The Impact of Environmental Changes on the Global Tourism Industry

This essay explores the significant impacts of climate change and overpopulation on the global tourism industry. The author highlights how climate, as a primary resource for tourism, is affected by changes in temperature, extreme weather events, and the resulting shifts in tourist destinations. Th...Read More

Running head: GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT AND TOURISM
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT AND TOURISM
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There are numerous evidences that prove that the global environment has changed
drastically from the pre-industrial era. The scholars have been anticipating that it will
continue to change in future. Various international organisations associated with the climatic
change in the global environment are concerned with the unequivocal feature of this change.
The global temperature has been increasing for which different animal and plant species have
been abolishing (Nur and Zaiton 2015). Climatic changes and over population have started to
impede the capabilities of many nations to attain sustainable development hence affected
hospitality industry greatly (Chiu, Lee and Chen 2014). This essay discusses the effect of
climatic change and adverse effect of over-population in the tourism industry as well as
recommends appropriate response to face these changes.
Climate is a primary resource for tourism because it determines the suitability and
acceptance of the location for a broad range of activities of the tourists. Climate is also the
influencer of global seasonality in the demand of tourists. It has direct impact of the operating
cost for example, heating and cooling, irrigation, snow making, supply of water and food and
finally the insurance cost (Fernando and Shariff 2015). Therefore, a minimal change in the
climate can affect the length as well as quality of the climate dependant tourism seasons. This
has considerable inferences in maintaining the competitive connection among the destinations
which is directly related to profitability of the tourism enterprises.
Environment studies have disclosed the fact that the attractive climatic conditions are
the driving forces for more tourist attraction in the high altitudes and latitudes (Lu, Gursoy
and Del 2016). On the contrary, due to a slight change in the climate can cause threat for the
popular holiday destinations to maintain their competitive position. For example, the
hospitality sector of Mediterranean can face a threat due to changed climate in summer but
some less popular tourist destinations in southern Canada or southern England can be
benefitted (Tsai et al. 2015). The uncertainties associated with the tourist climate preferences

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as well as destination loyalty need attention in case the managers want to protect the
implications of seasonal and geographical redistribution of the visitor’s flow (Hunt et al.
2015).
The critics have revealed that there are potential vulnerabilities among the
destinations offering winter sports (Hall and Page 2014). These destinations can be effected
by the decline of natural snowfall. Climatic change in the arctic region where the tourists visit
mainly for snow sports ca affect the tourism industry greatly. In addition to this, changes in
the climatic extremes can result in projected weather change, high maximum temperature,
increasing number of hot days in the land areas. Due to change in climate, the number of
tropical storms are being increasing with high intensity, more intense precipitation events
over some land areas and extreme drought has been affecting the tourism industry (Tsai et al.
2015). The destinations are having infrastructure damages, high operation expenses such as
back up water, power systems and insurance. Beside these, the tourism industries need to
have a strong emergency preparedness which interrupts in their business.
The effect of fast increasing population can have a great effect on the tourism
industry may vary substantially by the market segment as well as geographic region. The
human population has been increasing rapidly worldwide. The population is now
approximately 7.5 billion which will be 10 in next 30 years (Ott 2017). This rapid growth in
the global population combined with increasing affluence is putting pressure on the natural
resources mostly water and minerals. The degradation and fast decreasing resources due to
over population in a place have negative effects on the tourism system of the world.
Increasing number of hotels and resorts in one particular place can face this threat more
harshly. Arrangements of fresh water has become most critical responsibility for the
organisations (Mowforth and Munt 2015). The tourism industry mainly overuses fresh water
resources to support operations of hotel, golf courses, pools and tourists’ usage. This issue of

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over population and thereby growing problems with freshwater can be seen in the African
continent and south-eastern Asian tourist spots. Moreover, the tourism industry can be
affected by the degradation of land resources. For accommodating this huge population, the
governments are inclining towards deforestation hence the water and land resources are
declining thus affecting the tourism attraction of these places.
As the human activities are the chief reason of climatic or weather change as well as
reduction of resources, the tourism must be responsible and supportive of natural resources.
The chief initiative that the managers can follow, is the method of ecotourism. Following this
method, the manages will be able to conserve the environment of their area (Vieira 2016).
The philosophy to respect all the natural forces and not poisoning them can be delivered to
the tourists. In order to make the tourism sustainable control in usage of natural resources will
meet all the present needs but will never compromise with the ability to meet the future
demands.
Growth in population is a factors that interests the managers in a tourist spot because
this will increase the popularity of the place and increase the number of visitors but the
negative effect of over-population in that particular tourist spot can adversely affect the
tourism business (Vieira 2016). The population of that region can be managed through
increasing awareness. The tourism managers can provide benefits to the locals by
collaborating with the national government The awareness and attitudes towards supporting
ecotourism facts, will increase the tourism issues originated from environmental changes (Ott
2017).
Therefore, it can be concluded that environment changes and the issue of fast
increasing population are affecting the lives of the animal and plant species and the natural
resources are getting damaged simultaneously. Tourism intends to guarantee economic, social

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and cultural development of a region but while getting affected by environmental issues,
taking huge time to recover from the damage and regain their previous popularity. In facing
such problems, the managers need to care for taking initiatives for supporting the concept of
ecotourism. This will give sustainability to the tourism business of a place and strengthen
social and economic aspects of the destination.

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References:
Chiu, Y.T.H., Lee, W.I. and Chen, T.H., 2014. Environmentally responsible behavior in
ecotourism: Antecedents and implications. Tourism management, 40, pp.321-329.
Fernando, S.L.J. and Shariff, N.M., 2015. The relationship between land use/land cover
change and factors for ecotourism development in the partial nature based wetland using
remote sensing and GIS techniques. Int J Sci Res Innov Technol, 2, pp.82-92.
Hall, C.M. and Page, S.J., 2014. The geography of tourism and recreation: Environment,
place and space. Routledge.
Hunt, C.A., Durham, W.H., Driscoll, L. and Honey, M., 2015. Can ecotourism deliver real
economic, social, and environmental benefits? A study of the Osa Peninsula, Costa
Rica. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 23(3), pp.339-357.
Lu, A.C.C., Gursoy, D. and Del Chiappa, G., 2016. The influence of materialism on
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Mowforth, M. and Munt, I., 2015. Tourism and sustainability: Development, globalisation
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Nur, A. and Zaiton, S., 2015. Willingness to accept compensation of seaweed cultivators to
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Malaysia, 15-17 April 2015 (pp. 51-56). Universiti Putra Malaysia.
Ott, J., 2017. Less Happiness in Cities, but Why and so What? One More Reason to Stop
Overpopulation.

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Tsai, C.Y., Horng, J.S., Liu, C.H. and Hu, D.C., 2015. Work environment and atmosphere:
The role of organizational support in the creativity performance of tourism and hospitality
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