considerations are balance for improving the quality of life”.
Background of the scenario
There are a number of issues which have been affecting the objectives of sustainable tourism and affecting the global environment as a whole. The factors could be divided into the following specific concerns such as high carbon emissions, energy and water consumption, contribution to economy by job creation, tough working conditions, contribution of franchising and ownership models at the local level, changes in the government taxation policies. Thus, all these factors contribute significantly towards the growth and sustenance of a tourism business.
In this context, much complex investments are involved within the tourism sector owing to the social, environmental and economic concerns. Therefore, equal amount of participation is required from all the stakeholders which include the tourism company, the state tourism departments among the few. The role of the Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) is important in balancing the potential profitability of an organisation against sustainable and responsible business models.
Tourism could be divided into two basic types where the kind of tourism is only based upon visiting a place and relishing its natural beauty, without thinking much about the environmental and social concerns. However as asserted by Lee (2013), Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution is slowly taking into consideration the development of humanity rather than contributing towards the bank account of the tourism investors.
Venezuela ranks under the top 10 list of the ecological diverse counties. It is the home to extensive rain forests, which can be classified into cloud forest located at the coastal mountain to the beautiful rain forest located at the Amazon basin and guinea shield. Forests and plantation covers more than half of the Venezuela’s land area (Hansen et al. 2013). The largest extent of forest found in Venezuela is Bolivar then ranks Amazonas. Venezuela is also known for nurturing more than 2100 species of plants, 353 different species of mammals, 323 reptiles, 288 amphibians and more than 1400 birds. Venezuela is a rich source of bio diversity. It is due to its biodiversity, Venezuela cores high as an important destination among the nature loving tourist (Laurance 2012).
However, recent forest degradation in Venezuela has significantly affected is ecological diversity. Apart from deforestation, water pollution, coal mining, oil drilling, wood logging and soil erosion are other threats which are hampering the species richness in Venezuela. The rivers are also getting polluted due to the volatile organic compounds, discharged by the industries and via the oil spills which is endangering the aquatic species an the wild animals who feed on water. Not only this, Venezuela is has cheapest gas rates which increases the number of automobiles plying and the amount of oil consumption rates by these vehicles. This increase in the number of automobiles has lead to increases in the parameter of air pollution. According to International energy Agency, Venezuela is fourth most contamination country in Latin America (Van de Graaf 2012). According to them, Venezuela pollutes the atmosphere with more than 140 million of carbon dioxide per year. According to United Nation (UN) report, Venezuela ranks 29 in the list of top most carbon dioxide countries in America.
Venezuelan Constitution adopted in the year of 1999 states that, every person an equal rights to enjoy a safe and secured ecologically stable environment and every generation has the right and an obligation to secure the biological diversity of the country. However, the environmental policies framed by the Venezuelan government is criticised to be over ambitious and unrealistic. This could be attributed to the fact that country lacks the capacity to implement sustainable environmental strategy optimally. However, in order to maintain the biodiversity and to retain is charm among the tourist; Venezuela needs to implement certain sustainable environmental strategies. One of the important sustainable strategy adopted by the Venezuelan government is, “Tree Mission”. This mission aims to recuperate certain trees and plants which are critically endangered or lies under the urgent threat of extinction. The success of this mission lies in the fact that, during the tenure of 2006 to 2008, it has claimed to plant trees across 18.322 hectors (Villarroya, Barros and Kiesecker 2014). The government is also working to revise its sustainable environmental policies further. The International Seminar on the Environment organised by the Venezuelan Parliamentary Group discussed about the current sustainable environmental needs of Venezuela and is currently working to improve the overall scenario (Villarroya, Barros and Kiesecker 2014).
The concept of social sustainability mostly encompasses social equity, health equity, liveability, community development, social and human rights, social responsibility, social justice and cultural competence. Venezuela bears a unique fusion of indigenous people encompassing African and Spanish people. The tourism of Venezuela is directed towards the development of the humanity rather than promoting an increase in the bank account of the tasteless business owners. The contextualised tourism of Venezuela is specifically aimed at fomenting the organisation of the community, encouraging ecological awareness and adjoining appreciation, collective history, rescuing the local culture and promoting the exchange of knowledge and solidarity between different regions. Venezuela socialise tourism rather than providing an elite tourism. The Venezuelan tourist department promotes Amazon forest, golden beach of the Caribbean, sand dunes, waterfalls, Andean snow capped mountains, rain forests, chiguires, humming birds, toucans (Venezuelanalysis.com 2017). These promotion its biological and environmental diversity actually leads to the promotion of it’s rich social vastness and thereby aiding its sustainability. Venezuela also promotes its culture to its visiting tourist via allowing them to get hold a firsthand experience on salsa and hip hop, tow of the most cherished dance style of Latin America. These two dance forms not only reflect the cultural richness of Venezuela but also give the essence of the social diversity of the country. It has also uplifted its tourism via enabling the option for highest teleferico in the world, mountain cable car system. This mountain cable car system enables the tourist to view the wild beauty of Amazon while tasting their social diversity.
Venezuela had been affected with huge tourism infrastructural problems, which had hindered the growth prospects of tourism within the country. As commented by Cheng and Wu (2015), the infrastructural hurdle also calls for huge amount of investments from the government or the state funds. However, the problem which is mostly encountered within the tourism industry is drafting appropriate promotional strategies for attracting maximum number of tourists. As mentioned by Waligo et al.(2013), tourism can be a huge contributory factor towards the development of an economy. However, Venezuela has been lagging behind due to lack of the sufficient expression of interest from the local government. Additionally, the increase in the rate of crime had made Venezuela a less popular destination among the tourists. As commented by Weaver (2014), the rate of crime such as kidnappings and robbery had increased by almost 50% from 2008 to 2009.
The government only organised the tourism ministry of Venezuela in the year 2005, which then founded the tourism agency ‘venetur’ (theguardian, 2017). The main aim of the agency was to organize travel packages along with running the chain of nationalised hotels. However, for the purpose of supporting the growth of the tourism industry sufficient amount of funds are required. Thus, promotion of tourism helps in rolling of the funds which could be used for further expansion of the tourism industry. As per reports in 2008, tourism made for just 3.59% of the economy. As per reports and estimates the outward bound tourism has been comparatively greater than the inward bound tourism. However, over the last ten years the outward bound tourism has grown by 132%, whereas the inward bound tourism has shown no sufficient growth (theguardian, 2017). As per the bank of Venezuela and the INE statistics, the outward bound tourism had been more predominant resulting in a loss of 11.1 million US billion dollars (theguardian, 2017). Therefore, tourism should be a means of enhancing the cultural diversity of a place along with earning sufficient foreign direct investments. Therefore, the growth of the tourism prospects of the country is poor which calls for sufficient participation from the local and federal government.
In this respect the importance of sustainable tourism was pointed out at the world summit organised by United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 2002. One of the most vital prospects which need to be aligned with tourism as highlighted by the Convention on biological diversity (CBD) is preservation of the important biological resources including the natural flora and fauna of the place. Thus, the policy and guidelines propagated by a number of international conferences and agreements need to be mentioned over here.
The International Guidelines for Biological Diversity and Tourism Development focus on tourism which takes place in vulnerable ecosystems and in protected areas. As commented by St?nciulescu and Diaconescu (2015), alignment of the thought process of the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and the tourism industry can help in balancing the profitability ratios along with the environmental concerns. On the other hand tourism practices such as promoting environment friendly and biodegradable commodities which could be used by the tourists also helps in reducing the rate of carbon emissions and thus preserving the flora and fauna of the place.
Conclusion
The current assignment focuses on the concept of sustainable tourism development along with preserving the cultural values and identities of a place. For the particular assignment the place of emphasis is Venezuela. There being a number of problems within the tourism infrastructure of the country along with the negative international publicity due to increasing crime rates, the tourism prospects of the country had been heavily affected. Additionally owing to the growing environmental concerns there is a need to develop sustainable tourism outlook and approaches which will help in preserving the biodiversity of the place.
Some of the other issues such as more outward than inward based tourisms have affected the profitability along with the economic output of the agency. For the affective implementation of the approaches and the policies a number of international conventions on biodiversity and environmental safeguarding policies need to be maintained. The rich fauna and flora of a region also serve as a major tourist attraction.
References
Cheng, T.M. and Wu, H.C., (2015). How do environmental knowledge, environmental sensitivity, and place attachment affect environmentally responsible behavior? An integrated approach for sustainable island tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 23(4), pp.557-576.
Hansen, M.C., Potapov, P.V., Moore, R., Hancher, M., Turubanova, S., Tyukavina, A., Thau, D., Stehman, S.V., Goetz, S.J., Loveland, T.R. and Kommareddy, A., 2013. High-resolution global maps of 21st-century forest cover change. science, 342(6160), pp.850-853.
Laurance, W.F., 2012. Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas.
Lee, T.H., (2013). Influence analysis of community resident support for sustainable tourism development. Tourism management, 34, pp.37-46.
St?nciulescu, G.C. and Diaconescu, G.N., (2015). Models and Alternative Strategies in the Context of Sustainable Development. Alternative Tourism. International Journal of Economic Practices and Theories, 5(3), pp.283-290.
theguardian (2017), theguardian , Available at : https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-tourism-10-key-issues-investors [Accessed on 15 Oct. 2017]
Van de Graaf, T., 2012. Obsolete or resurgent? The International Energy Agency in a changing global landscape. Energy Policy, 48, pp.233-241.
Van Wijk, J., Van der Duim, R., Lamers, M. and Sumba, D., (2015). The emergence of institutional innovations in tourism: the evolution of the African Wildlife Foundation’s tourism conservation enterprises. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 23(1), pp.104-125.
Venezuelanalysis.com. (2017). Beautiful Venezuela: Tourism with a Social Conscience. [online] Available at: https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6996 [Accessed 16 Oct. 2017].
Villarroya, A., Barros, A.C. and Kiesecker, J., 2014. Policy development for environmental licensing and biodiversity offsets in Latin America. PLoS One, 9(9), p.e107144.
Waligo, V.M., Clarke, J. and Hawkins, R., (2013). Implementing sustainable tourism: A multi-stakeholder involvement management framework. Tourism management, 36, pp.342-353.
Weaver, D.B., (2014). Asymmetrical dialectics of sustainable tourism: Toward enlightened mass tourism. Journal of Travel Research, 53(2), pp.131-140.
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