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)
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