Sustainable Tourism in Australia: Promoting Responsible Travel

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SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
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Author Note

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SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
Introduction:
Sustainable tourism is defined as the form of tourism, which takes complete account of
the environmental, social, cultural and environmental impacts that come up with the industry
along with addressing the needs of the tourists, visitors, the industry, the internal and the external
stakeholders and the host communities. With the growing environmental impact of the industries,
the tourism industry is not excluded. The impact that the tourists leave behind the virgin spots or
the pristine natural reserves, are highly detrimental and increase the environmental footprint to a
great extent.
Tourism contributes nearly 34 billion to Australia’s GDP and employs over 500,000
people. It is one of the major contributors in the Australian economy. With the growing trend of
holistic travelling, the tourism industry has taken new turns in developing the sectors with
environmentally conscious approaches and sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism brings in a
balance between tourists and the tourism hotspots in way that allows mutual development, aided
with protecting the local communities and resources that favour the regions tourism industry.
Sustainable Tourism can also be referred to as responsible tourism and its growing importance
cannot be undermined since the necessity to keep our ecologically rich environments for the
future generations is paramount.
What is Sustainable Tourism?
The intriguing fact of sustainable tourism lies in the fact that it allows the visitors or
tourist to experience a world from a very different perspective and which makes sustainable
tourism so trending in the present world. The need to conserve and preserve is the USP of
sustainable tourism and it is rightly catered with such tourism ventures and practices. Sustainable

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SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
tourism is the next generation definition of travelling. Tourism combined with an experience that
allows any individual to connect with the natural environment and feel the urge to contribute to
its sustenance along with enjoying the nature at the same time is defined through sustainable
tourism. As the Green Getaways, a responsible tourism venture states in their website that the
main objective of promoting sustainable tourism is to create a responsible means of travelling
and lessening the impact of tourist on the environment. They rightly admit that though they may
not be able to achieve perfect sustainability yet they can keep up their effort in reducing the
impact of the millions of tourists travelling to Australia every year.
What is done differently in Sustainable Tourism?
The Australian Tourism sector is highly enriched with government and private
stakeholders, thereby making it more comprehensive and sustainable in nature. For preserving
and conserving the natural resources of the country the government brought into the most
important laws, the Environmental protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1999 which
empowers the government protect the natural and biological resources of the country, thus
paving the way to sustainable tourism. Similar other laws have been brought into effect to
empower the responsible tourism and promote sustainability. Sustainable tourism promotes
tourism with a different experience and catering the huge resources of Australia to the tourist that
makes them aware about the degrading environment and the need to protect the environment and
the ecology for our future use. According to Sustainability For All, sustainable tourism not just
involves responsible tourism practices but also includes wastes managements, proper disposal
and recycling of the wastes generated through tourist activities and reducing the impacts as much
as possible to a degree where s mutual sustenance exists.