Sustainable operations and destinations Submitted by- Karanpreet Kaur Sarao(409204) Submitted to- Dr. D COMMON GLOBAL CHALLENGES • Tourism is a highly taxed industry. Not all but a few people, outside of the tourism and travel industry, realize how many taxes these tourists pay. Example: percentage of taxes paid on an airline ticket, a hotel room, or a rental car. According to some researches related to the tourism industry, some of the locales (be that local a country, city, state or province) almost 40% of the commodity’s cost comes from add-on taxes. • The globalized market means that the products available throughout the world are often the same. If part of the reason for travel is to learn about or have the opportunity to explore the unique and different, then the sameness factor is a major tourism challenge. The question here is that why would people travel to a different part of the world to buy the same product that they can find in their own country. For example, shopping malls around the world often seem to offer the same products. • Security is a major challenge to the tourism and travel industry. September 11, 2001 should have been a major wake-up call for tourism industry but unfortunately many industry leaders simply provided lip-service to security issues rather than confronting the problem. Tourism offices must have contact with their local police departments. Most of the police departments have no officers trained in TOPs (tourism oriented policing/protection services). A very few governments have provided their security agencies (e.g., policy departments) with the economic and manpower resources to protect the visitor and tourism facilities. This might lead to great economic losses in the future for many tourism and travel destinations. • Another challenge for the tourism industry is the political instability of any nation. For example, despite governments claiming that they support tourism, visa restrictions have become more complicated. Furthermore, a lot of nations face street demonstrations, politically motivated riots, acts of terrorism, wars or bureaucratic red tape. Ultimately it gives negative publicity to the host locale, and also makes travel more difficult and less appealing. • Travel stress brought about by poor travel conditions. A great example can be of India. Although India is a beautiful place but still the un-hygiene and the unavailability of public toilets makes it less appealing to most of the western world. It is not only about the host nation’s travelling conditions but also the air or road travel, because these days it came to notice that some flights like united air lines, are providing the customers with very poor customer service by dragging them out of the flights. So such incidents force people to think twice or may be thrice before travelling. COMPARING TWO ENTITIES (Andaman and Nicobar Islands VS Syria) The topic that I chose from the 13 global challenges is the climate change ultimately leading to natural disasters. I am going to compare Andaman and Nicobar Islands which is one of the seven union territories of India with Syria which currently suffering from civil war. When we talk about Andaman and Nicobar Islands tourism has always been regarded as the only resource that brings in new business opportunities and economic development for this region. This destination has always been famous for its scenic and serene beauty. There are popular places such as the long island, hut bay islands, Diglipur and many more. According to me Andaman and Nicobar Islands fall into the Sustainable Mass Tourism because of the following under given reasons: • Highly regulated • Focus on economy • Invest in tourism for further development As an industry, there are several factors that have an impact on tourism both positively and negatively. One such aspect is the natural disasters and climate changes that occur in a place unexpectedly. This place ultimately shines because of certain natural things that only exist here such as the largest sea turtles nest is here and also the only active volcano of India is in Andaman and plus it the only place where commercial fishing is totally banned to preserve the sea life. It is the only place in the world where the fish dies of getting old and not hunted by the humans. This place is known as to be the tourist hub because big multinational companies invest into this place. All this foreign investment helps to develop the economy of these islands but there was a time in 2006 when gradually it came down because of some major flaws. • As the number of tourists grew in this place the natural beauty eventually started to fade because people were damaging the sea life and the beauty by throwing rubbish into the sea. • Other than this the lack of rules and regulations also invested into the fall of this natural inhabiting tourist place as there was an increased rate of crime. • Apart from this when foreign companies started investing too much the local businesses started suffering because foreign direct investment hindered the domestic investment. • Last but not the least, the frequent earthquakes were a huge damage as well. Of course people do not want to go to such a tourist place, where they have the risk of losing their lives. Plus the global warming has also affected the coral and marine life adversely. But even after all this mess the government of Andaman did not let it go off as they knew that tourism is a great share of investment in their economy. They realised and worked on all the flaws they had in terms of the under given: Sustainable Development Around 2006 the government of Andaman And Nicobar was concerned to conserve the coast, manage and use the coastal resources in a sustainable manner. They aimed to facilitate the ecological sustainable development by mainstreaming conservation of biodiversity into key productive sectors. They were keen to enhance local capacities to conserve land and sustainably utilize globally significant biodiversity resources in the three key sectors: agriculture, tourism and fisheries. Destination Development Scenarios In terms of destination development scenarios this place attracts tourists in terms of visitors followed by beaches (91.3%), scenery (86.5%), reserved forests (84.6%), limestone caves (66.3%) and coral sights (65.8%). Coral sites were given weight of 65.8% of tourists, cultural and historical tourism products 85.4% for the natural history. Similarly, historical sites (83.7%), museums (78.6%) and heritage sites (72.8%) were also among top cites attraction. Recent initiatives by the Andaman administration gives due to care to sustainably develop the tourism infrastructure of the islands to harness the potential of eco-friendly tourism in this picturesque tourist haven. The Triple Bottom Line approach In terms of triple bottom line approach Andaman and Nicobar Islands do the following: • Social sustainability by focusing on and maintaining mutually beneficial relations with their tourists and their own community • Environmental sustainability by wisely using the natural resources, preserving the sealife and reducing the emission of waste hazards in the environment. • Economic sustainability by focusing on tourism upgrade because that is the means of their economic development Carrying capacity The carrying capacity of this place is about 5.5 million where as the number of visitors visiting are 6.5 millions. So there is a slight difference in these numbers. According to some reports the World Tourism Organization (WTO) in declared that tourism operations in protected areas need to be carefully planned, managed and monitored to ensure their long-term sustainability. Now I will begin to talk about Syria. According to me Syria comes under the Unsustainable mass tourism because: • Non-regulated • Low economy • Civil war Once, Syria was an attractive tourism destination with rich and diverse cultural heritage. There was a time when the tourism sector employed 20% of the Syrian population. This country was once economically, socially and environmentally stable but the war crises made it sink dreadfully. Before the 2011 crisis In 2010, tourism had increased considerably compared with the previous year. According to the Tourism Ministry in January 2011, about 6 million foreign tourists visited Syria in 2009; for 2010 the figure was 8.5 million tourists, a 40-percent increase. Tourism revenue was given as 30.8 billion Syrian pounds ($8.4 billion) in 2010, 14 percent of the country's economy. Reports in 2012 from the same Syrian ministry put 2010 tourism industry revenue at $6.5 billion, accounting for 12 percent of the gross domestic product and 11 percent of the nation's employment. After 2011 Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in March 2011, tourism has declined steeply. According to official reports, hotel rooms designed for foreign tourists have been occupied by refugees. In the first quarter of 2012, tourism revenue was about 12.8 billion Syrian pounds ($178 million), compared with 52 billion Syrian pounds ($1 billion) in the first quarter of 2011, and the number of foreign tourists decreased by more than 76 percent in the 2012 quarter. Employment in the tourism industry was down by "nearly two-thirds" in that period. According to UNESCO, five of Syria's six World Heritage Sites have been affected by the civil war. As of 2013, overall Syrian tourism revenue had declined by 94 percent, with Aleppo the worst affected, and the Tourism Minister stated, at the end of September 2013, that 289 tourist destinations had been damaged by conflict since 2011. By 2015, the movement of tourists had declined by more than 98%. The Syrian Ministry of Tourism claimed that 45,000 tourists visited the country in the first half of 2015, but these figures were disputed by observers, according to the Syrian Economic Forum, which stated that Iranian religious tourism was all that remained. Sustainable Mass Tourism Unsustainable Mass Tourism Hut Bay Islands- Andaman and Nicobar Damascus- Syria SMT = Sustainable Mass Tourism UMT = Unsustainable Mass Tourism REFERENCES "Conservation And Sustainable Development Of Island Ecosystems: Challenges In Indian Context - Academike". Academike. N.p., 2017. Web. 21 Apr. 2017. "Tourism In Syria". En.wikipedia.org. N.p., 2017. Web. 21 Apr. 2017. "Andaman And Nicobar Islands (India)". Islands.unep.ch. N.p., 2017. Web. 21 Apr. 2017.