Reflective Writing: Sustainable Issues, Tourism, and Career Goals

This reflective writing piece explores the sustainable challenges within the tourism industry and their impact on a prospective tourism manager's career. The paper begins with an introduction outlining the assignment's purpose: to analyze the constraints a tourism manager faces regarding sustainability, the key issues, and their effects on the author's career aspirations. The author aims to become a tourism manager, and the paper discusses the role's responsibilities, including promoting tourism and assisting tourists. The paper then delves into sustainability issues such as the lack of local community participation, carbon footprint, and political instability, which can hinder tourism operations. The author suggests strategies to mitigate these issues, including encouraging local participation and developing green initiatives. The author also emphasizes the importance of customer satisfaction and outlines steps to achieve their career goals, including education and gaining industry experience. The paper concludes by reiterating the author's interest in the dynamic and challenging tourism industry and their commitment to ethical operations and professional development.

Running head: REFLECTIVE WRITING
REFLECTIVE WRITING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to shed a light on the constraints that a tourism manager in
terms of sustainability. The paper will provide an insight about the key sustainable challenges
that the tourism will industry will face and the impacts of the issues on the career path that I
intend on pursuing which is tourism manager and also provide a worldview of the tourism
industry. This paper will also present the values of the industry and my own personal values and
will provide the strategies that I would consider and implement in order to achieve my desired
goal in terms of my professional development.
Intended career path
The career path that I would like to pursue in the long run is to become a tourism
manager and would like to be associated with the tourism industry. The key role of the tourism
managers is to basically promote tourism in the region they are operating in through various
methods like strategies, advertising campaigns and also help tourists by assisting them (Castillo-
Manzano, Lopez-Valpuesta & Alanís, 2015). The tourism managers also spreads awareness
about the industry as well as the new initiatives that are is consideration or have already been
implemented to the industry and also interest groups and communities.
I believe that the tourism industry is dynamic and constantly evolving in comparison to
various other industries and this job will not become monotonous and always keep me on the go
and active which I prefer. I would like to have a challenging job role where I can challenge
myself every day and contribute to the industry in order to gain benefits. I believe that working

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as a manager in this industry will help me in gaining a fruitful experience and will also be fruitful
for the development and growth of my career.
Sustainable issues in the tourism industry
The tourism industry is one of the most flourishing industries and plays a huge role in
contributing to the economy and the development of a country and a destination. The tourism
industry has several positive aspects like promoting awareness about culture, helps in gaining
revenue which further helps in supporting the economy and also helps in developing services and
infrastructure (Tan et al, 2017). However, it has been seen that the tourism industry faces a lot of
sustainable issues that may hinder the operations of the industry and also create obstacles for the
tourism manager to efficiently do their jobs.
It has been seen that climate change has had a huge impact on the tourism industry and
has affected the operations of the industry. However, according to scholars, the operations of the
tourism industries are one of the major reasons that contribute to the rise in climate change which
paves way for sustainable issues. Apart from this, there are many other sustainable issues as well
which can be seen in the tourism industry. One of the major sustainable issues that the tourism
industry faces is the lack of participation of local communities in the industry.
The lack of participation of local communities in the tourism industry is one of the major
social issues of this industry. According to scholars, one of the new trends in tourism is
providing experiential tourism to the visitors and the tourists and it has been seen that there are
numerous destinations that have been opening doors to the local communities and providing an
insight about the life of the local communities like aboriginal and the indigenous people
however, these local communities do not benefit from any of these activities (Dodds, Ali &

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Galaski, 2018). This is considered to be a social as a sustainable issue as there are many people
in various countries who have been living in poverty due to lack of jobs and taking the help of
people and not compensating them is highly unethical as well. Park & Kim, (2016) states
encouraging local people to participate in the tourism process is important in order to help them
in overcoming issues like poverty and unemployment and also to develop tourism activities
which pave way for a sustainable growth and development of the tourism industry. Local
communities might think that this type of tourism invades their privacy and may resist from
allowing practices like this which can hamper the activities of experiential tourism which can be
a problem for the tourism manager in the long run.
The other major sustainable issue faced by the industry is carbon footprint and other
emissions. According to scholar, the heavy use of transportation which is essential in tourism
contributes to high carbon footprint which contributes to the rise in climate change which has
been having negative impacts on the tourism industry (Lenzen et al, 2018). It has been seen that
the accommodation sector and other tourism places also contribute to emissions of harmful gas
as they use various technology like air conditioners, chimneys and other technologies that causes
environmental issues which is also considered to be a sustainable issue (Puig et al, 2017). The
rise in climate change leads to several issues like unhealthy environment, degradation of the
natural attractions in the industry which results in less visitors in the destinations. This can have
a huge effect on the operations of the tourism manager as it is important and the duty of the
tourism manager to attract and encourage visitors to come and visit a destination and ensuring
that they have a good time and receive quality services which will make them coming back to the
destination that will benefit the tourism industry in the long run.

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The other sustainable issue which the tourism industry faces is political upheaval. There
are many tourist destinations that have strict policies and regulations and do not have political
stability which often has negative impacts on the tourism industry. According to scholars, one of
the most important aspects that tourists usually consider while making the decision of visiting a
tourist destination is the political environment which sometimes determines the safety of the
country and also gives the tourists an image of the country especially in terms of travelling (Eid,
El-Kassrawy & Agag, 2019). This in the long run may have sustainability issues as it will hinder
the operations of the tourism industry and discourage visitors to consider visiting a destination
which may hamper the operations of the tourism manager as it is the duty of the manager to
encourage and influence visitors and tourists to visit the destination.
According to scholars, the tourism industry highly depends on customer satisfaction and
loyalty (Liat et al, 2017). The tourism industry strives to achieve customer loyalty by providing
them with the quality services and providing them with a unique experiences which help in
satisfying the needs and demands of a customer. Aligning with the value of the industry, I agree
and highly believe in providing customers with proper and high quality services and it is
important to satisfy and meet the demands of the customers as they are the ones that help in
generating revenue and play a major role in the growth and development of the tourism as well
as other industries all across the globe.
Response
I will be using two strategies that will help me function even with these sustainable issues
that are encourage local participation in tourism activities and help in developing green
initiatives that will help in eradicating the issues and encourage green and sustainable tourism.

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I will be appealing the higher level management of the industry to encourage local
communities to participate in the tourism activities and provide the benefits that this strategy will
have on the overall industry as well as the society like rise in employment rate, better standard of
living, enhanced experiential tourism and many more.
I would with the help of the government come up with policies and regulations that will help the
accommodation sector and the other people working in the industry to go green like use electric
vehicles, use solar energy and many more.
These steps will help me eradicating the issues and be a successful tourism manger
however in order to achieve my goal and become a tourism manager, I will first finish my
degrees in business administration and marketing as it is important to know these subjects to
market a destination. The next step is that I will be working for the industry in any division and
gain experience so that I can understand the industry well and get promoted to my desired level.
Conclusion
The tourism industry is one of the most popular industries and is in huge demand. I
would like to be a tourism manager as I am intrigued with the tourism industry because of the
way the industry operates which dynamic and challenging and which will help me in fulfilling
my dreams. However, it can be seen that there several sustainable issues that crop up in the
tourism industry but I would like to use the mentioned strategies which will help me in
eradicating the issues and operate in an ethical manner which will help in the development and
growth of the tourism industry and also help the industry in gaining profits as well as help in my
professional development.

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Reference
Castillo-Manzano, J. I., Lopez-Valpuesta, L., & Alanís, F. J. (2015). Tourism managers' view of
the economic impact of cruise traffic: the case of southern Spain. Current Issues in
Tourism, 18(7), 701-705.
Dodds, R., Ali, A., & Galaski, K. (2018). Mobilizing knowledge: Determining key elements for
success and pitfalls in developing community-based tourism. Current Issues in
Tourism, 21(13), 1547-1568.
Eid, R., El-Kassrawy, Y. A., & Agag, G. (2019). IntegratIng destInatIon attrIbutes, polItIcal (In)
stabIlIty, destInatIon Image, tourIst satIsfactIon, and IntentIon to recommend: a study of
uae. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 43(6), 839-866.
Lenzen, M., Sun, Y. Y., Faturay, F., Ting, Y. P., Geschke, A., & Malik, A. (2018). The carbon
footprint of global tourism. Nature Climate Change, 8(6), 522-528.
Liat, C. B., Mansori, S., Chuan, G. C., & Imrie, B. C. (2017). Hotel service recovery and service
quality: Influences of corporate image and generational differences in the relationship
between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Journal of Global Marketing, 30(1), 42-51.
Park, E., & Kim, S. (2016). The potential of Cittaslow for sustainable tourism development:
enhancing local community's empowerment. Tourism Planning & Development, 13(3),
351-369.
Puig, R., Kiliç, E., Navarro, A., Albertí, J., Chacón, L., & Fullana-i-Palmer, P. (2017). Inventory
analysis and carbon footprint of coastland-hotel services: A Spanish case study. Science
of the total environment, 595, 244-254.

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Tan, S. H., 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
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