Sustainable Tourism. Myth Or reality? - Geography A-Level

Sustainable tourism is defined as “tourism that respects both local people and the traveller, cultural heritage and the environment”. 
It is all about readapting the modern approaches to tourism. It involves tourism with a low impact on local culture and environment while creating jobs an income for the local area with the overall aim of conserving the local ecosystem.
Also commonly known as ecotourism.

Ways of creating sustainable tourism:

• Using renewable energy ie. solar power for heating (environmental)
• recycle rainwater (environmental)
• only use sustainable materials, ie. wood from sustainable woods (environmental)
• local food to reduce food miles (environmental)
• promote local culture (social)
• sell local products (social)
• reinvest some profits into local community (social)
• employ local residents (economic)
• be locally owned and not be a TNC (economic)
• only purchase local goods (economic)

Arguments against sustainable tourism:

• Without proper management can be harmful to environment. ie. If there are no roads then can degrade the land
• resentment of wealthy foreign visitors by locals leads to negative impact on local community
• can make area dependent on tourism
• when visitors increase then that equals more damage to environment
• resorts usually in remote locations therefore more travel to get there.

Case Study: Galapagos Islands.

Ecuadorian islands 1000km off of South America. 

Most famous for site of Charles Darwins' 'thoery of evoluton' where he studied that finches had different beaks dependent on different islands.

Approximately 90% of island is designated as national park

Population of 20,000

Became first UNESCO heritage site in 1979

Around 100,000 visitors a year.

The tourists who visit have to abide by strict rules:

• can only visit a limited number of places
• are all educated on conserving land
• pay £25 towards conservation of islands

Tourists generate a lot of business in area such as local guides, restaurants, hotels etc.

However due to growing demand for holidays there there are 5 flights a day that land on the islands and cruise ships stop off which harms the local marine life. There are still problems such as oil spills from boats, overuse of some sites (honeypot), and apart from tourism there are not many other employment opportunities.