Issues and Challenges in Sustainable Tourism Development

Applied Business Research
Issues and Challenges in Sustainable Tourism Development”

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Introduction
Tourism is one of the biggest industry or major socio-economic activity in the world. United
Nation World Tourism Organization mentioned tourism is major driver behind socio-economic
progress. Air New Zealand group drive a worldwide network that offers air passenger services
along with cargo transport services to, from and within New Zealand with considering more than
15 million passengers a year. The vision of the company is to be high position in every market of
the world through developing a workplace where employees are dedicated to our customers in a
specifically New Zealand way (Air New Zealand, 2018).
With respect to the general problem or opportunity, the activities of tourism can degrade the
natural and social wealth of a community. The interruption of huge numbers of uninformed
foreigners into local social system can weaken pre-remaining social values and bonds. It is
specifically an issue where tourism business is centred in traditional social systems, like
indigenous people or isolated communities (Dabour, 2003).
The topic for this paper is “Issues and Challenges in Sustainable Tourism Development”, for this
paper. The reason behind choosing this topic is that tourism industry has reached up to peak
position and it is necessary to keep the focus on sustainability in order to take care of the
environment.
This paper will entail definite information regarding sustainable tourism development in an
effective manner. By taking consideration of Air New Zealand, the research paper will critically
review various journal articles in order to get secondary data related to the selected topic. The
scope of the review will be helpful for further research as it will give clear information about the

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selected topic. Sustainability is wide concept that comprises three pillars of environmental
sustainability, economic sustainability and socio-cultural sustainability.
Research Questions
Q1- How is sustainable tourism measured by Air New Zealand? What are the benchmarks for
these measurements?
Q2- What challenges does Sustainable tourism pose for Air New Zealand and what achievement
has been taken by the company?
Literature review
The principles of tourism development were predicted by the World Tourism Organization in
1988 in the form of “foremost to management of all possessions in the process that social,
economic and aesthetic needs can be accomplished at the time of managing cultural integrity,
required ecological processes and biological diversity. According to Aslam, Awang, Samdin&
Othman (2012), sustained growth and achieved global recognition is shown by the tourism
industry as a key sector. It has wide cultural, economic and environmental footprints that reach
almost every component of the world. However, the tourism industry is at a crossroads; it is
struggling to cover with the corresponding ecological consequences (Muganda, Sirima & Ezra,
2013).
Air New Zealand is focusing on differentiation product strategy for which they are trying to do
something different from most airlines. The company is facing various challenges of
sustainability tourism, locally and globally, impartially measuring the existing data on a huge

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range of social, economic and environmental issue. But the company is then intent on working
out a suitable course of action for dealing with each and every one of those confronts.
With the help of Dabour (2003), journal article, it has been reviewed that there are certain
problems in the tourism development that impact growth of sustainable tourism. These are
mentioned below:
 Lack of inherent tourism potential and knowledge
There are many countries in the world in which the development of tourism is obstructed by lack
of inherent tourism potential such as cultural, historical and natural. These factors keep
significant value in the context of getting growth in sustainable tourism. Along with that, there is
a lack of information and consciousness of the economic significance of tourism in the form of
industry and its affirmative impact on foreign employment and exchange. Air New Zealand is
facing issues in the context of sharing information about Maori culture to the visitors.
 Lack of mechanical know-how and weak promotional activity
It is not sufficient to have basic knowledge about tourism, in many cases lack of tourism
professional can being the major reason for problems in the development of tourism industry.
There is a problem of weak promotion of the activity of the tourism industry; even it has become
the world-famous industry (Kimbu &Ngoasong, 2013).
Air New Zealand depicted that the huge confront for its international market is to attain the
attractiveness of New Zealand as a tourist destination. It is the belief of the company that the role
of leadership in environmental issues will remain a point of disparity in the international tourism
market.