The Role of Responsible Tourism in Safeguarding Local Communities and the Environment

This essay discusses the importance of responsible tourism in safeguarding local communities and the environment. It explores the roles of local communities and tourists in promoting sustainable tourism, including respecting the environment, teaching and honoring local heritage, supporting the local economy, and being informers to far-off tourists.

RUNNING HEAD: TRAVEL AND TOURISM 1
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Travel and Tourism
Introduction
The universe is created and blended with lots of beauties that attract our attentions, many
of the beauties are known to be the best in the world. Travel and tourism take the center stage of
going around the world observing and studying about the beauties of the universe. Apparently,
choosing your dream of destination often comes with terms like how to reach to a particular
tourist site, accommodation and weather, but the most important thing is to think about the
impact that you can impose on the environment as well as to local communities. The big issue
about the purpose of the essay is to embrace the major aspects that are advocated tourists, who
are known to the local communities, in order to safeguard the areas, they are touring.
Responsible Tourist
Responsible tourist is cylindered based on the choice of destination, how to conceptualize
with the political, economic and cultural experience as well as the impact you levied to the
environment. Being a responsible tourist takes a two-way traffic, where the tourist and local
people and communities have got a role to play, both parties in this industry are dependent and
that they require each other to sustain the industry to the next generations. The principles of a
responsible tourism were developed and adopted by World Committee on Tourism Ethics and
they are based on the UNWTO Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (Sharma, 2017).
Respect the environment
Since we live in a wonderful and beautiful environment, the duty is of protecting it is
within our human kind. Environment entails the surroundings present in a particular tourism site.
Talking of tourism comprises visiting game parks, beaches during holiday or even visiting
natural tourism sites. The role of the local communities in enhancing sustainable tourism

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industry by protecting and respecting the environment. The primary role of the local
communities is to implement on the measures such as show-casing to the expatriate tourist about
the required conduct in the site. This implies that they have to teach the foreign tourist about
local measures of protecting the environment (Mahrous & Hassan, 2017).
On the other hand, the local community has to show warm impression to tourists by
showing them sites and animals who are dangerous. This implies showing visitors places which
are not dangerous to their lives since they have enough knowledge about their areas (Reid &
Kim, 2017).
Teaching and honoring local heritage
Every tourist all over the world is pleased and excited when he or she learns only a word
from a particular community. Tourists tend to spend most of their time to study and understand
the local customs, language, and traditions of the local communities. However, some tourist may
visit certain communities as the course of their study, trying to internalize the origin and relate
the traditions, customs and the languages of particular communities, others tend to study about
the political, economic and social factors of such communities (Habibullah, Tan, & Choon,
2017).
The role of local communities in this context is to allow provide relevant information to
tourists who are in good faith conducting their research. Regularly, the local people should
consider honoring their local heritage by observing the ethical conducts and measures that are
based on the community moral standards. As a result of providing meaningful information, the
local communities may be provided with facilities of donation from the well-wishers, this is in
case the communities are in need of particular pertinent facilities and donations (Lin, 2018).
Supporting their local economy

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The economic point of view is based on the importance of tourism in a country, and
particularly a community living within the tourism site. The role of the local tourist to inform the
foreign tourist about the local products which might have been manufactured illegally. The local
people should ensure that they provide high knowledge to the tourist about products that are
prohibited by the both national and international governments. By impressing the tourist with
quality and legally manufactured goods, the local community are bounded to support their
economy from the job opportunities created from selling the local products (Lim & Heitmann,
2017). The local people could also provide restaurant and hotels where the tourist can refresh
themselves and sleep as they continue with their tourism activities. From such impressions, the
local people are referred to responsible tourist since they provide essentials which are required of
their fellow foreign tourist (Burrai & Hannam, 2018).
Be informers to far-off tourist
The local people are reflected to have direct or indirect influence to the tourism sector.
The pragmatic responsibility of the local people is to informed the external tourist about the
health precaution measure during their trip in particular areas. Furthermore, the role of the “local
tourist” is to inform the foreign tourist on how first they can get accessed to health services in
case of emergencies. They should also inform the external colleagues concerning areas which are
not to be visited because of certain dangers (US Travel Association, 2017).
Conclusion
Tourism is a major concern to many communities all over the world. This industry is
reflected to be operational as well as effective when all stakeholders are involved in decisional
making process. The World Committee on Tourism Ethics under UNWTO Global Code of
Ethics for Tourism have reflected on inclusive decision making process to enhance sustainability

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tourism environment. The body has embraced on the responsible tourism and the roles to be
played by the local people and the foreign tourism. The insight discussion on the paper reflects
on the roles to be played by the “local tourist”, these comprises being informers, economic
support, teaching relating to their customs and heritage and respect to the environment.

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References
Burrai, E., & Hannam, K. (2018). Challenging the responsibility of ‘responsible volunteer
tourism’. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 10(1), 90-95.
Habibullah, M. S., Tan, S. K., & Choon, S. W. (2017). The impact of the dimensions of
environmental performance on firm performance in travel and tourism industry. Journal
of environmental management, 203, 603-611.
Lim, W. M., & Heitmann, A. S. (2017). Sustainability and ethics in rural business and tourism
in the developing world. Rural Tourism and Enterprise: Management, Marketing and
Sustainability, 133.
Lin, J. (2018). The Moderating Role of Intercultural Service Encounters in the Relationship
among Tourist’s Destination Image, Perceived Value and Environmentally Responsible
Behaviors. . American Journal of Tourism Management, 7(1), 1-9.
Mahrous, A. A., & Hassan, S. S. (2017). Achieving superior customer experience: An
investigation of multichannel choices in the travel and tourism industry of an emerging
market. Journal of Travel Research, 56(8), 1049-1064.
Reid, E. L., & Kim, W. G. (2017). Differences in tourist ethical judgment and responsible
tourism intention: An ethical scenario approach. Tourism Management, 60, 298-307.
Sharma. (2017). Evolution, Creation And Application Of Ethics In Tourism. Voice of Research,
62.
US Travel Association. (2017). US Travel and Tourism Overview (2015). Retrieved July, 9,
2017.

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