Equality and Tourism: Issues Concerned with Access, Participation, and Impacts on Global Destinations

This essay discusses the issues and debate concerned with access, equality, and participation in tourism. It covers the development of the tourism industry, emergence of new markets, and impacts on global destinations. It also highlights the positive and negative impacts of tourism on society and the environment.

Tourism and Society

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Heading 1.....................................................................................................................................3
Heading 2.....................................................................................................................................3
Heading 3.....................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

Essay title- Equality and Tourism
Tourism sector is one of the most important sector of the economy which includes
transportation, travel services, food and beverages and accommodation. It is the fastest growing
industry in the world contributes good amount of profit and GDP. In the global economy, travel
and tourism is one of the most growing industry which helps in boosting a nation's economy as
well as provides job opportunities to people. However, There are issues concerned with equality,
access and participation in tourism (Camilleri, 2018).
The major aim of the essay to discuss the issues and debate concerned with access,
equality and participation in tourism. Tourism impacts greatly to poverty and inequity as the rich
class people are more often have the ability to travel different countries rather than other people.
The major issue which is identified in equality in tourism is women's low decision-making
power, race, caste and gender discrimination. Speaking about issues with the participation and
access in tourism is crucial as it involves human rights to travel to certain countries because of
personal or professional work and traditions and cultures impact the participation in the tourism
industry. This topic is very important for the management of future development global
destinations. As Nowadays, people are becoming insensitive to different traditions and cultures,
this mostly seen in tourism sector when people travel from one place to another they often judge
people without understanding or being aware of their situation and one's culture and traditions.
This is also known as cultural insensitivity. The present essay has three chapters, first chapter
will provide some background information into how the tourism industry has developed and
become more accessible to consumers (Sharma, Thomas and Paul, 2021). In the second chapter,
emergence of new markets within the tourism industry and its impacts on travel will be covered.
Finally, in the third chapter, the impact of the tourism industry taking into consideration equality
within the sector and its impacts on global destinations will be covered.

First chapter
how tourism industry has developed and become more accessible to consumers
As discussed people like to travel a lot and exploring different countries is one of the
biggest hobbies of people. In the UK, the number of paid leaves has increased and the travel
facilities provided by government is also becoming very cheaper and easier (Rashideh, 2020).
Due to this people like to travel by roads, air-planes and motorways making it easier to travel
further in less time. Talking about UK tourism development, it holds good position in terms of
travel destination. The UK is the world's 10th biggest tourist destination with over 39 million
visiting in the year 2019. During that time almost 234 billion to the GDP was the contribution.
The reason behind is support from government, less taxation and globalization. Also,
government support has made it easier for people to travel and grasp the opportunity to travel
further in less time. As people are earning good amount with the help of their jobs, there living
standard is also increasing. This makes easier for them to travel from their personal cars, by
roads, planes and motorbikes. This is the major reason tourism is growing in the UK. The latest
information shows that tourism contributes £106 billion to the British economy and GDP. With
the development of tourism sector there is 2.6 million jobs available for the betterment of people.
It has been estimated and vision that UK tourism sector will be worth over £257 billion by the
year 2025 which will provide benefit to people while travelling from one place to another.
However, during the time of COVID-19 pandemic, there was huge fall seen in the contribution
to the GDP because of travel restrictions. No one was allowed to travel from one place to another
because of government orders keeping people safe. This is how travel and tourism sector of UK
has direct impact on the economy of UK (Eyuboglu and Uzar, 2020).
As the world becomes a safer place, people have access to more locations whether its I
domestic or international people can book their holiday trips online so that they can visit various
place whenever they are free. This translates into a huge expansion of available touristic services
and products (Nicolescu and Ana, 2018). Now everything is on track people can again travel
without any issues, they have full availability and accessibility of travel to a range of
international destinations as well as economy impact of tourism industry. Of course, pandemic
hit the tourism industry hard and impacted this industry. Overall visitors in the UK and revenue
generated is gradually and rapidly dropped through 2020 and 2021. With the increase in the

number of travellers in the UK country there is an increase in market share. Accessible tourism
enable all people to participate in and enjoy experiences related to travel, staying at luxurious
hotels, enjoy spa and other stuffs. Accessibility of travel to a range of international destination
creates good environment. Accessible services contributes to improve the quality of the tourism
product and can create more job opportunities for needy people and disables. Speaking about its
economic impact, the tourism industry generates substantial economic benefits to both tourists
home countries and host countries. The massive economic development brings along both
negative and positive consequences (Carlisle, Ivanov and Dijkmans, 2021).

Total contribution of travel and tourism to GDP in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2019 to 2021.
In 2019 it was 234.5, in 2020 93.8 and in 2021 it was 131.5 (Pratt and Tolkach, 2018).
Leading countries visited by residents of the United Kingdom (UK) in 2019 and 2021 is spain
and france
second chapter:
emergence of new markets within the tourism industry
Tourism is growing at a faster rate than the overall UK economy, creating jobs for people
to supporting small businesses (Kim and et.al., 2021). Emerging economies currently lead the
growing demand for international tourism. As the number of people with access to greater wealth
continues to rise, these countries will gradually expand their market share until 2030 which also
involves United kingdom. Emerging markets are in countries with an increasing economic
performance such as middle east and Asia and also with the increasing populations in UK.
Newly created markets in the tourism industry has influenced the spending of people. Hospitality
and tourism is emerging from the covid-19 pandemic, the macro factors and external
environment is full of new external threats hampering the recovery of a once booming industry.
Emergence of new markets and economies currently lead the growing demand for international
visits. The main destinations for Brazilians are UK, Italy, Spain, France and Germany. UK
receives 4% of total Brazilians long haul travellers. Many other people also made trips to UK for
the purpose of art, history, sightseeing, cultural attractions and shopping, traditions, culture,
adventure sports and every for heritage. As the needs and motivations to travel in increasing in
consumers, the support of government is also increasing for tourism sector. They are allowing
new markets in the countries so that it would contribute to UK economy (Gofran, Liasidou and
Gregoriou, 2022).

The rise of events such as destination wedding, Olympics, sports is also increasing the
demand of travelling which also increase consumer needs and motivations to travel from one
place to another. Olympic/F1 gather many athletes from different countries take part in various
sports events some take part in races, karting and drifting. It has been said that sustained tourism
after the Olympics is hypothesized to be a result of the massive media coverage of the event and
the host city. Due to this media exposure, positive image of the host city also increase because
people from different country visit and travel at the location. They even book their tickets online
which generate international tourism. The largest media market for the Olympics is the US and
UK. The sports events and street races attract more tourists nowadays. The increment in
Olympics is also increasing valuable tourism. This helps in boosting local economies and also
increase global trade and stature which is beneficial for reputation of emerging markets. This has
impacted travel, experience as well as expectations and behaviours of tourists in both positive
and negative manner (Kaushal and Srivastava, 2021). Positive includes increase in jobs
supporting the event, increase in trade and foreign investment while on the other side, debt from
infrastructure, heavy competition and unjust displacement of citizens come under negative
impact.
Methods of travel Duration of trip of UK
travellers
Activities
Car, airplane, buses, trains. Same day visits and overnight
trips
Camping, hiking, ecotourism
and sports events
Third chapter
As already discussed that Tourism sector provides benefits to many people in terms of
jobs, opportunities, education, incomes. Through tourism, women can be offered equal rights
relating to work, equal opportunities, income, skills development and equal access to resources.
Women throughout the world is benefited from various facilities such as technology, ownership
and finance (Sharma, Thomas and Paul, 2021). It also plays a huge part in empowering women
to take a more active and equal role in society. In tourism and travel companies, women are
getting equal income without any partiality which empowers them to take a more active role in
society and industry. People are also changing their point of view and changing attitudes to

greater acceptance. Many companies of travel and tourism are focusing on reducing gender
inequality in the tourism sector. They are providing mentorship opportunities to both men and
women equally. Promoting equal pay for equal work as per their experience and qualification,
implementing flexible family leave policies for workers, promoting equality to encourage
women to stay in the workforce. Travel Companies are focusing on closing the gender gap in
particular ensuring equal pay for both females and males for equal work, reducing all
discrimination, raising employment quality for women. Financial corporation and banks are
providing small financed loans and education projects for women to set up their career in tourism
field. In travel company, working conditions includes health and safety of employees, equal and
fair working rights and conditions to the workers working to encourage tourism in the country
(Serravalle and et.al., 2019).
Positive impacts on global destinations and society :
 with the increase in tourism development, there is an increase in cross cultural interaction
 it also increases local arts, crafts and traditions.
 It helps to generate revenue from foreign shores.
 It also helps in improvement in infrastructure it also encourage and promote sustainable development
Negative impacts:
 Tourism can harm health of nature and water overuse- it is estimated that people who
travel different place and stay in hotel as a guest use more water as compared to residents
of countries (Pencarelli, 2020).
 It can leave a large carbon footprint – popular vacation spots in UK may receive many
visitors which means that more pollution in the environment. Due to carbon emissions,
problem like climate changes occurs which can impact the nature.
 As many people are travelling to different places, some travel destinations have pushed
out residents and local businesses so that they can make luxury hotels, resorts, spa and
big chains that attract tourists. This lead to displacement of locals which can hinder
culture, community and economy.
 As many people travel from different culture, different locations it increases crime,
terrorist attacks. This also includes kidnapping, rape, abuse and physical torture
especially to children and women (Kyrylov, and et.al., 2020).

CONCLUSION
To conclude, the best thing about tourism sector, it collects and bring together people
from different culture, backgrounds and traditions. Due to this economy has benefited from
peach among different countries and maintain cordial relations among different places. Tourism
has contributed largely to gender equality like women are offered with equal opportunities as per
their work, they are also provided with equal decision-making rights. It is very important for
economy to change the attitude towards greater acceptance of women in the tourism industry.
Things should be changed in terms of access and equality. Women should be provided with
equal pay, there should be focused on gender pay gap, fair and equal working conditions and
more ethics. The present essay has highlighted the availability and accessibility certain groups of
people. Every people should be provided with equal pay and power to access to the destination.
This also involves technology, resources and control. Nowadays, the major focus of travel
company is to provide with the best experience possible to the guests. Furthermore, it has also
includes some negative and positive impact of tourism on global destination and society such as
increased pollution, more job opportunities etc .

REFERENCES
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