It's time for YOU to do something.

People rarely change - why? My class and I are the PERFECT case study - we are young and determined for change, educated and knowledgeable. But no matter how much we preach about sustainability even WE don't change our behavior why would others?

When Rachael said this it totally made me feel like crap! Because she's right! Way to totally guilt trip me. So I decided to do something. After class I went to Canadian Tire and bought a reusable water bottle. No more plastic bottles for me :) And I went home and told my mother to stop buying disposable plastic water bottles too. Yes I am proud because I just reduced the number of plastic bottles produced in a year by 200. I didn't do much but hey at least it's something! *Lead by example!*

The Water Bottle Problem:

So what can YOU do?

• -Be considerate of the communities and environment you visit
• -Don't litter - Try to carry your own bags to avoid contributing to the plastic problem, try to avoid excessive waste and use of plastic bottles
• -Educate yourself about the place you are visiting and the people
• -Respect cultural differences
• -Do not purchase/eat endangered species just because you're on vaca!
• -Support the local economy - buy local so that the money stays in the communities and does not leave the country back to the big companies
• -Do not support the illegal drug and sex trade
• -Support a local charity or organization that works towards responsible tourism
• -Ask companies about their environmental responsible tourism policies and support those who support responsible tourism!
• -Ask your accommodations about their sustainability practices - do they recycle? have fair labour laws? an environmental policy?
• you'd be surprised how much by simply asking you can do! One person asks, then another..then another and eventually change will happen b/c companies see that customers obviously care enough about to ask! 

(Dodds R, Sustainable Tourism Development, March 17, 2011)

The Business Case for Sustainable Tourism!

As students of business of course the business case matters to us! And it should matter to all of you readers out there even if you're not in business! Sustainability believe it or not WILL affect you! (I don't know how many more times I have to drill this into your head lol) And it will definitely affect the way business will be done.

Argument for sustainable tourism: It doesn't matter what you have eg) a 3 or 5 star hotel, guests need to feel safe. (I don't really understand what Rachael meant by this...do you? Post in comments below! I would love to know! lol)

Business and Sustainability

• Business = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
• Sustainability will affect this

The business case - reasons why businesses do it.

• customers want it (based on stats and growing trends)
• better business image - good PR
• future-orientation
• cost savings
• risk mitigation 
• Did you know there is a Dow Jones Sustainability Index? =O 
• And guess what? The 7 out of the top 10 WORST companies were in the tourism industry. (shame - I'm in tourism and to advocate for sustainability on this blog while my very own industry doesn't even do a very good job at being sustainable is kind of ironic *sad face*)
• employee retention

Fun point that Rachael mentioned. Businesses invest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in things that are related to them. Here I thought dove was just being a good company that cared but then Rachael said this "Why does Dove invest in water? - Because you need water to use soap!" lol I just found this funny and interesting.

So, in conclusion...

• CSR trend - more companies are being asked to report their efforts or why they aren't doing anything
• Problem - change is incremental and businesses want high returns fast and its hard to change this behaviour.

Interesting thing to think about: it has always been reduce, reuse, recycle but people always recycle first. Wouldn't it create a bigger impact if people REDUCED first and THEN reused and recycle? 

P.S. We had a guest speaker today - Christian Wolters from intrepid travel today (look them up if you don't know them! C'mon savvy people just google them!) Anyways here's what I wanted to say - They have this carbon mitigation strategy. And what this basically is, is carbon offsetting: they measure the total carbon they are using in their projects and operations and offset it to minimize what they've done. Usually offsetting financially. Some airlines do this, notice this the next time you fly - they ask you this question "would you like to contribute $2 to offset the carbon from flying?"

(Dodds R, Sustainable Tourism Development, March 10th, 2011)

Of course the Government has a role!

It was an interesting start to class today. We began with a case study about a plantation in Costa Rica. Basically there was a viable piece of land that two people wanted for their own reasons. One was hotel that wanted to expand with good intentions for the environment and the other was a large company that wanted to build a banana plantation in Costa Rica. The problem was about decision-making. Should a new banana plantation be built into the community? What are its environmental impacts? Its social impacts? Should the hotel expand? Will it provide enough for the economy?

We assessed the different stakeholders in the case such as the banana plantation owner, the large company, the mayor, the locals, the scientists, the hotel operator etc.. and viewed it from their perspectives. What was interesting was how hard it was for everyone to come to one conclusion. And we made a decision in the last 15 mins we had to work on the case. The lesson to take away from this is that decision-making is very difficult and this process happens everywhere and the stakes are usually higher. And solutions are usually government responsible ie) in the end everyone points their fingers at the government to do something when there is a problem. We were lucky enough that the government was there but often times in the real word there is no rep from the government or someone key is missing from the group of decision makers. Notice how in our case study the point of view from a tourist was missing? *Ahh haaaa! Now you've realised.*

So to highlight here are some things I wanted to note about this week's lecture about the governance and the role of the government:

• One of the barriers to success in coming up with a consensus solution is: most people don't like to collaborate/cooperate. Especially in the tourism industry with our big egos (we don't want help from anyone)
• Greece exemplar: 
• Greece came up with laws for tourism development (plus one for Greece! :) )
• BUT...all the laws were made by the federal government
• They didn't include local businesses and the local government - they feel that there's no relevance to them so why would they follow any of the rules that they didn't take part in making?
• laws were vague - eg) how were they going to be enforced? by who?
• So...learn this: simply writing a law is not enough! 

(Dodds R, Sustainable Tourism Development, March 3rd, 2011)

The Environmental Impacts of tourism

In this week our professor talks about the environmental impacts which was created and caused by tourism.

Impacts of Tourism on the Environment
1.Floral and faunal species compostion:
2. Pollution
3. Visual
4. Erosion
5. Natural Resource
6. Urban Form
DID YOU KNOW THAT WATER HAS BECAME A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE IN A LOTS OF PLACES IN THE THIRD WORLD!

So what does climate change do to this planet?
Sea level rise
Increased temperature
Change in rainfall patterns
Increased intensity of storm activity
Direct damage to tourism plant and natural resources
Loss of attractiveness of the region as a destination

In conclusion i post two videos:
- the first video regarding Global Climate Change! Simple yet effective! i love his drawing :)

- the second video: a 12 years old kid presenting " What's Wrong With Our Food System". Even a 12 years old understand, why can't some of the adults?

P.S Sry for the late posting yet long post for this week, everyone been realli busy with midterms and other projects.
Cheers and stay safe - gav

(Dodds R, Sustainable Tourism Development, February 24, 2011)

If we build it they will come! ...right?

This week we learned many many many things about our industry, the amount of information (and how much Rachael was able to put on 2 powerpoints) is overwhelming! But we've highlighted a few things that we found very interesting for you.

The Paradox of Tourism
The success of the tourism industry can support nature and culture by restoring and preserving destinations (yay!) - BUT at the same time it is this success that deteriorates the aspects that make it successful! How do we continue to sell and promote what we are damaging by doing so? This is the paradox of tourism.

Refocusing Tourism
Remember our definition of sustainable tourism in the previous post? Now let's look at what sustainable tourism means in the context of what our current needs are today.

Butler (1993) says sustainable tourism is:
- "Tourism which is developed and maintained in an area (community, environment)
- In such a scale that it remains viable over an indefinite period 
- Does not degrade or alter the environment (human and physical) to the degree that it prohibits successful development and well being of other activities and programs”

There is a saying in the industry: "if we build it they will come".
...Will they really?
...
Nooooooooooooo! If you build it they will not come. You need to do more than that. Consumers today are buying the idea of the experience. There is a changing nature of what consumers are looking for - they're looking for impact!

Butler's Tourism Life Cycle

Note: Number of Tourists in other words is growth.

The purpose of this graph is not to make you go "omg what's that it looks so complicated" no no I reassure you, this blog is less complex and for the less informed. But the purpose of this graph is to show a point. This graph is the life cycle of tourism (duh self-explanatory in the name) - where do you think businesses start to look at sustainability? If you guessed stagnation you are correct! The reality is we as people are reactive more than we are proactive - we do things only after the fact. Wouldn't it be better for the 3 pillars of sustainability (as mentioned in the previous post) if sustainability was considered in the beginning stages of the cycle? Wouldn't it make so much more sense?

Final words
Everyone looks at Canada and sees us as a great place to live in. We're a developed nation, we believe in democracy and individual rights are important to us etc etc so when Rachael showed us this blog about her friend's trip to Northwestern Ontario we were quite surprised at what we saw. It is surprising to see in our own backyards the third world conditions that some of our friends in the Northwest live in, check out the blog:

http://smallpondarts.blogspot.com/2011/01/return-from-pikangikum.html

We leave you with this and it not necessarily related to the rest of the post but we want you readers to think about the world around you and to recognize the realities of this place we live in.

(Dodds R, Sustainable Tourism Development, February 17, 2011)

The triple bottom line.

What is Sustainability?
Our Professor, Rachael we'll call her told us she loved teaching this course because last semester there was a student who took the class just to fill his schedule when he didn't believe in sustainable tourism. She loves proving him wrong and the outcome? He is now a believer. Similarly we have a friend who doesn't believe in sustainable tourism either and when we asked her why her reply was:

"I don't believe you need sustainability to save our world".

Then we asked her "do you even know what sustainability means?" She went silent. The truth of the matter is, a lot of people do not know what sustainability is including us. In class Rachael gave us a definition from the UN (2005):

"Sustainable tourism development guidelines and management practices are applicable to all forms of tourism in all types of destinations, including mass tourism and the various niche tourism segments. Sustainability principles refer to the environmental, economic and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development, and a suitable balance must be established between these three dimensions to guarantee its long-term sustainability… Sustainable tourism development requires the informed participation of all relevant stakeholders, as well as strong political leadership to ensure wide participation and consensus building. Achieving sustainable tourism is a continuous process and it requires constant monitoring of impacts, introducing the necessary preventive and/or corrective measures whenever necessary. Sustainable tourism should also maintain a high level of tourist satisfaction and ensure a meaningful experience to the tourists, raising their awareness about sustainability issues and promoting sustainable tourism practices amongst them"

Lengthy and hard to remember isn't it? Tell us about it, we need know this for our final exam - but what you need to understand is this: Sustainable tourism stems from sustainable development and only the world can be sustainable. The truth is we'll never be sustainable because so long as we are on this planet consumption will continue, but we can become more sustainable. It's not about the end goal it's about the process. And this is not something we can do on our own.

Which brings us to...

The Triple Bottom Line.
The 3 pillars of sustainability are

economic,
social,
and environment.

Many think the three are separate, and notice how politics aren't included yet they often affect many of our decisions on society?

The three pillars are suppose to be equal but often what happens is that as development increases, the economy ($) increases but social and environment aspects decrease. Society and the environment are only an afterthought. And after the economy ($) starts to be affected do we only then start to think about the other two pillars.

So we leave you with this...
Look around you readers, the world around us diminishing. One minute it's climate change, the next it's about environmental degradation and the list of issues goes on...



...but together we can do something about it.

(Dodds R, Sustainable Tourism Development, February 10, 2011)