A Report on Emerging Issues in Hospitality and Tourism: Climate Change

This report examines the emerging issue of climate change and its significant impact on the tourism and hospitality industries. It begins with a brief overview, highlighting climate change as a global issue affecting various sectors, particularly the tourism and hospitality industries, which are highly susceptible to environmental changes. The report analyzes both the positive and negative impacts of climate change on the sector, including increased awareness and potential accessibility of new destinations, alongside detrimental effects such as coastal erosion, threats to winter activities, uncomfortable temperatures, the spread of diseases, and coral bleaching. It then provides recommendations for mitigating these impacts, such as increasing industry awareness, implementing standardized carbon audit processes, incentivizing sustainable practices, monitoring and controlling environmental policies, and conducting field experiments in collaboration with scientific communities. The report emphasizes the urgency of addressing climate change to ensure the sustainability and future contribution of the tourism and hospitality industries.

Running Head: Emerging issues In Hospitality & Tourism
Emerging issues in Hospitality & Tourism

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Table of Content
Brief Overview.......................................................................................................................................2
Analysing the issue to Climate change in Tourism and Hospitality........................................................2
Positive Impact..................................................................................................................................2
Negative Impact.................................................................................................................................3
Recommendation to solve the issue......................................................................................................3
References.............................................................................................................................................5

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Brief Overview – Climate change as an emerging issue in Hospitality and Tourism industry
Climate change is not limited to being just a regional or a social issue; it has become one of the
greatest global issues of all times. The increase in temperature across the entire globe, dozens of
wildfires in couple of years has posed a new challenge in front of the world- How to control the
changing climate and make earth a sustainable planet to stay in. The effect of changing climate are
not specific to one sector of business or an industry, whilst it has engulfed all the industries in the
business domain and a lot now depends on how to combat the challenges posed in by the changing
climate(Elsasser & Burki, 2002)
Hospitality and tourism industry is one of the worst hit industries due to climate change, impact of
increasing greenhouse gases, environmental pollution, release of harmful and toxic gases in the
environment is all affecting the industry adversely. Climate change not only impacts human life, it
also impacts the natural ecosystem, landscape, natural heritage and many more, and it basically
gives a blow to tourism and hospitality industry. Hence, it is just a matter of time that the adverse
effects of increasing temperature will be become highly noticeable and become prevalent. A lot of
attention is thereby given to the changing climate and every country is coming up with stringent
policies and procedures to curb the emission of harmful gases and greenhouse gases, imposing fines
on industries which are increasing the carbon footprint and causing harm to the environment
(Saarinen & Tervo, 2006)
Analysing the issue to Climate change in Tourism and Hospitality
Tourism and hospitality industry is bound to suffer because of many burning issues such as
technology, lifestyle changes, digital travellers, climate and many more, but one of the emerging
issues that have to be addressed immediately is the rise in temperature which is adversely impacting
the industry. Within the purview of the report, it is important to analyse the positive and negative
impact of the climate change to the industry.
Positive Impact
The only important impact that climate change can do to tourism and hospitality industry is it being
more aware of the damages caused by the rising temperatures, melting glaciers etc. and take
proactive actions in order to not get affected. Industries will take the negative effects as the bases to

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determine what changes it has to do strategically to not get affected from the changing climate.
Another positive impact can be extremely cold places might get accessible in the future.
Negative Impact
Some of the prominent negative effects will be:
Coastal flooding and erosion: Rise in sea level due to melting of glaciers will erode the islands
causing less flow of tourist to such destinations (Hjalager, 2010)
Threat to the winter activities: Due to global warming, the summer season will get extended and
causing trouble to the skiing and winter sports causing losses to the industry (Belle & Bramwell,
2005)
Uncomfortable high temperature causing shift in destinations: When the Skiing resorts and places
are generating less revenues in the winter climate, at the same tie rising temperature is making
already hot destination warmer making it difficult for people to enjoy the place and relish the
weather (Becken & Hay, 2007)
Spread of diseases: Warmer temperatures are breeding grounds for numerous diseases. Bacteria,
viruses, fungi and other germ causing microorganism multiply excessively in hotter temperatures.
Thus it is a matter of few years and it will be mayhem all around(Hamilton, Maddison & Tol,2005).
Hence, tourists will not pick a destination which is hot owing to concern of breeding grounds of
diseases and thus the destination will receive less revenue adversely impacting all the contributing
and the allied industries (Goeldner & Ritchie, 2012)
Coral Bleaching: Scuba diving, one of the most popular water activities that people have found a
new interest in will be getting hit badly with the increasing temperature. The life under the water
will suffer due to the rising temperature. According to a study, in Philippines 49% of the coral life is
destroyed due to El Nino effect causing temperature to rise (Becken, 2005)
Recommendation to solve the issue
It is established across the globe that rising temperature or climate change is an emerging issue
which is and also in future adversely impact tourism and hospitality industry. If steps are not taken
now, it is just a matter of time that the entire industry will collapse and will not be in a position to
contribute to the GDP of the nation and would also not be in a position to feed its inhabitants. Thus

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it is strongly advised to act now (Scott & Becken, 2010) some of the recommendations which may
probably solve the issue are:
 The people and the industry which will be worst affected due to climate change is the
tourism and hospitality, other industries such as agriculture, textile and many more will be
affected as well, but the major damage will be done to the tourism and hospitality. Hence, it
is recommended that tourism and hospitality should be furnished with the information on
increasing carbon footprint in their area so that they are in a position to evaluate the impact
of the hazard caused to the environment. A standardized process has to be put in action and
accordingly carbon audit has to be done and implemented in the industry. Once the
information backed by facts is in the hands of people who will be affected they will be in a
better stage to take action to reduce the impact of it on the environment and climate and
thus collective synergy might lead to solving the problem of climate change.
 There is an analogy, like the way an individual gets motivation by appreciation or incentives;
in the similar manner it is important to provide some sort of incentives or benefits to the
players in the industry who are using best practices to safeguard the environment. The
players who are using the best possible policies, strategies to curb the effects of increasing
temperature and going out of his capacity to keep the environment safe and in the similar
state, they should be incentivised in form of some tax benefits or other financial aid to
appreciate their efforts and give them a token of appreciation for their brilliant
efforts(Amelung, Nicholls & Viner, 2007)
 Another important step which comes after implementing an action plan is monitoring and
controlling. Hence it is very crucial to measure or monitor the policy or the plan which is
implemented. All this should be done on a regular basis and the measure the actual results
against the result expected. Another exercise which has to be implemented is continuous
evaluation of the impact of increase in carbon footprint, greenhouse gases, deforestation in
order be ready for the probable damage and start planning in advance to combat it(Barnett
& Adger, 2003)
Another recommendation for the Hospitality and tourism industry is to conduct as many field
experiments possible in collaboration with the scientist community to explore the earth and do a
joint brainstorming on the possible causes to mitigate the risk and adopt a policy to save the planet
earth (Dubois & Ceron, 2006)

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References
Amelung, B., Nicholls, S. and Viner, D., 2007. Implications of global climate change for tourism flows
and seasonality. Journal of Travel research, 45(3), pp.285-296.
Barnett, J. and Adger, W.N., 2003. Climate dangers and atoll countries. Climatic change, 61(3),
pp.321-337.
Becken, S. and Hay, J.E., 2007. Tourism and climate change: Risks and opportunities (Vol. 1).
Multilingual Matters.
Becken, S., 2005. Harmonising climate change adaptation and mitigation: the case of tourist resorts
in Fiji. Global environmental change, 15(4), pp.381-393.
Belle, N. and Bramwell, B., 2005. Climate change and small island tourism: Policy maker and industry
perspectives in Barbados. Journal of travel research, 44(1), pp.32-41.
Dubois, G. and Ceron, J.P., 2006. Tourism and climate change: Proposals for a research
agenda. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 14(4), pp.399-415.
Elsasser, H. and Bürki, R., 2002. Climate change as a threat to tourism in the Alps. Climate
research, 20(3), pp.253-257.
Goeldner, C.R. and Ritchie, J.B., 2012. Tourism: principles, practices, philosophies (No. Ed. 12). John
Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Hamilton, J.M., Maddison, D.J. and Tol, R.S., 2005. Effects of climate change on international
tourism. Climate research, 29(3), pp.245-254.

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Hjalager, A.M., 2010. A review of innovation research in tourism. Tourism management, 31(1), pp.1-
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Saarinen, J. and Tervo, K., 2006. Perceptions and adaptation strategies of the tourism industry to
climate change: the case of Finnish nature-based tourism entrepreneurs. International Journal of
Innovation and Sustainable Development, 1(3), pp.214-228.
Scott, D. and Becken, S., 2010. Adapting to climate change and climate policy: Progress, problems
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