The Global Tourism Industry
The World Tourism
Organisation claims that tourism is currently the world's largest tourism industry, with
annual revenues of 3 trillion US dollars.
Tourism is a powerful
force for globalisation, and has lead to the commercialisation of cultures throughout the
world. But it has also served to stimulate local pride in tradition and history.
Tourism can have huge
adverse effects on the environment, look at the use of energy in global travel as just one
example. But it also serves to raise awareness of, and to bring psychologically closer,
the environmental degradation in places that would otherwise not only be far from home,
but far from mind too.
Tourism,
the Environment & Culture
The tourism industry
is also hugely dependent on the quality of the environment. One only has to look at the
amount of money travellers will spend to see places like the rainforests of Borneo, the
marine national parks of Thailand, the forests of Amazonia, and mountains of Nepal, to
understand that these wonderful places are "worth" a great deal of money to
travel agencies, airlines, hotel chains, dive shops, boot makers, tour guides, and the
myriad of other service industries which serve the global tourism industry.
Local tourism
operators benefit from the natural beauty of the environment in which they are located. If
they are the original residents, this may have been pure luck, and completely unplanned. A
small establishment of bungalows on a beach may provide an income over and above the
coconut orchard, fishing, and rubber plantations that were the traditional income
generators of island folk. This establishment may not take much from the environment, nor
may it return much. Larger hotels, particularly multinationals, may have paid quite a bit
more for the land, and invested substantially more in their hotels and resorts. The impact
of their activities on the environment may be proportionately greater, and they may return
even less to the natural environment or to the local community.
The clear seas, clean
beaches, isolated coves, high mountains, lush forests, wildlife, cascading rivers and
streams, all these aspects of the environment contribute to the tourism industry. They are
cash in the bank to hotel operators, tour operators, resort owners. They are also
value-added to the capital assets of tourism operations. And yet, these contributions are
not measured nor attributed to the environment.�
Similarly, the charming temples, the scenes of
monks on their alms rounds, the graceful dancing in gorgeous costumes, children laughing
on their way to foreign schools, agricultural scenes, fantastic festivals and traditions,
these aspects of culture and of traditional ways of life are part and parcel of the exotic
holiday destination experience. The "taste" of a foreign culture adds
considerable spice to an expensive overseas holiday. Handicrafts may make the souvenirs,
but it is those thousand little differences in the way things are done, and the
similarities in what is being done, that make the memories.
Researching the Natural Value
that Underpins the Tourism Industry
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