Contemporary Issues For Sustainable Tourism Development

Question

Task: What is sustainable tourism development? In what ways contemporary issues are affecting it?

Answer

Executive summary
The present study has emphasized on the importance of sustainable tourism development highlighting the contemporary issues related to the same and their impact as well. However, the impact of stakeholders for sustainable tourism has also been evaluated critically, emphasizing on the role of the government for sustainable tourism development. Hence, millennium development goals have also been outlined in the present study and collaborated with the goals of sustainable tourism followed by proper recommendations regarding the management approach for tourism marketing.

Introduction
According to Acha-Anyi, (2016), sustainable tourism is known to be an industry that is committed to making a lower impact within the local and environmental culture while helping to generate future employment for the local people. Sustainable tourism can ensure the sustainable tourism development which has been a positive experience regarding the local people; tourists and the companies of tourism as well. This makes tourism and travel to be the potential for making the world to be a better place through bringing some of the economic benefits related to poorer destinations while creating cultural understanding along with the self-growth. Hence, the present study evaluates the concept of sustainable tourism development along with the contemporary issues affecting it.

Findings
Contemporary issues regarding sustainable tourism and the way they are affecting
There have been many issues related to the sustainable tourism development which tends to affect the same (Baum, 2018). For instance, maintaining the cultural; social; built and natural resources for a destination along with maintaining the concerns regarding safety as well as security to be significant issues based on tourism and travel industry. Apart from this, there are many contemporary issues which affect sustainable tourism along with impacting various stakeholders as well as approaches of management. Some of the issues are mentioned below:

Pollution issues
Tourism is known to have an important impact within the environment as it is known to direct or rather indirectly promote the carbon emissions. For instance, the excessive use of water along with increasing the waste within natural sites might cause land and water pollution; soil erosion; increasing the air and all these can destroy the original attraction for the tourists. It has been evidenced by the World Bank that there is an increase within the carbon emissions which can be triggered by the environmental and economic loss. In recent days, China has been found to be the largest emitter along with approximately taking much more than the quarter for overall emission across the globe (Brendehaug, Aall & Dodds, 2017). The rapid growth of the industry has been the key contributor for the respective consumption. Additionally, within the larger tourist destinations, there has been a larger amount of CO2 emissions and energy consumption related to the T&T industry. However, there are several positive impacts for tourism within the environment such as promotion of the environmental culture within the cultural and tourist approach. The respective acquisition based on foreign currency has been with the increase within the gross national income as well as accommodation expansion and catering. On the other hand, this can also provide with some of the employment issues like sale of the goods; production; services and transport.

Figure 1: Environmental Impact
Source: (Dai, Wang, Xu, Wan & Wu, 2017)

Which poverty issues are affecting sustainable tourism development?
It has been evidenced that sustainable tourism generally leads towards the employment of diversification within a local level that can reduce the vulnerability based on poorer. According to the UNWTO, wages might often reach $1,000 to $4,000 per worker for every year. This has been enough for bringing the workers along with their families over the line of poverty. However, the significance of tourism for poor countries has been discussed as an issue within international development. Certain issues can be considered through enhancing the role of the local communities' alternative tourism forms within the planning stage along with ethical relations within the Northern tourists as well as Southern people. Nevertheless, as opposed by Ki?i (2019), the argument has been that if tourism has been for the contribution of economic as well as social sustainable tourism development, different sustainability such as economic; environmental; ethical; cultural; social and participatory should be integrated within a comprehensive strategy of tourism. Within the post-war tourism period has been circumscribed for the countries within the Western Europe as well as America, within the 1960s which has become a global phenomenon.

Figure 2: Tourism and economic development
Source: (Hall, 2019)

There has been a poverty relief within Brazil through tourism as it consists of an enormous potential based on tourism, which has been combined with a higher inequality along with the poverty when compared with the rest of the country. Sustainable tourism has been greatly within the reduction of poverty related to formal jobs and within the northern region which is the poorest in Brazil.

Educational issues
Tourism has been the fastest growth of industry within the world along with its environmental impacts which have reached the achievements related to sustainable tourism that can result in being integral for the achievement of sustainable tourism development. The impacts of tourism have been wide ranging which has been perceived differently through various interest groups and have also been the subject of an extensive uncertainty. Nevertheless, as argued by Cheng, Wu, Wang & Wu (2019), it is a widespread agreement that is possessed by education along with a significant role for playing to achieve sustainable tourism. When tourism has perceived to be a positive addition within most of the communities, it tends to create issues with its practice and sustainable tourism development. The jobs within the tourism sector are at times found to create a demand regarding migration for an area along with the resident population within the areas along with increasing at a similar time when there has been an increase of tourist population. 

Figure 3: Principles of tourism
Source: (Lee and Jan, 2019)

The respective increase within the population is known to place a greater demand within the resources along with increasing the waste that is produced and created by pollution resulting within the degradation for the resources as well as welfare for the local population. Hence, sustainable tourism can contribute for a healthy and balanced economy through the generation of jobs related to tourism; taxes and revenues whereas; through protecting the social; natural; historical and cultural resources of the destination based on the enjoyment along with the well being for both the visitors and the residents. Lack of awareness and education has exerted adverse impact on the rural tourism as well as green and sustainable tourism development.

Economic issues
Economic issues also exert significant adverse impact to the sustainable tourism development. Sustainable tourism involves conservation of the environment and the use of environment-friendly materials throughout the tourism activity, which is a great economic liability. The use of green fuels, green cars, and other eco-friendly materials, used for tourism, increases the cost of tourism significantly, since the green-technologies are not cheap and thus, the products manufactured for utilizing green technologies are also not cheaply available. According to Strydom, Mangope & Henama, (2019), despite the benefits, owing to the very high price required for undertaking such tourism activities, not many visitors are interested in undertaking sustainable tourism and thus, there is a resultant lack in demand of as well as sustainable tourism development and green tourism.

Critical stakeholders
As opined by MacKenzie and Gannon (2019), stakeholders within sustainable tourism have been local organisations; residents; government; employees; competitors; media; business associations; tourists and similar others. The stakeholders of sustainable tourism development comprise four groups such as the private sector; public sector; tourists and local residents. The public sector has been responsible to determine the policies along with the plans as well as enforcing and setting the standards that are related to services; facilities and similar other areas. The private sector tends to play a significant role within the preparation of the space; products and activities however; it has been much more focused on profit-oriented development. The local people can contribute to building a destination image with the differences within hospitality; behaviour and culture along with the rise of experiences and satisfaction based on tourists. Some of the roles of the stakeholders are mentioned below:

Host community
As stated by Saarinen (2019), it establishes the physical; social as well as cultural capacity related to the host region. They lead to encouragement of tourism with the parameters for a sustainable tourism development plan. 

Destination management
This sector is much more concerned with the coordination for the implementation of the sustainable community development plan regarding tourism. The monitoring levels along with the impact for tourism within the community.

Individual operators of tourism
It is a fair contribution for the implementation of a sustainable tourism development plan. This also undertakes compliance related to regulations; practices and guidelines for sustainable development.

Tourists
They have an acceptance of their responsibility with a minimum self-education with the respect of the values related to host regions involving the natural values (Degarege and Lovelock, 2019). They also consider the observance and acceptance for the conditions and terms of the host community plan of sustainable tourism development. 

It has been evidenced in recent years that there have been a number of some inbound visitors within Vietnam who have gone up constantly regarding 4% for every year. In the year of 2014, there have been approximately 7.8 million of international arrivals, while spending 8.39 billion dollars regarding the services of tourism and goods in Vietnam. Hence, this has been undeniable about the tourism industry that has been importantly contributing to the GDP along with providing nearly a 1.9 million for the jobs of the residents as well as the promotion of the development based on the other sectors. Nevertheless, as argued by Sigala and Ukpabi (2019), negative impacts within tourism for all the fields specifically within the society as well as environment have been some big problems along with the burdens for the national society and economics. However, there are different levels of stakeholders which are mentioned below:

Macro level
These actors are mainly concerned for the strategic way of decision making that can eventually help in creating the context. These are considered as the government of the countries along with its agencies along with the ministry of transport and environment. These actors are also found to provide incentives for the decision makers of micro and meso level while considering the integration. 

Meso level
These actors involve the activists; business associations and tourism developers along with modal regulators; bodies of transport representatives who are found to make decisions regarding sustainability of tourism within a consultative way as they are incapable of directly affecting the macro level fiscal measures and regulations as well (Nguyen, Young, Johnson & Wearing, 2019). They are known to be key movers for raising the awareness of government for the environmental issues along with lobbying within both the national and international level to change the conditions of integration. 

Micro level
These actors involve the organisations; households and transport operators where these decision makers are known to comprise a market for these actors. The parameters which are found to influence and constrain the decisions of micro level tend to reflect within the characteristics for these actors along with the importance of decisions within the terms of the environment. These decision makers are known to be less accountable for the other stakeholders in comparison with the macro and meso levels.

Role of government to develop sustainable tourism
Sustainable tourism development has been a process that can meet with the present needs of the tourists along with the host communities through enhancing and protecting the needs in the future (Legendre and Baker, 2019). Sustainable tourism is known to be different as it leads towards the management for all the resources through such a way that the social; economic as well as aesthetic needs might be fulfilled with the help of maintaining a cultural integrity; biological diversity; effective ecological processes as well as the systems of life support. Thus, it has been evidenced that the local government tends to play a significant role for the promotion of sustainable tourism development. The territorial and local authorities are mainly responsible to provide with the amenities and infrastructure that is required by the sector. The respective sectors are then known to offer some of the informed assessment for effectiveness based on the local operations of the government. As put forward by Cornelisse (2019), the government for the sustainable tourism development tends to play a role for building good communications and road infrastructure while curbing the corruption along with the creation of political stability that generally creates the country for which the tourists can be much more likely to want to visit.

For instance, while realizing the consequences based on carelessness; shorter term-oriented policies and planning within the sustainable tourism development, Vietnam is known to have started the concern regarding the way tourism industry can be developed through a suitable way along with the way for promotion of various responsible types of tourism like eco-tourism, green tourism, and community tourism as well. Hence, all these respective tourism relies on the views related to sustainable tourism development, which indicates that in these modern days, the development might not influence the development based on future generations (Kim, Whitford & Arcodia, 2019). This initiative taken by the government has led to an increased number that is concerned regarding the preservation and protection based on natural values; ecosystem; environment and biodiversity within Vietnam. Through this, it has been observed that governments within the developing world has promoted the sustainable tourism development within different countries in an effective and rapid manner for the generation of foreign and exchange earnings along with the tax revenues. These revenues and earnings can eventually be utilised for implementation of the welfare programs as well as the employment opportunities related to the poorer.

On the other hand, the Northwest part of China has been considered for being under-developed as compared to the other parts for ecological and economic conditions. The shortage based on water; arid climate along with the land pollution has been a common feature for the western provinces. Considering the respective under-development for the region, the government of China was found to initiate the plan of development, which has been turned into an initiative of One Belt One Road (OBOR) (Atun, Nafa & Türker, 2019). The shift in the industry through this consisted of obvious transfer through the eastern towards the western part under the increased plan of sustainable tourism development for the interaction within the regions along with upgrading the infrastructure. The respective shift consists of effects within the economic development however; it also comprised several negative impacts as well. For instance, the energy use has augmented carbon emissions along with adding the pollution of the environment.

Nevertheless, in Brazil, it has been found that resources based on tourism development and its maintenance come through the local government which generally aims for strengthening the adequate institutional structures for encouraging and fostering the sustainable tourism development. The government of Brazil has also taken initiatives for improving the sanitary conditions along with the roads and airport and preserving the heritage of history while improving the products of the tourists as well.

Millennium development goals
According to Absalyamov, Absalyamova, Absalyamova & Sakhapov (2019), the goals of millennium development have been the global targets that have been ranging through having extreme poverty towards combating from some of the major diseases within the overall world in the year of 2015. These goals have also been agreed by all the countries of the world along with resulting in institutions of development as well as having galvanized and global action for meeting with the needs for the poorest people within the planet. The goals are mentioned below:

• “Eradication of extreme hunger and poverty
• Promoting gender equality along with empowering women
• Achieving primary education
• Reduction of child mortality
• Combating with diseases
• Improvement of maternal health
• Developing global partnership for development
• Ensuring the environmental sustainability”

However, these goals can also be achieved collaborating with sustainable tourism development of different countries (Strydom, Mangope & Henama, 2019). For instance, it has been evidenced that the United Nations and Switzerland were found to challenge the leaders of the leaders of world business for embracing the universal environmental as well as social principles within the global compact of UN for both their own corporate practice along with supporting the appropriate policies of the public. On the other hand, there also exists certain sustainable goals of tourism which tends to collaborate with these respective goals. Some of these goals are mentioned below:

• Sustainable and inclusive growth of economy
• Cultural values along with heritage and diversity
• Environmental protection; resource efficiency as well as climate change 
• Peace; mutual understanding and security
• Reduction of employment and poverty along with social inclusiveness 

Thus, these goals encourage the sustainable and eco tourism assists for meeting and supporting the goals that have been set forward through the Millennium Goals of Development.

Management approach suitable for tourism marketing
As per sustainable tourism, it has been significant to identify the necessity of the resources for understanding the strategic initiatives generally taken by the organisation of destination management (Mai, Thi, Thi & Le, 2020). These respective initiatives tend to identify the resources along with the necessary skills as well as competencies within the systematic approach which might have allowed for activating the development mechanisms. However, there have been different management approaches, which can be suitable for the sustainable tourism development such as physical and spatial approaches that mainly emphasizes the issues of environment with preservation of natural resources. On the other hand, a community oriented approach emphasizes the development of tourism within a local level along with a greater social involvement for a planning process. The tourists are more interested in purchasing products and availing services when they come to know of the intentions of the company. In order to promote sustainable tourism and undertake sustainable marketing approaches, the tour companies are required to explain to the customers why, despite the challenges, undertaking sustainable tourism is important, in order to influence their purchase intentions significantly.

Nevertheless, as opposed by Vu and Ngo (2019), the functions of destination marketing along with the activities need to be supported through the destination management organisation for the management of the tourism system. This can happen through improving the competitiveness with the industry of regional tourism while improving the attractiveness of the destination through the enhancement of destination performance as well as increasing the effectiveness of marketing. Greenwashing, which refers to the portrayal of a false impression for a particular product or service being more eco-friendly than it actually is, is an unethical marketing technique and should be avoided at all costs. Instead the companies can actually undertake small and big projects for the conservation of the environment and for spread of sustainable tourism, and spread the news about the same, through efficient marketing channels, in order to lure the customers into participating in sustainable tourism. For example, the Mallorca project undertaken by the TUI group was a great initiative for popularizing responsible tourism and instigated many tourists to visit the place and purchase services from TUI group, in an effort to contribute to the responsible and sustainable tourism development.

Conclusion 
To conclude, the present study has evaluated the concept of sustainable development of tourism along with highlighting its related aspects. However, the contemporary issues related to sustainable tourism development within the whole world has been outlined in the above discussion and the way it affects. Nevertheless, the subsequent impacts of sustainable tourism have also been emphasized for various stakeholders along with the approaches of management. However, the role of government for enhancement of the sustainable development of tourism along with the millenium development goals has also been identified in the present study. 

Recommendations
Sustainable tourism can be enhanced while serving an improved experience to the tourists within different destinations of the countries (Mandi?, 2019). For instance, alternatives based on sustainable tourism can be involved; carbon footprint can be reduced within the hotels of the destinations; supporting the sustainable options within the destinations of the island along with taking care of the heritages within different locations. Hence, marketing for sustainable tourism needs to provide a higher quality experience for the tourists. The practices within the development of sustainable tourism has been based within the management of the capacities along with the sites while carrying the measures of the capacity while making use of the levels which are known to be sustainable. On the other hand, the practices of sustainable tourism also needs to be encouraged through the projects of tourism by the government while considering the factors related to environmental; economic and social aspects (Dunets et al., 2019).

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