Essay on International Travel and Tourism: Sustainability Challenges

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of the international travel and tourism industry. It begins with an introduction to the industry's significance and its impact on various economies, highlighting the United States and United Kingdom. The essay delves into the challenges faced by the industry, including lack of infrastructure, time poverty, inconsistent policies, investment deficiencies, weak promotional activities, and low levels of diversification. It then discusses the economic, social, and environmental impacts of tourism, both positive and negative. The essay concludes by exploring mitigation strategies, such as increasing social welfare, enhancing ecosystem integrity, and promoting equitable economic distribution. It emphasizes the need for collaboration among local authorities, private entities, and government bodies to achieve sustainable tourism development, along with waste reduction, low-impact transportation, and infrastructure upgrades.

INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL AND TOURISM
(ESSAY)

Often every one heard the phrase and use it for themselves that “Life is a journey”. It
is quite noted that it is the appropriate metaphor for human kind. The concept of travel is
hard-wired into the experience of human. In earlier times, travel was encouraged with the
desire to explore, discover as well as enrichment. The time has also not changed much. A
craving to discover, explore and to become enriched is still driving people to travel from one
place to another. The wish to travel different places has made travel and tourism a number
one industry in numerous nations all throughout the world. Even it is the largest sector of
United Kingdom and United States (Edward, 2000). Travel and tourism industry is one of the
scarce industries which is being credited with manufacturing a positive trade balance for the
many economies. In addition to this, this industry is also offering numerous employment
opportunities to variety of people and developing workers at all levels and every area of
expertise. However, there has been extended exploitation of social as well as environmental
resources due to rising international travel and tourism and this has led the current world to
have fundamental shift from exploitative to sustainable approach in the development of
tourism. Concerning this in intellect, the main motive of the current essay is to explore
international travel and tourism industry and its various sustainability challenges. Further,
current trends in the international travel and tourism industry will be discussed along with
tourism impacts. The final part of the essay will throw light on initiatives that can be used in
order to mitigate the challenges being posed by issues.
According to the TIA i.e. travel industry association, tourism accounts for around
$740 billion in direct travel expenditures by domestic as well as international travellers
significantly. International travellers to the US spend around $108 billion every year
(Thornton, 2005). In addition to this, tourism also offers $110 billion in tax revenue for
federal, local as well as state governments. Moreover, this industry is considered as largest
employers of America which is offering around $8 million jobs. However, travel and tourism
industry is quite complex and in fact it can be called as industry of industries. This pertains to
the fact that it encompasses varied travel related firms ranging from multi-national to
individual selling travel products and services from this residence. The international travel
and tourism industry helps in stimulating the economy effectively. In the year 2009, the
travellers from different parts of the world has spent around $100 billion in the United States.
It is well studies that travellers from foreign nations spent three times more in comparison
with the domestic travellers. This is being considered as an extra-ordinary investment in the
economy of US. Despite the fact that the tourism industry currently has suffered rough
economic climate, extra taxes it is threaten to exacerbate the challenges being faced by the
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industry. Secondly, travel and tourism industry helps in promoting the image of a country
abroad (TIA (Travel Industry Association), 2018).
Additionally, international travel and tourism industry still come across with
numerous challenges of cautious clients because of current political, social as well as
economic realities (Tourism and sustainable development, n.d.). The growth in the tourism
has affected the deterioration of the economic conditions of major European and American
economies. Nations have vast potential for the sustainable tourism development because of
the presence of important as well as significant historical, cultural, heritage and geographical
assets. However, by looking at the share of the nations in the international tourism and travel
market, it can be said that there inherent potential has not yet exhibited itself in a desirable
manner. There are many sustainable challenges being faced by nations in international travel
and tourism and these are as follow:
 Lack of tourism related infrastructure – Tourism will become one of the world’s
largest industry by the end of the year 2020. In US, it is third largest behind
automotive deals and food stores. However, there are many nations which lack
sufficient amount of infrastructure being required for the development of successful
sector related to tourism. Some of these include safety, security, communication, hotel
and lodging sector and transportation. Because of all these, it is becoming quite
difficult to offer standard of facilities as well as services being demanded by the
tourists. It significantly act as a major challenge for developing sustainable
international travel and tourism.
 Lack of leisure time to travel – Most of the people in America and many other nations
are suffering from time poverty which significantly means that people does not have
sufficient time to perform things they like. People in America work for around nine
full weeks on an average basis per year in comparison with the European counterparts
(Beniston, 2003). Eight percent of men and sixty two percent of women put in more
than forty hour a week on the job. As people have lower amount of free time, there is
rising competition for those rare leisure hours. For example, museums, attractions,
and many other destinations are expanding continuously but the attendance is
shrinking. Cruise lines are also intensifying to far reaching exotic ports. There are
more things to do but there is less time to perform all these things. This is being
regarded as the top trend in the travel and tourism industry.
 Lack of consistent tourism strategies as well as policies – There are many nations
which are still facing problems as well as challenges in getting integrated tourism
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policy development. This is mainly because of the policy conflicts amid the
government departments and private agencies being related to tourism industry.
Because of these clashes, the sustainable tourism development is quite impossible to
achieve. This type of challenges can be seen in various cases for example where there
is lack of effective management and administration, institutional framework and
regulations relation to the tourism activities.
 Deficiency in tourism investment – talking in reference with the developed economies,
investment in relation with the services is a well-established economic activity. But it
is still lagging behind in the developing nations and economies. Investment in relation
with the service related projects especially tourism in the developed nations, is often
being regarded as quite risky. Consequently, even there is natural tourism potential in
the developed nations, it is very problematic for them to get access to reasonable
financing for their projects related to tourism.
 Weak promotional activity and poor services – There is lack of sustainable tourism
knowledge and awareness among the people. In addition to this, there is very little or
it can be said that no publicity promotion as well as mass media exposure and because
of this, people does not contribute effectively for development of travel and tourism in
a sustainable manner. Sometimes, the awareness is also not possible because of the
availability of poor technological services.
 Low level of tourism diversification – In earlier days, international travel and tourism
has been featured by its concentration towards watercourse and coastal areas. People
used to travel to these areas in summer for leisure, relaxation as well as rest. However,
because of the modern tourism activity, it is quite evident that there has been growing
tendency in relation with the change as well as diversification. Because of this, there
has been challenges and issues for many nations to keep pace with the rapid altering,
dynamic and complex need of tourists. Todays, international travel and tourism sector
is quite competitive and taking into consideration the new touristic destinations, it is
quite challenging to improve the conditions that foster modern tourism development.
However, geo-tourism is one of emerging sector in travel and tourism industry that
enhances the geographical character of a place such as its culture, environment and
heritage (O’Mahony, Whitelaw and Ritchie, 2006). Around 55 percent of the
Americans are being regarded as geo-tourists, as they prefer to have socially and
culturally related travel.
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All these current sustainable challenges are more likely to impact the international
travel and tourism industry. Throwing light in relation with the international travel and
tourism impacts, it is being categorized into three main categories that is social, economic
and environmental. Focusing towards the economic impact, the rising level of international
tourism will help in rebuilding the struggling economies. According to a UNWTO report of
the year 2011, the international tourism receipts has exceeded US$1 trillion for the very first
time and this is perhaps the great news. The UNWTO are predicting that by the year 2020,
the international arrivals will also increase. Moving ahead, other than economic benefits of
tourism development, there are also positive social influences such as increase in amenities,
parks, recreation activities, community pride, celebration of First Nations People, investment
in arts and culture etc. However, international travel and tourism is also impacting the society
negatively such as rising cultural crisis, ethical issues like exploitation of child workers and
increase in sex tourism, change of original values and identity, increasing demand of
resources and many more. Further, tourism greatly impacts the environment in which it
operates (United Nations World Tourism Organization, 2008). The rising development of
tourism and increasing international travel has severe impact on the environment such as
depletion of natural resources such as water and forest, rising air, noise, waste, littering and
sewage pollution, loss of biodiversity, trampling, marina development, construction activities
and many other physical impacts. All these environmental impacts of tourism and travel can
reach out from the local areas and can influence the eco-system at global level.
These sustainability challenges of international travel and tourism can be mitigated by
having three main objective i.e. increasing the level of social welfare, enhancing the integrity
of local ecosystem and greater and equal distribution of local economic wealth. Many local
authorities have to work in side with MIC activities to create a shared vision for local
development in consistent with the sustainable development concept. In addition to this, there
is a need of heritage preservation for site developments as well as designing of buildings.
Programs such as green space stewardship, private heritage, exchange land and development
rights should be initiated. Other than this, tax benefits being accumulated from the property
owners should exercise sustainable development practices. Moreover, tourism taxes as well
as development fees should be used to support construction and maintenance of needed
infrastructure (Gössling, 2002). However, without having true commitment to the sustainable
tourism agenda, all these above identified instruments will not be sufficient enough in
preventing the steady erosion by legally authorised private actions of social as well as local
natural wealth heritage. Consequently, support from the international, provincial, local and
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national level of industry as well as government is quite needed to have success of this
agenda. Last but not the least, for having low impact of the rising development of
international travel and tourism number of things can be considered. Firstly, the waste
production should be controlled by the process of recycling and efficiency measures.
Secondly, there should be application of low impact transportation as well as building
designs, technologies and materials. Lastly, there should be co-investment of local residents,
government and tourism industry to upgrade the existing settlements as well as urban
infrastructure comprising sewage and drainage infrastructure as well (McKie, 2007).
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Beniston, M., 2003. Climate change in mountain regions: a review of possible impacts.
Climatic Change, 59, pp.5–31.
Boeing. 2003. Current Market Outlook 2003. Seattle: Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
Marketing.
Edward, C., 2000. The evolution of the grand tour: Anglo-Italian cultural relations since the
Renaissance. Portland OR: Routledge.
Garrahan, M., 2005. Balancing act on fuel emissions. Europe: Financial Times.
Gössling, S., 2002. Global environmental consequences of tourism. Global Environmental
Change, 12, pp.283–302.
McKie, R., 2007. Global warming: the final verdict. The Observer.
O’Mahony, B., Whitelaw, P. and Ritchie, B.W., 2006. The effect of fuel price rises on
tourism behaviour: an exploratory Australian study. Tourism and the End of Oil ATLAS
Asia-Pacific Conference.
Thornton, P., 2005. G8 wants tax on airline tickets to help world poor. The Independent.
Online references
TIA (Travel Industry Association). 2018. International travel to the U.S. [Online]. Available
through: <http://www.scielo.br/tia.org/researchpubs/itnl_tourism_travel_us>. [Accessed
on 15thSeptember 2018].
Tourism and sustainable development. n.d. [Online]. Available through:
<https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/400iclei.pdf>. [Accessed on
15thSeptember 2018].
United Nations World Tourism Organization. 2008. Understanding tourism: Basic glossary.
[Online]. Available through: < http://media.unwto.org/en/content/understanding-tourism-
basic-glossary >. [Accessed on 14thSeptember 2018].
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