LITERATURE REVIEW: Case Study (Billund Airport) would low-cost travellers be willing to pay an extra amount in order to compensate their emissions (carbon offsetting)?

1.- Low Cost Revolution:

Many authors have been studying tourism contribution in climate change since the “low-cost revolution”.

The development of low cost aviation has radically changed Europe travel patterns. Moreover, low-cost aviation not only moves millions of people and Euros around but it also affects social life, patterns of mobility and the environment. (ELFAA 2008).

Airlines, governments, NGOs, scientist, consultants and aviation organisations involved on the discussion of climate change try to provide estimates of the impact of aviation on the climate.

2.-  Low-cost aviation faces

Gössling shows different low-cost aviation faces depending on one´s view point (Passengers, destination, aviation industry and environment). Except for the environmental, Gössling position is positive; however, this paper shows that there is an environmental harm in each of the faces:

- To passengers: In 2000 European low-cost carriers had around 20 million passengers; seven years later, in 2007 there were around 150 million passengers. Those are good numbers for the airlines, however, European passengers represent a substantial contribution to greenhouse gas emission (ELFAA 2008; Low-cost monitor 2007),

Eyers states that for a medium aviation growth scenario, the share of CO2 emissions in 2025 will be between 1,7 per cent and 3.5 per cent.  To understand these forecast percentages, emissions from 2002 will be used: Civil aviation contributed 1.8 per cent of all CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels in 2002 (Eyers et all, 2004).

- To destinations: Many destination regions have seen the growth in incoming tourists, in some cases radical growth. Moreover, low-cost carriers have opened up routes to airports and regions that earlier had few, if any, international connections. There are numerous new connections that rapidly increase numbers of people travelling; this transforms most airport regions into tourism destinations. This vacation travel, usually leads to a growing market for second homes in the sun. (Gössling 2009).

However, many other authors point out the negative consequences of this new tourism.

- To the aviation industry: Gössling believes that most aviation analysts would probably not hesitate to call low-cost aviation a great success story.

Inseparable from this expansion are the continued high levels of growth in CO2 emissions from the industry (De la Fuente Layos, 2007) The CO2 Emissions from Domestic flights in Europe have increased at an average of 2,5 per cent per year since 1990. (Penner et al 1999)

- To the environment, the development of low-cost aviation is nothing less than disastrous. Aviation is the fastest growing and most problematic mode of transport, causing ever growing amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. (Gössling 2009)

Aviation in particular, is increasingly seen as a threat to climate stabilization goals (Bows and Andersen, 2009), and aviation, will in the UE be included in the Emission Trading Scheme from 2012 onwards.

So far, there is little evidence of any slowdown in the growth of global aviation. Expectations are also high: Boeing counts on a 5 percent average annual growth rate in passengers until 2026, which in total would mean a 271 percent increase from 2026 figures (Boeing 2007)

3.- Low- cost carriers responds:

Obviously, low-cost carriers are aware of the worldwide debate and have responses for all of the climate change “accusations”

Low- cost carriers argue that low cost aviation is in fact more environmentally friendly (or less harmful) than other forms of aviation. Most importantly, they emphasize the relatively higher efficiency of low-cost carriers. They have higher average load factors than traditional airlines, which makes emission levels lower per passenger kilometre.

Further, the use of secondary airports will decrease the impacts of ground congestion and noise compared to the situation of major airports (EELFAA 2004).

Each of these arguments is true as such, although the latter does not concern climate change. However, they do not take the most important point into consideration, namely low-cost aviation impact on the total increase of aviation and thereby on the emission of greenhouse gases. (Gössling 2009)

4-. Possible solutions and research question:

There is an important statement that needs to be highlighted, which is the fact that the direct and indirect  consequences of low-cost aviation resulting from increased traffic levels, eliminate all mitigation from improved technical and logistic efficiencies. (Gössling 2009) That is to say, if low-cost airlines continue having this high number of travellers, technical improvements will not be enough to fight against global warming.

Would this mean that the solution is in a per capita carbon budget? UNWTO suggests that only emissions that cannot be avoided should be offset. (UNWTO- UNEP-WMO, 2008)

Would tourists agree to pa more for their plane tickets? According to Gillen, increase in airfares would probably result in decrease in demand, especially among leisure travellers (Gillen at al, 2005)

Little research has been undertaken to investigate whether tourists are aware of their air travel impacts and whether they are willing to mitigate those impacts (Becken 2004)

After researching evolution of low-cost carriers, environmental impacts and solutions given by the airlines, the objective of this paper is to seek travellers’ opinions and their will to mitigate this problem. That is why the Research Question of this paper, which will be answered by a case study based on Billund airport, is:

As low-cost aviation compels more people to travel and the increase in the number of passengers causes more CO2 emissions, would travellers be willing to pay an extra amount in order to compensate their emissions (carbon offsetting)?

References:

- Becken, S. (2004) How tourists and tourists experts perceive climate change and forest carbon sinks. Journal of Sustainable tourism 12 (4), 332- 345

- Boeing (2007) Current Market Outlook, report available at www.boeing.com

- Bows A. & Anderson, K (2009) “Aviation in a Low Carbon EU. In S. Gössling & P. Upham (Eds.), Climate change and aviation (pp. 89-109). London: Earthscan

- De La Fuente Layos, L (2007) Air Transport in Europe in 2005: Statistics in Focus, European Communities:EU

- ELFAA, European Low Fares Airlines Association 2004 Liberalisation of European Air Transport: The benefits of Low Fares Airlines to Consumers, Airports, Regions and the Environment, report available at www. Elffa.com

- ELFAA 2008 Asociation Information Web Site, available at www.elfaa.com, accesed on … / Low Cost monitoring 2007 “Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfart Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Verkehrsflughäfen, Issue 2/2007, available at www.adv.aereo,

- Eyers, C.J., Norman, P., Middel, J.,Plohr, M., Michot, S., Atkinson, K. and Christou, R.A. (2004) AERO2K Global Aviation Emissions Inventories for 2002 and 2025, Farnborough, UK: QuinetiQ Ltd

- Gillen, D.,Morrison, W. and Stewart, C (2005) Air Travel Demand Elasticities: Concepts, issues and measurements. Final Report. Department of Finance, Canada http:// www.fin.gc.ca. Accesed….

- Gössling, S. and Upham, P. (2009) “Climate change and aviation. Issues, challenges and solutions” …

- Penner, J., Lister D., Griggs, D., Dokken, D. and Mc Farland, M. (eds) (1999) Aviation and the Global Atmosphere. In A Special Report of IPCC Working Groups I and III. Published for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

- UNWTO (2007). Compendium of tourism statstics. Madrid: World Tourism Organisation. United nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), World Meteorological Organization (WMO). (2008) Climate change and Tourism: Responding to global challenges. Madrid: United Nations World Tourism Organisation

The  model of sustainable tourism and tourism industry

Does  tourism industry correspond to the model?

The World Tourism Organization considers sustainable tourism as ‘Tourism which meets the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future’ (McIntyre et al., 1993, p. 7). The date when this definition was published shows that sustainable tourism became important in the 1990s.

Sustainable development as such became increasingly important in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This tendency is mirrored by international events such as the 1992 Rio de Janeiro United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED Earth Summit) and the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) Report “Our Common Future” in 1987 (Murphy and Price, 2005, pp. 167-169; WCED, 1987). The Brundtland Commission defined sustainable development as “…development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED, 1987, p. 43).

The Model

The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UN WTO) has developed a widely accepted model which comprises the following elements:

Economic sustainability

Social sustainability

Environmental sustainability (consisting of natural, cultural and social aspects)

and three additional aspects:

The maintenance of a high level of tourist satisfaction

The promotion of tourists’ environmental responsibility and awareness

The political environment (a requirement of participation and consesus building as a continuous process) (UN WTO, 2008).

Industry

For the needs of the research question shown above, two relatively large hotel chains are presented :

Accor and Scandic.

Accor has hotels in 100 countries worldwide with approximately 150,000 employees. There are 17 different brands serving various market segments, from budget to luxury (Accor, 2007). Their approach to sustainable tourism is as follows: ‘Accor’s commitment to the principles of sustainable development and to the future of tomorrow’s generations is an integral part of its development plan. From hotel design through construction and into the operations phase, Accor takes every necessary step to protect the environment and respect its host communities’ (Accor, 2007). Accor Hotels have an extensive range of sustainability indicators, which are published in their annual report. They are part of Accor’s sustainability program ‘Earth Guest’.

The Scandic hotel chain consists of 151 hotels with more than 28.000 room and is present in 10 countries. The first hotel was established in Sweden in 1963. The hotels are located in Europe but more than 80 % are located in Scandinavia (Scandic, 2009). In 1996 ‘Scandic established ‘’The Sustainable Live Report’ which represent a statistical tool that is live updated. It is founded in the principles made on the issue that we need to know where we are today in order to perform better tomorrow (Scandic, 2009).

McIntyre, G., Hetherington, A. and Inskeep, E. (1993) Sustainable Tourism Development: Guide for Local Planners, World Tourism Organization, Madrid

Scandic (2009a) Facts and Figures: Scandic in Numbers [WWW Document]

http://www.scandichotels.com/About-Us/Corporate-information/Facts–figures. (accessed 09.02.09)

Scandic (2009b) Scandic Sustainability Live Report [WWW Document]

http://www.scandic-campaign.com/livereport/?lang=en. (accessed 09.02.09)

UN WTO (2008) Climate Change and Tourism: Responding to Global Challenges [WWW Document] http://www.world-tourism.org/sustainable/doc/climate2008.pdf. (accessed 09.02.09)

Accor Hotels (2007) The Spirit of Smiles: 2007 Annual Report [WWW Document]

http://www.accor.com/gb/upload/pdf/ACCOR_RA_GB_2007.pdf (accessed 10 February 2009)

Tourism is the world’s largest and fastest growing industry which underwent development during the last decades. One of the most visible changes is the improvement of the aviation industry (May, 2002). The number of international tourist arrivals increased from 25 million to 664 million between 1950 and 1999, corresponding to an average annual growth rate of 7% (WTO, 2000). International tourism is closely linked to the expansion of air travel and experienced an increase over the same period (May, 2002). Furthermore, there is a growing tendency among airlines to establish global alliances with partners including hotel groups, car rental companies and other services and the passengers are encouraged to join frequent flyer programmes with rewards according to the distance they travelled (Hanlon, 1999).

Despite this development, the aviation industry faces challenges. The most recent concern over aviation travel relates to the effect on the global climate (Durmaz, 2007). The aviation industry is growing and this inevitably will lead to an increase in emissions of carbon dioxide, the main green house gas.

My paper will discuss the sustainability dilemma of the aviation industry by using the example of Scandinavian Airlines. Therefore, my research question is: How does the aviation industry implement sustainable development? The case of Scandinavian Airlines.

References:

• Durmaz, V. (2007) Sustainable Development and Air Transportation. Paper presented at the 34th annual NBEA (Northeast Business & Economics Association) conference, November 2007, Central Connecticut State University Connecticut.
• Freestone, R. (2009) Planning, Sustainability and Airport-Led Urban Development, International Planning Studies, 14, 2, 161-176.
• Hanlon, P. (1999) Global Airlines: Competition in a Transnational Industry, 2^nd edn. Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.
• Lynes, J. K. and Dredge, D. (2006) Going Green: Motivations for Environmental Commitment in the Airline Industry. A Case Study of Scandinavian Airlines, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 14, 2, 116-138.
• May, M. (2002) The Growth of Tourism and Air Travel in Relation to Ecological Sustainability, International Journal of Tourism Research, 4, 145-150.
• Sommerville, H. (2004) Travel, tourism and the environmental challenges, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 5, 1, 65-71.
• WTO, 2000, Tourism Highlights 2000, 2^nd edn. World Tourism Organization: Madrid.
• http://www.sasgroup.net/SASGroup/default.asp (accessed 30 September 2010)

‘However one defines, describes or analyses tourism, it is the tourist that remains at the heart of the matter’ (Burns (2000: 41)) yet the consumer is often an overlooked factor when it comes to the debate on sustainable (tourism) development (Stanford, 2008) although in recent years more has been given to this subject (R. Dodds et al., 2010; Dolnicar et al., 2008).

Why is this the case? Some research suggests that tourists are not aware of the impacts of their decisions and actions, while it is also suggested that consumers are not ready to make individual sacrifices in an attempt to support sustainable (tourism) development as they do not perceive this as making any difference, and that they are not ready to sacrifice any part of their holidays specifically either (Becken, 2007; Miller et al., 2010; Sustainable Consumption Roundtable, 2006).

Furthermore, it also seems there is a gap between consumers’ intentions and their actions respectively, making it difficult to investigate this field as it is not enough to want to do something if actions do not follow thought (Stanford, 2008).

My paper seeks to enhance the understanding of the (ethical) consumers’ role in driving sustainable tourism development, therefore my research questions is: How can ethical consumerism drive sustainable tourism development?

References:

- Becken, S., 2007, Tourists’ Perception of International Air Travel’s Impact on the Global Climate and Potential Climate Change Policies, Journal of sustainable tourism, vol 15, issue 4

- Burns, P.M. (2000) An Introduction to Tourism and Anthropology. London: Routledge

- Dodds et al., 2010, Does the tourist care? A comparison of tourists in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand and Gili Trawangan, Indonesia, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 18, No. 2, March 2010, 207–222,

- Dolnicar et al., 2008, Environment-friendly Tourists: What Do We Really Know About Them?, JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM, Vol. 16, No. 2

- Miller, G. (2003) Consumerism in sustainable tourism: A survey of UK consumers. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 11 (1), 17–39.

- Miller et al, 2010, Public understanding of sustainable tourism, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 627–645

- Stanford, D. (2008), ”Exceptional Visitors’: Dimensions of Tourist Responsibility in the Context of New Zealand’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 16: 3, 258 — 275

- Sustainable Consumption Roundtable, 2006, “I will if you will – Towards sustainable consumption”

It has been argued that tourism can be of very great importance for a society, especially for small islands situated in rural outskirts of a country like e.g. it is the case with Fanø. Some of the impacts tourism brings to these kinds of area are new ways for stakeholders to network, expansion of the number of workplaces and of course it will also generate money from the increased number of both domestic and foreign visitors (Wilkinson, 1989; Twining-Ward, L. and Butler, R., 2002). Since the first time an author mentioned sustainable tourism development (STD) decades ago, it has been followed with great interest by a lot of tourism people and by some it even has been seen as one of the most radical changes in tourism history because of its importance to whole cities or even countries (Butler, 1999).

This year, Fanø is to be named a UNESCO world heritage site by letting them be a part of the Wadden Sea national park and it thereby manage to be the fourth heritage site in Denmark besides the Jelling Mounds, Roskilde Cathedral and Kronborg Castle (http://whc.unesco.org/en/list). One of the obligations that come with the proclaiming of Fanø as a heritage site is for the island to think more about their way of implementing STD and how they intend to maintain a sufficient level of sustainability when more people begin to visit the island because of the new label of “world heritage site”. This situation can be difficult to deal with and it is a necessity that everybody in the local society is set to get the most out of the new situation and that they know how to deal with the limited resources such as land and manpower (Farrell, 1986).

In this assignment, I will focus on small areas that are depending on tourists and how they can implement STD and make sure that they subsequently maintain a level that is sufficient both for the local inhabitants as well as the tourists.

My RQ: How can Fanø implement and maintain sustainable tourism development?

References:

• Butler, R. W. (1999) Sustainable tourism – a state of the art review. Tourism Geographies (1), 7-25.
• Farrell, B. H. (1986) Cooperative tourism in the coastal zone. Coastal Zone Management Journal, 14 (1/2), 113-29
• Miller, G. and Twining-Ward, L. (2005) Monitoring for a sustainable tourism transition. CABI Publishing
• Twining-Ward, L. and Butler, R. (2002) Implementing STD on a Small Island: Development and Use of Sustainable Tourism Development Indicators in Samoa. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 10: 5, 363-387
• Wilkinson, P. F. (1989) Strategies for tourism in island microstates. Annals of Tourism Research 16 (2), 153-77

International tour operators are powerfull intermediaries in the tourism industry. Tour operators are increasingly promoting their own brand image rather than the image of the destination. The images that they give to destinations is based on their own interpretation of the needs and aspirations of the customer group in the home market. (Klemm & Parkinson, 2001).

As stated by Tourism Concern, the tourism industry is dominated by multinational corporations from developed countries, and with much of the profits flowing back to the developed world, the benefits of tourism are not going to the poorer communities that provide the cultural and environmental resources.

Furthermore, the tourism industry embraces a wide range of  sectors and services mostly pursuing their own personal interests and agendas.

In the context of sustainable tourism, it would be interesting to investigate the effects of Tour Operators upon tourism destinations, and analyse the impacts of tour operators on the image and quality of tourist destinations.

Therefore, the research question I pose is:

What effect do Tour Operators  have upon the sustainability of tourism destinations and what are the tour operators’ impact on the image and quality of tourist destinations?

References:

Klemm, Mary & Parkinson, Lynn (2001), UK Tour Operator Strategies: Causes and Consequences, International Journal of  Tourism Research, 3, 367-375

Bastakis, Constantinos; Dimitrios, Buhalis, and Butler Richard (2003), The Perception of small médium sized tourism accommodation providers on the impacts of the tour operators’ power in Eastern Mediterranean, Tourism Management, 25, 151-170

Miller, G. & Twining-Ward, L. (2005), Monitoring for a Sustainable Tourism Transistion: The Challenge of developing and using indicators, CABI publishing

Tourism Concern, Why Fair Trade?, http://www.tourismconcern.org.uk/index.php?page=fairtrade-network (30.09.2010)

„Man’s heart away from nature becomes hard“, said the very famous native American, Luther Standing Bear. Humans are connected to nature by an invisible string and that is also the reason why national parks are objects of travel interest of people and receive large number of tourists every year.

Protected natural areas are homes to endangered species and they are resources of vital human necessities as oxygen or water. Hence, we must protect such areas and some governments try to do so by labeling natural sites as national parks. Every country has its own legislation on protection of national parks and in case of European Union there is also larger framework valid for all state members to follow.

North Sea coast with Wadden Sea area belonging to Germany and Netherland has been proclaimed a world heritage by UNESCO in June 2009 due to its exceptional ecosystem and esthetical beauty. Wadden Sea area is also one of the largest wetlands worldwide and is a result of interaction between nature and humans (UNESCO, 2009). Fanø Island is becoming part of Wadden Sea national park in October 2010 (www.visitfanoe.dk, 2009).

The discussion with Jacob K. Bay, representative of Fanø Kommune, brought up some concerns behind this step which still seem to be unanswered. Topics such as management of access to natural areas, possible rise in interest resulting in increase of people presence in isolated areas versus interest of local people need to be still investigated.

Hadwen et al. (2007) state that visitation to protected natural areas such as national park is increasing significantly in the world. Environmentalist and different activists, therefore, fear overuse of natural areas by tourists which could lead to destroying fragile environments. As Hadwen et al. (2007) continue, it is therefore important to monitor visitors and manage their accessibility to natural resources in order to maintain sustainability of the area.

There are many questions that cannot be answered at this moment due to only the experience of near future will show true results. However, for the sake of preservation and sustainability of the area, we should ask the question: How can transformation into national park contribute to Sustainable Tourism Development of the area – case study of Fanoe.

I would like to analyze the present situation on the island taking deeper insight on environmental issues such as:

-       protection of species

-       use of vehicles and other means of transport

-       CO2 emission situation

-       waste management

Furthermore, I will focus on EU legislation dealing with protected areas and obligations which will be exercised upon Fanø community in near future due to conversion into national park and at the end I will present my conclusions from the research about future challenges that lay in front of local community.

As Phillips (2003) points out, the possible tool for innovation and sustainability in protected areas is a partnership, I would like to interview people in charge of National Park Management implementation to be able to consider the actions already taken in relation of becoming protected area as well as future plans for innovation in the locality so the sustainable development could be maintained.

Bibliography:

Hadwen et al. (2007). “Icons under threat: Why monitoring visitors and their ecological impacts in protected areas matters.” Ecological Management and Restoration, 8.

Hinrichsen, D. (1997). Coastal Waters of the World: Trends, Threats & Strategies. Island Press, Washington, D.C.

Kraus, (2005)

Moscardo, G. (2007). “Sustainable Tourism Innovation: Challenging basic assumptions”. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 8.

Phillips, A. (2003). Turning ideas on their head: The new paradigm for protected areas. George Wright Forum.

UNESCO (2009). Wadden Sea, Italy’s Dolomites and Philippines’s Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/1783/, (accessed 29 September 2010).

Schummacher and Gossling (2009).”Implementing carbon neutral destination policies: Issues from the Seychelles.” Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

Visit Denmark (n.a.). http://www.visitdenmark.dk/danmark/dadk/menu/turist/danmark.htm

SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) diving increasingly gains popularity as a tourist activity, particularly in countries with coral reef. As what I have seen in my own country, Malaysia, being a destination blessed with abundant and rich coral reefs as well as myriad marine biodiversity, numerous coastal sites continually being converted into dive sites to cater the demands of both local and foreign divers. Nevertheless, little concern was placed on the issue of over-use, which may then lead to physical damage of natural marine resources, for instance anthropogenic disturbance to coral assemblages and reef deterioration.

As I shift my focus onto the effect of scuba diving on coral reef health and disturbance rendered to coral community, I start searching for the materials on related topic. In the process of gathering information, I use journals, peer-reviewed literatures, articles, research papers, and newspapers reports. The references I consulted each contributed to a different aspect of the theme. Four of the articles examined level of coral damage corresponding to diving activity. For instance, in “Sustainability of Scuba Diving Tourism on Coral Reefs of Saba”, Hawkins & Roberts (2003) concluded their observation from 1993 to 2002 that there was significantly more broken coral and fragments of live coral in high-use diving areas than low-use. Similar findings by Jamie and Timothy (2001) in “Impacts of recreational scuba diving on coral communities of the Caribbean island of Grand Cayman” stated that diver numbers increased the amount of dead coral and coral rubble, while showing highly significant effects on hard coral cover. Another article, “Effects of Recreational Scuba Diving on Caribbean Coral and Fish Communities” drew out the correlation between level of diving and decline of massive coral species, mainly due to the increase of branching corals at its expense. It also explained that diving caused abrasion to coral tissue, putting the coral at the risk of more susceptible to disease. Also, in “Effects of Recreational Scuba Diving on Coral Reefs: Trampling on Reef-Flat Communities”, Hawkins & Roberts (1993) revealed that trampling by scuba divers impacts on the size of coral colonies in term of average height and diameter.

Another set of sources concentrated on the form of coral damages rendered by scuba divers. It is important to find out on how the damages take form in order to derive preventive measure and solution to current situation. According to Rouphael & Inglis (1995), divers can injure corals and other sessile benthic organisms through direct physical contact with their hands, body, equipment and fins. A single fin kick will crush or break the tips of branching corals (Harriott et al., 1997; Rouphael & Inglis, 1995, 1997; Talge, 1990) or abrade massive corals (Hawkins & Roberts, 1992, 1993; Zakai & Chadwick-Furman, 2002). There is an evidence from a study in the article “Managing the Impacts of Scuba Divers on Thailand’s Coral Reefs” showing that ninety-three percent of divers made contact with substratum during a 10-minute observation period with an average of 97 contacts per hour of diving. Two-thirds of the divers caused some coral damage by breaking fragments from fragile coral forms with an average of 19 breakages per hour of diving (Worachananant et al., 2008). One article, “Scuba Diving and Coral (SCUBA Case)” suggested that poor diver etiquette, including inexperience at controlling buoyancy, improperly secured gear, photography flashes, and blasts from fin kicks, is the main cause of diver induced damage to coral reefs. To illustrate, novice in diving might grab at kelp in order to control themselves in current. This results in masses of life being torn away from the bottom. Still, some other damages may be from diving-associated activities, such as anchoring, rather than solely from diver-induced damage (Jameson et al., 1999).

The last group of resources suggested different methods and alternative to tourism in order to preserve the coral reefs and coral assemblages being affected. Abundant of papers discussing about Carrying Capacity Approach which deals with determining maximum number of people who can use a destination without an unacceptable alteration to the physical environment, an unacceptable decline in the living environment of the community and an unacceptable decline in the visitor experience (Mathieson and Wall, 1982). Another widely discussed approach is Limits of Acceptable Change, while Anthony and Mahmoud (2007) presented an alternative framework to foresaid approaches, namely Percentile Approach. This approach compared the abundance of coral injuries at dive and reference site, in which case if coral injuries taken at a dive site equals or exceeds the 80th percentile of coral injuries estimated from reference sites, coral health is considered at alarming state. Another alternative, it was suggested the use of artificial reefs to act as tourism resources and management tools to redistribute scuba diver numbers away from natural reefs. Furthermore, mooring buoy system is developed to reduce anchor damage on coral reef caused by diving vessel.

As I read through all these resources, I start pondering over the effort done by service provider and diving site operator to conserve the diving resources. They are all in their ways contributing to the defense of coral reefs and coral assemblages from damage as a consequence of over-diving. But what more can be done, particularly by the individual diver, to help in maintaining the health of coral and coral reef while they are enjoying their diving? I see a need to manage diver behaviour closely, and this inclined me to choose my research question concerning the diver’s attitude and behavior in doing their bit to help sustain the natural marine resources. My question asks “How to inspire and influence SCUBA diver to dive sustain-ably?” Research on scuba diver’s behavior is very limited in number. While I managed to find a handful of resources regarding this topic, most are devoted to explore on “what are the diver’s behavior”, whereas I personally think that our main concern now should be on “how to change diver’s behavior”. So, the purpose of my research is to find out the measure on how to inculcate diver with a sense of sustainability and responsibility for the marine resources, by developing some encouragements to elicit the self-initiative of diver to care for the marine life.

References

Hawkins, J.P. et tal. (2005), ‘Sustainability of Scuba Diving Tourism on Coral Reefs of Saba’, Coastal Management, 33, 373-387.

Barker, N.H.L. and Roberts, C.M. (2004) ‘Scuba Diver Behaviour and the Management of Diving Impacts on Coral Reefs’, Biological Conservation, 120, 4, 481-489.

Jameson, S.C. et al. (2007) ‘A Quantitative Ecological Assessment of Diving Sites in the Egyptian Red Sea During a Period of Severe Anchor Damage: A Baseline for Restoration and Sustainable Tourism Management’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 15, 3, 309-323.

Shivlani, M. (2007) ‘A Literature Review of Sources and Effects of Non-extractive Stressors to Coral Reef Ecosystems’, Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative Fishing, Diving and Other Uses Focus Team Local Action Strategy Project 19 Phase I Report.

Rouphael, A.B. and Hanafy, M. (2007) ‘An Alternative Management Framework to Limit the Impact of SCUBA Divers on Coral Assemblages’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 15, 1, 91-103.

Griffiths, D.,   ‘Anthropogenic physical damage to coral reefs in Tobago’, Marine Ecology Progress Series.

Stolk, P. et al. (2007) ‘Artificial Reefs as Recreational Scuba Diving Resources: A Critical Review of Research’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 15, 4, 331-350.

Worachananant, S. et tal. (2008) ‘Managing the Impacts of SCUBA Divers on Thailand’s Coral Reefs’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 16, 6, 645-663.

Musa, G. (2002) ‘Sipadan: a SCUBA-diving paradise: an analysis of tourism impact, diver satisfaction and tourism management’, Tourism Geographies, 4, 2, 195-209.

Thapa, B. et tal. (2006) ‘Specialization and Marine Based Environmental Behaviors among SCUBA Divers’, Journal of Leisure Research, 38, 4, 601-615.

Rouphael, A.B.  and Inglis, G.J. (1997), ‘Impacts of recreational SCUBA diving at sites with different reef topographies’, Biological Conservation, 82, 3, 329-336. 

Medio, D. et tal. (1997) ‘Effect of briefings on rates of damage to corals by scuba divers’, Biological Conservation, 79, 1, 91-95.

Anonymous. Scuba Diving and Coral (SCUBA Case). [WWW Document].

http://www1.american.edu/ted/SCUBA.HTM (accessed 25 September 2010)

Tivoli – Copenhagen

Tivoli is Denmark’s most visited attraction and the third most visited amusement park in Europe. More than 18,000 people own shares in Tivoli.

Tivoli has its own CSR policy, which describes their values, which are the base of their daily operation.
The CSR policy is devided into three main areas: guests,employees and external environment.http://www.tivoli.dk/media(7999,1030)/CSR_rapport_2009.pdf (unfortunately the CSR report is only in Danish)

Tivoli’s vision is to become the worlds first carbon neutral amusementpark. Together with DONG energy they have built a windmill which produces all the engergy used to run the amusenment park. Their goal is to reduce the energy use with 10 % before 2012.http://www.dongenergy.dk/erhverv/Kunderne_fortaeller/partnerskaber/handelogservice/Pages/tivoli.aspx

The group chose this example, because it is a good example on how an old tourist attraction can be innovative and sustainable and yet still be true to the soul of the amusement park. Furthermore, the group thought it would be interesting to show an example from on of the most popular Danish toursist destination

Finally the group conclude that Tivoli is a first mover regarding CSR within the Danish tourism industry.

My research question is: What role does CSR have on facilitating a tourist attraction sustainable – the case of Tivoli

The country Slovenia is made up mainly of small- and medium- sized companies in the tourism branch (Uran et al., 2006). Furthermore Slovenia is seeking to be a sustainable ecotourism destination in the future (Uran e tal., 2006). As large scale tourism can also mean sustainable eco-tourism (if it combines both main approaches, mainly economies of scale and sensitive development, in a sustainable way). Slovenian future could be pictured like that. Advantages of large scale tourism definetly are economies of scale and scope (TIES, 2006). But empirically sustainable eco-tourism more likely relate to small scalle tourism (TIES, 2006), compatibly Slovenia and its small- to medium-sized companies consitute in the moment of development right now more a small-scale basis than a large scale basis. As it is unlikely to gain optimal profits trough economies of scale and scope within a range of many small- to medium sized companies in Slovenia, there are other convincing approaches that create a surplus; »a study carried out in Costa Rica found that the positive economic impact of nature and culture tourism on a small community, spread across a number of individuals in the community, and circulating in the local economy – the so-called »economic multiplier effect« (Cosslett, 2008), this implies that »small-scale community tourism should involve limited tourist numbers, already available for local use (Carter, 1994).

Development should also be sensitive. In order to realize this, efficient use of resources for tourism development is necessary. Small scale sustainable tourism development in Slovenia will be the main research question. I will explore the overall problems connected in the references regarding a small scale tourism development.

REFERENCES:

Budowski, G., 1977. Tourism and conservation – conflict, coexistence or symbiosis? In H.C. de Haas. Global Ecotourism Policies and Case Studies. Sustainability of Small-Scale Ecotourism: The case of Niue, South Pacific. Channel View Publications.

Carter, E., 1994. Introduction. In H.C. de Haas. Global Ecotourism Policies and Case Studies. Sustainability of Small-Scale Ecotourism: The case of Niue, South Pacific. Channel View Publications.

Chalker, L., 1994. Ecotourism – On the trail of destruction or sustainabilty? A ministers view. In H.C. de Haas. Global Ecotourism Policies and Case Studies. Sustainability of Small-Scale Ecotourism: The case of Niue, South Pacific. Channel View Publications.

by urska

“Culture is ordinary: that is the first fact. Every human society has its own shape, its own purposes, its own meanings. Every society expresses these, in institutions, and in arts and learning”(Williams, 1958)

Urry (1990), explains how culture has always been a major object of travel, however in the 20th century, culture has ceased to be the objective of tourism: tourism is culture.

In 2010, we can surely say that every destination in the world has a certain cultural event – from the smallest community in Africa celebrating their holiday with a traditional dance, to an enormous rock concert in Rio De Janeiro.

One of the most common types of cultural events are festivals. Allen (2005) describes them as an important expression of human activity that contribute much to our social and cultural life.

If we look from the economic point of view, they are also increasingly linked with tourism to generate business activity and income for their host communities. However, Sharpley and Tefler (2002) emphasize that all festivals, meetings and events (FME) have a responsibility to share with residents, governments and all people, and the obligation to protect and maintain the natural, built and heritage resources and the continuity of culture and the balances within culture.

For developing destinations, FMEs could contribute to a faster “break through” and, as per Allen (2005) an opportunity to assist in creating, changing or reinforcing the “brand”. A brand that would rely on heritage and originality, that has a unique and engaging story and a brand that would bring something new and different, but at the same time authentic to the market. Today, authentic is what consumers really want (Pine, Gilmore (2007).

T. K. Britta (2010) explains that such craving for authenticity is a reaction to a strong technologically meditated, commercialized and socially constructed reality. There is an increase in the number of consumers that are trying to escape from the big “concrete” cities and have a different experience outside of big centers. To follow this “trend”, small destination that aim to create a cultural touristic image, need to maintain their sustainable development.

In the Report on the International Conference on cultural tourism (2000), importance of sustainable tourism is measured as a key element in ensuring the sustainability of cultural heritage and hence preservation. In return, sustainable and well preserved heritage sites and objects can provide endless source of raw materials for tourism to return to its origins and become sustainable in the long term.

Another benefit mentioned in this report of course – economy development. Both non profit and for-profit events have grown sustainably to become a major area of investment, and the economic, social and environmental impacts of events are growing all the time. The industry is dynamic and exciting and offers tremendous opportunities both to those destinations that host events and to those who choose to work in this area. Additionally, number of jobs that are coming under the events banner follows this theory. However, in order to be profitable, the FME need to be successful.

Liburd (2010) states success requires active and concentrated efforts of the stakeholders to maximize the economic contribution of FMEs, whilst at the same time abiding by the principles of sustainability.

Research question:

How is sustainable development beneficial for small destinations through cultural events and festivals ?

Bibliography:

• Pickard, Robinson (2006) Festivals, tourism and social change, Channel View Publications
• G. Richards (2001), Cultural attractions and European tourism, CABI Publishing
• WTO Conference Proceedings (2000), Cultural heritage and tourism development – A report on the International Conference on cultural tourism, pg 83.-89
• T. Braun, M. Deery, C. Hanlon, L. Lockstone, K. Smith (2009) People & Work in Events & Conventions – A research perspective, CABI Publishing
• B.T. Knudsen, A.M. Waade (2010), Re-Investing Authenticity, Tourism, place and emotions; Channel View Publications
• M. Johansson (2008), Engaging Resources for Cultural Events a performative view, Stockholm School of Economics
• M. K. Smith, 2003, Issues in cultural tourism studies, Routledge
• Liburd, J. and Edwards, D (2010). Understanding the Sustainable Development of Tourism. Goodfellow Publishers Ltd. pg 163-187
• J. Urry (1990), The tourist gaze: leisure and travel in contemporary societies, Sage Publishing
• ▪ J.J. Goldblatt (2005), Special events – event leadership for a new world, John Wiley & sons
• D. Getz (1997), Event management & event tourism, Cognizant Communication Corp.
• I. Yeoman, M. Robinson, J. Ali-Knight, S. Drummond, U. McMahon-Beattie (2004) Festivals and Event management – An international arts and culture perspective, Elsevier
• J. Allen, W. O’Toole, R. Harris, I. McDonnell (1999:2002), Festival and Special Event Management, John Wiley & sons
• R. Sharpley, J. Tefler (2002), Tourism and Development – Concepts and Issues, Channel View Publications

There is a whole lot of academic work on sustainable tourism and sex tourism however; there is a little research when the two concepts are put together. This paper attempts to do just that.  Butler (1993: 29) defines sustainable Tourism as tourism which is developed and maintained in such a manner and at such a scale that it remains viable over an indefinite period and does not degrade or alter the environment (human and physical) in which it exists to such a degree that it prohibits the successful development and well-being of other activities and processes. All these definitions of STD talks about what is called the three pillars, or ‘triple bottom line’ of sustainable development, which is economic, environmental and social sustainability, (Tourism Concern, 1992, UNWTO (2004a) However, many studies have been conducted about the rights and wrongs of different interpretations of the concept of ‘sustainable development’, and nearly every definition of every author has been criticized by others (Smit 2009). The expression itself seems to be embedded with vagueness and uncertainty, for it components can be regarded as a contradiction in terms; the first word suggesting that it is about something static, the latter implying that it is about something dynamic. In the study of socio-political sciences, development is often defined as ‘a process whereby a community, region or nation improves its economic position by increasing the quantity and quality of goods and services at its disposal’ (Ricardo, 2004). Central to this statement is the focus on economic improvement, which appears to be present in most definitions. In fact, as Mowforth and Munt (2002) observe, it is ‘the paradigm that has dominated and remained virtually unchallenged in the age of development.’ Some sociologists argue that this predominantly stems from the ‘western’ civilization’s view on progress, traditionally based on the assumption that economic prosperity is the most important parameter for quality of life, or, as Rivero (2001:111 cited in Mowforth & Munt (2003)) argues, an ‘ideology of happiness based on material progress’.  Mowforth n Munt ( 1998 p 105), goes on to argue that Sustainability in tourism, and probably in general to some extent, is not definable, except in terms of the context, control and position of those who are defining it. To this extent is it arguably safe to say that sustainable tourism has traditionally been given more focus to features connected to the environment and economic development than to the community involvement, social structures and the pure dignity and respect for a human being. The condition of economic and environmental sustainability is of course important. But referring to sustainability in terms of for example economic gain should be done without violating any other aspect of sustainability (Mowforth and Munt 1998 p 111).

After The infamous Rio Earth Summit, it is now realistically true that almost every single aspect of development activity is linked to sustainability and environmentally friendly schemes. As such are sustainable industrial and agricultural production, sustainable logging, fair-trade, CSR and sustainably managed wood plantations, hydro-power dams, golf courses and the lot (Pleumarom 1998).  This Scenario brings about the idea of sustaining the Sex Tourism industry at any destination in the world. Prostitution like Tourism which is arguably the oldest profession in the world is also a global activity and an economically viable business. It is also a considerable foreign exchange earner in countries which have experienced a sex tourism boom. For instance in The Netherlands, Sex Trade is taxed by the Government. But, the question is, is there a difference between Prostitution and Sex Tourism?  Many countries in the world has the image of been commercial sex destinations. However sex tourism exists everywhere, in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, Latin America, Asia, Africa, Australia or Oceania (Ashworth, White and Winchester 1988; Crush and Wellings 1983; Harrison 1994; Kleiber and Wilke 1995; Launer 1993; Naibavu and Schutz 1974; O’Connell Davidson 1996; Senftleben 1986; Symanski 1981 cited in Oppermann 1999). Sex Tourism in the modern world suggests the image of men, often older and in less than perfect shape, traveling to developing countries (in Asia, Africa, Latin America, or the Caribbean), for sexual pleasures generally not available, at least not for the same price, in their home country (O’Connell Davidson 1996). But in some destinations such as Bulgaria, Spain, Kenya, The Gambia, and several Caribbean and Mediterranean islands, female sex tourists are apparently more protruding than their male counterparts (Aparicio 1993; Beckmann and Elzer 1995; Brown 1992; Kleiber and Wilke 1995; Meisch 1995; Pruitt and LaFont 1995; Simmons 1998) when it comes to beach boys, locals or other tourist. Sex tourism is often summarized as to mainly engage in commercial sexual relations (Graburn 1983; Hall 1992; Harrison 1994; Meyer 1988; O’Malley 1988). Nonetheless, this is an unconcealed generalization and perhaps excludes many other cases and settings (Ryan 1998). And Kruhse-MountBurton (1995:192), argues the complex process by which individuals choose to seek sexual gratification, first within prostitution, and secondly as part of the tourist experience. On the other hand, segment can be developed in Sex Tourism that differentiates the one sex tourist from the other.  These segments are defined by Oppermann (1999, p.251) as money exchange, purpose of travel, length of time, relationship, sexual encounter, and who falls in this category of travel. When this segmentation occurs, it also distinguishes sex tourism from prostitution. At this point Sex tourist and as a matter of fact any other tourism type becomes anonymous.  The anonymity here is that it is a recognized fact that majority of tourists who use prostitutes to satisfy their sexual needs do not travel for that purpose alone. In a lot of cases, it is just a by-product or side attraction rather than the main and sole purpose. O’Connell Davidson (1996:40) termed these situational sex tourists. For instance, many business and conference tourists do make use of prostitutes on their trip while traveling away from home (Hanson 1997; Ryan and Kinder 1996). On the other hand, many tourists find sexual gratification as part of their travel and tours without seeking sex in a typical sex providers or prostitute settings. Harrison (1997) argues that all prostitution might be considered a subset of tourism. Others see the whole of tourism as a subset of prostitution (Graburn 1983). While prostitution and, at least, sex tourism are tightly interwoven, they are not the same. Hence the basic significant difference in sex tourism and prostitution is the monetary exchange solely associated with prostitution.

With regard to Butler’s definition of sustainable tourism, Sex Tourism has it pros and cons. But if it cons are not directly depleting the environment like other forms of tourism then they indirectly do. Even though it also can create jobs and income, boost foreign exchange, distribute benefits to rural areas, and generate funds for public purposes such as education, health care, preservation of culture and nature from Taxed sex tourism. How about the traditional social structures of destinations that frown upon sex before marriage, Sex with Multiple partners, Child Prostitution and Sexually Transmitted Diseases? In conclusion, this paper will find answers to the research question: Why is Sex tourism the most sustainable form of tourism development?

Reference

Ashworth, G., P. White, and H. Winchester 1988 The Red-light Districts in the West European City: A Neglected Aspect of the Urban Landscape. Geoforum 19:201212.

Brown, N. 1992 Beach Boys as Culture Brokers in Bakau Town, Gambia. Community Development Journal 27:361370.

Butler, R.W. (1993). Tourism-an evolutionary perspective. In J.G. Nelson, R.W. Butler, and G. Wall (Eds.) Tourism and Sustainable Development Monitoring, Planning, Managing (pp.27-43). Waterloo, Ontario: Department of Geography, University of Waterloo.

Graburn, N.H.H. 1983 Tourism and Prostitution. Annals of Tourism Research 10:437442.

Harrison, D. 1994 – Tourism and Prostitution: Sleeping with the Enemy? Tourism Management 15: 435443. Forthcoming Sex Tourism. In Encyclopedia of Tourism, J. Jafari, ed., London: Routledge.

Hobson, P., and V. Heung 1998 Business Travel and the Modern Chinese Concubine. In Sex Tourism and Prostitution, M. Oppermann, ed., pp. 132143. New York: CCC.

Mowforth, M. and Munt, I. (2006). Tourism and sustainability: new tourism in the Third World. London: Routledge.

Naibavu, T., and B. Shutz 1974 Prostitution: Problem or Profitable Industry? Pacific Perspective 3:5968.

O’Connell Davidson, J. 1996 – Sex Tourism in Cuba. Race & Class 38(1):3948.

Oppermann, M, 1999 – SEX TOURISM – Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 251266, 1999

Pleumarom 1998 – http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/prostitution.htm retrieved 27-09-2010

Pruitt, S., and S. LaFont 1995 For Love and Money: Romance Tourism in Jamaica. Annals of Tourism Research 22:422440.

Ricardo, G. (2004). Sustainable Tourism Development: A case study of Bazaruto Island in Inhambane, Mozambique. University of the Western Cape, Cape Town

Smit, D. (2009) – Between conflict and harmony; Pulau Weh, Aceh, Indonesia: A sustainable tourism development case study.NHTV Breda University of Applied Science, ITMC graduate work

Tourism Concern and WWF (1992), Beyond the Green Horizon: A Discussion Paper on Principles for Sustainable Tourism, (ed. Shirley Eber). London: WWF and Tourism Concern

UNWTO – United Nations World Tourism Organization (2004b). Sustainable Development of Tourism Conceptual Definition



Research on this topic revealed that attempts to create more sustainable forms of development must value the contribution of local knowledge. This view of development promotes the devolution of power from central political systems to the community level. Fanø has a long tradition in tourism and is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Denmark. Although receiving many tourists during peak season on this island, the commune and citizens are very much focused on the development of sustainable tourism. This paper tries to investigate the interrelationship between the local community involvement in tourism planning of Fanø and how far it can contribute to the development of sustainable tourism. Thus, the following main research question and sub-questions are investigated:

How does community participation in tourism planning contribute to the development of sustainable tourism at Fanø?

Sub-questions:

• Which effective community-participation techniques are applied for tourism planning on Fanø?
• What is the scope and intensity of community participation in the planning process?
• Which entities initiate local community involvement on Fanø?

The literature review will encompass main key areas in order to build up a theoretical base for the investigation. Woodly (1997) mentions in his scientific article “Tourism and Sustainable Development: Monitoring, Planning, Managing” that in recent years the argument that community-based approaches to tourism development are a prerequisite to successful and sustainable tourism development. Marien and Pizam (2000) share this idea in their contribution “Implementing sustainable tourism development through citizen participation in the planning process” and further scrutinize crucial community participation techniques, based on administrative as well as citizen objectives.

There are several potential benefits if a community living or working in a tourist destination is involved in tourism planning. Bramwell and Sharman (2000) however, argue that also potential dilemmas and difficulties in coherence with community involvement, as for instance power-imbalance of community in the wider society, can occur. Further, Hall (1997) states that, “power governs the interaction of individuals, organizations and agencies influencing, the formulation of tourism policy and the way it is implemented”.

Bramwell and Sharmann (1999) present a theoretical framework of the issues which affect the approach to community participation in tourism planning on a particular destination. Thus, the following three issues are outlined: Scope and Intensity of the participation of the community and degree to which consensus emerges among the community participants.

Agenda 21, also known as the Rio-Earth Summit, draws attention to the fact that tourism should improve the quality of life of the host community, provide a high quality of experience for the visitor and maintain the quality of the environment on which the host community and visitor depend. One of the measures and objectives issued by Agenda 21 is to train and educate favoring minorities and further to exchange information, skills and technology of travel and tourism (Liburd, 2010). Local Agenda 21 is also represented on Fanø, and thus the paper tries to investigate in how far they are involved in the arrangement of community participation in tourism planning.

Excerpt of sources:

Bramwell, B. and Sharman, A. (1999) “Collaboration in local tourism policymaking” Annals of Tourism Research, 26, 2, pp. 392-415

Bramwell, B. and Sharmann, A. (2000) “Approaches to sustainable tourism planning and community participation: the case of Hope Valley” in Richards, G. and Hall, D. (eds.) Tourism and Sustainable Community Development. Routledge: London, pp. 17-35

Hall, C. M. (2008) Tourism Planning: Policies, Processes and Relationships, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow, England.

Liburd, J. J. (2010) “Introduction to Sustainable Tourism Development” in Liburd, J. J. and Edwards, D. (eds) Understanding the Sustainable Development of Tourism. Goodfellow Publishers Ltd: Oxford, pp. 1-18

Marien, C. and Pizam, A. (2000) “Implementing sustainable tourism development through citizen participation in the planning process” in Wahab, S. and Pigram, J. (eds.) Tourism, Development and Growth. Routledge: London, pp. 164-179

Simmons, D. G. (1994) “Community Participation in Tourism Planning”, Tourism Management, 15, 2, 98-108

Agenda 21 – The United Nations Programme of Action From Rio. [WWW Document] http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/index.shtml. (accessed 20 September 2010)

 While defining the suitable research question I’ve probably spent most of the time reading and trying to find the right literature in order to  specify my research question field. Ultimately I turned to ethics around the consumer and their link to Sustainable Tourism Development.
 

 Muncy and Vitell (1992) came up with a definition of consumer ethics as “the moral principles and standards that guide behaviour of individuals or groups as they obtain, use and dispose of goods and services.”
 At the end it’s human-centered, were it all begins. Economics, law, consumerism, trade, they all apply to unwritten laws. Ethics. The way developed country oriented tourists are having their holidays to third world countries, the way they exploit financially cheap labour costs, child prostitution and the development gap between these worlds has ethical foundations that keeps that state to perpetuate.
 

 A more practical determination of ethical consumerism is this given by the Ethical Consumer magazine (issue 103, November/December 2006): Ethical consumerism is about how you choose to spend your money and what sort of goods you choose to buy.

• What you spend your money on affects other people and the environment.
• Ethical consumers buy things from companies that act ethically. These companies try not to harm the environment or society.
• Trade affects the economies of other countries and groups within society positively and negatively.
• Our consumption also affects the environment.

  And that leads us to the question, does our prosperity and happiness come at a cost to others? And if yes, tourism related, can we change this through sustainable tourism development?

 ’Much has been said about the consumer and climate change, but do they really care? Today’s consumer is four times more price sensitive than a decade ago. It seems consumers have got used to flying with Easy Jet or sleeping at Travelodge. These goods are basic commodities which suffer deflationary pressures. From an ethical consumption perspective, although surveys regularly report consumers’ willingness to pay extra taxes or a premium to stay in green hotels, the magnitude of this willingness often fails to materialise into people actually paying more for the products.’(Yeoman 2008)
 

 In his book (Tomorrow’s Tourist Scenarios and Trends (2008) by Dr. Ian Yeoman ) , as a futurologist he is, he is predicting a very interesting scenario; due to environmental pollution, tourism will be bad for people’s health and for the environment and this will lead to world prohibition of tourism act. A very pessimistic scenario in my opinion but maybe interesting in order to make some heads to turn in the tourism industry.
 

 The author of the Corporate Futures report, researcher Angela Kalisch, said most small operators had a more responsible attitude towards those living in destinations. She said tourism was lagging behind other industries which implemented corporate social responsibility policies more than 10 years ago. And she warned it was only a matter of time before the industry’s “unethical practices” came under consumer fire.
 

 The consumer ethics scale developed by Muncy & Vitell (1992) looks at how consumers react differently to different types of ethical situations. Another interesting fact in their original exploratory study is that consumers who had lower income reported a more unethical behaviour. Consistent with this view, Pratt (1991) found a tendency for higher income individuals to be more sensitive to ethical issues. Using a Singapore sample, Ang et al. (2001) found that higher income consumers were less likely to behave unethically in that they were less willing to purchase counterfeit product. 
 

 Another part of the scientific community believes that we shouldn’t try to convince the consumers not to buy the unethical products/services, the government should simply pull them out of the market, like with energy saving light bulbs. But in which way can the UK government for example, try to restrict to someone from travelling to such a destination? That is again the problem with the tourism industry: It is not a product, it’s mainly consisted of intangible services.
 

“There’s certainly one argument,” says Tim Jackson, professor of sustainable development at Surrey University, “that it’s no more than the salving of guilty middle-class consciences in the face of consumption patterns that are almost completely unethical. This idea that you can just rely on consumers to exercise choice and become more ethical doesn’t stack up. Far from placing all the responsibility on individuals to make ethical choices, you [should] systematically and progressively remove unethical choices from the market – and that, partially at least, is the role of government.”

 The developed countries governments and consumers can make a difference by first implementing those measures in their countries at first with sustainable tourism development at the forefront.

My research question is: How can ethical consumption drive STD?   Except the how I will also try to find out, If and in what extent it does drives STD to another level. I’ll try to stick to the critical theory paradigm throughout this paper and see whether this is a possibility for a change or just another fashion/trend firework.

        References

1-Angela Kalisch Corporate Futures: Consultation on good practice; social responsibility in the tourism industry (2002 Tourism Concern, 47pp)
2-Travel Trade Gazette UK & Ireland May 6, 2002
3-Scott J. Vitell and James Muncy The Muncy–Vitell Consumer Ethics Scale: A Modification and Application (Volume 62, Number 3)
4- Pratt, C.B. (1991). PRSA members’ perceptions of public relations ethics. Public Relations Review, 17 (Summer),145-159.
5- Ang, S.H., Cheng, P.S., Lim, E.A.C., & Tambyah, S.K. (2001). Spot the difference: Consumer responses towards counterfeits.
6-Eva-Maria Hammann,Andre Habisch and Harald Pechlanern, Values that create value: socially responsible business practices in SMEs – empirical evidence from German companies, Business Ethics: A European Review Volume 18 Number 1 January 2009
7- www.ethicalconsumer.org
8- http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/sustainable-consumption.html

Sustainable Tourism in Hotel chains

In the 1990s, a dramatic rise in the issue of sustainable tourism occured. The fast and reckless development of the tourism sector had led to various negative impacts and thus to the recognition of the need to change tourism behaviour to be able to sustain the natural, economic as well as social and cultural environments (Middleton and Hawkins, 1998; Murphy and Price, 2005; Swarbrooke, 1999).

Generally speaking, the tourism industry should have a natural interest in sustaining the environment as this is what tourism is dependent on (Clarke, 1997, p. 228). Being an important part of the tourism experience, hotels are a key factor in setting examples of a more sustainable approach. There is an ongoing discussion about this topic as is reflected for instance by Bohdanowicz (2005) and Bohdanowicz and Martinac (2003). An important question involved in this matter is whether there is actually a demand for ‘green’ hotels. A survey that was carried out in the USA suggested that 71% of the interviewees preferred to stay at environmentally friendly hotels, however they were not willing to pay any extra money for this (Kirk, 1996).

Large hotel chains are more likely to engage in sustainable programs than small privately owned businesses (Despretz, 2001).

A study of Hilton Hotels

The ”Hilton Family” or Hilton Hotels Corporation (HHC) is a global business with over 3000 hotels on the world-wide basis, consisting of 9 different hotel brands, among these Conrad Hotels and Resorts, DoubleTree and Hampton Inn (Hilton, 2009a). The HHC is conntected to a number of organizational sustainability missions and indicators which are all explicitely described on their official webpage as part of the marketing programme: ‘We have a long journey ahead, but we are committed to transforming our business and leveraging sustainability to drive economic, cultural and social value’

Source: (Hilton, 2009a)

The HHC has created a sustainability platform to guide present and future practices. This platform is made up of eight missions as indicated on the left column below. The right column combines the statements with the respective theoretical sustainability pillar according to the ”3+3 model” (UN WTO, 2008):

Table 5: Hilton Sustainability Areas

These missions illustrate the top-level of the organizational core indicators of sustainable tourism development. In order to live up to these missions a number of underlying goals are applied. The underlying nine goals are the environmental management categories of all brands under the Hilton Hotels Corporation as per 2009 (Hilton, 2009b).

1)      Embrace an environmental mission and strategy that encompasses each and every team member

2)      Focus upon our key environmental commitments: Energy efficiency, CO2 reduction, water efficiency, waste reduction, renewable energy, and sustainable buildings and operations which include building design and construction, hotel and corporate operations, chemical management and purchasing

3)      Ensure that environmentally friendly initiatives and tactics will positively impact the guest experience

4)      Set targets, measure, benchmark, and continually improve our performance

5)      Liaise with our suppliers and business partners to improve their environmental performance

6)      Influence land use in harmony with nature and construction by promoting the use of established environmental best practices

7)      Support environmental initiatives within the local community

8)      Communicate our environmental achievement to our team members and guests

9)      Publish our performance against our established goals

In 2006 HHC’s first environmental programme, ’We Care!’, was launched with so-called ”Green boxes” being sent to all hotels containing educating sustainability material, workshop dates and instructions to all employees. This illustrates a strong political business environment and shows that the HHC is interested in supporting the stakeholders, as well as creating participation. A political environment indicator could be designed, which in this case would give a positive answer: ‘Does the company have a sustainable tourism development strategy and policy?’ On June 4, 2008, the HHC published a five-year reduction plan (2009-2014) to reduce energy consumption, CO2 emissions and waste output with 20% each. Furthermore, water consumption must be reduced with 10% in the same five-year-period corporate plan (Environmental Leader, 2009). These statements are connected to natural indicators referring to the subgroups of (1) energy use; (2) transport; (3) solid waste management and finally (4) the use of water (Mihalic, 2009). From an overall perspective, it seems as if the HHC has started to implement sustainable practices and to set up environmental goals

Bohdanowicz, P. (2005) ‘European Hoteliers’ Environmental Attitudes: Greening the Business’, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 46, 2, 188-204.

Bohdanowicz, P. and Martinac, I (2003) ‘Attitudes towards Sustainability in Chain Hotels: Results of a European Survey’, paper presented at the CIB 2003 International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, 19-21 November 2003, Stamford Plaza, Brisbane, Australia.

Swarbrooke, J. (1999) Sustainable Tourism Management, CABI Publishing, Wallingford, Oxon.

Despretz, H (2001) Green Flag for Greener Hotels [WWW Document] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/ecolabel/pdf/tourism/lifefinalreport.pdf (accessed 9 February 2009).

Environmental Leader (2009) Hilton Sets Target Of 20% CO2 Reduction By 2014 [WWW Document]

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/06/05/hilton-sets-target-of-20-co2-reduction-by-2014. (accessed 10.02.09)

Hilton (2006) Hilton Hotels Corporation 2006 Annual Report: Growing Brands Globally

http://library.corporate-ir.net/library/88/885/88577/items/239651/Hilton_AR_2006.pdf. (accessed 08.02.09)

Hilton (2009a) Providing for the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs [WWW Document]

http://hiltonworldwide1.hilton.com/en_US/ww/fob/landing/Sustain/index.do. (accessed 10.02.09)

Hilton (2009b) Our Environmental Policy [WWW Document]

http://hiltonworldwide1.hilton.com/en_US/ww/fob/landing/OurPolicy/index.do. (accessed 08.02.09)

Hilton (2009c) News Release: Hilton Hotels Corporation Announces Global Sustainability Goals [WWW Document] http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=88577&p=irol-newsArticleOther&ID=1162505&highlight=. (accessed 09.02.09)

Mihalic, T. (1999) ‘Environmental Management of a Tourist Destination: A Factor of Tourism Competitiveness’, Tourism Management, 21, 65-78.

Mihalic, T (2008) Tourism and its Environments: Ecological, Economic and Political Sustainability Issues, Ekonomska Fakulteta, Ljubljana.

.

“An ecolabel is a “seal” or “label” which assists the market to identify products or services as being less harmful to the environment than similar products or services with the same function.” (UNEP, 1998, p.47)

Concept of ecolabels and ecolabelling has become increasingly popular in tourism industry in the last decade. In UNEP’s Publication Ecolabes in the Tourism Industry (1998) 28 ecolabel schemes have been recognized. They differ according to geographical coverage (international, regional, national and sub-national); focus areas (facilities, services and locations), type of organization that promotes the scheme (supra-national public authorities, public authorities, industry associations, private entrepreneurs and NGO’s) and duration (one to five years). Three accommodation ecolabels are used in Denmark. These are: The Green Key (used in Denmark and 16 other countries), The Swan (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland) and The Flower (all EU countries).

According to Ayuso (2007) the majority of existing ecolabels are focused on accommodation sector, which is also the focus of this paper. In her study of Spanish hotel sector she recognizes four main advantages of ecolables. These are cost savings in the medium/long term, response to demands of customers and tour operators, personal avernes of hotel managers and improvement of company image. On the other hand, ecolabels involve high certification costs and produce confusion due to existence of different ecolabel schemes. Moreover, hotels that adopt an ecolabel have problems communicating the significance of this award to customers and tour operators.

In his work, Tourism ecolabels, Buckley (2002) states that ecolabels are quite uncoordinated and the degree to which they affect consumers decision is largely unknown. Authors, such as Fairweather et al. (2005) and Reiser et al. (2005) in their research conducted among New Zealand tourist try to investigate visitor’s attitudes as well as their behaviour related to ecolabelled tourist products.

However, there seems to be the lack of literature and research on tourism accommodation ecolabels in Denmark. So, the aim of this paper is to investigate how does ecolabels affect accommodation sector in Denmark. This paper will especially focus on a case of Danhostel in Ribe, hostel awarded with The Green Key label. Therefore, the research question would be: How does The Green Key award affects operations in Danhostel, Ribe?

References:

Ayuso, S. (2007) ‘Comparing Voluntary Policy Instruments for Sustainable Tourism: The Experience of the Spanish Hotel Sector’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 15 (2)

Buckley, R. (2002) ‘Tourism ecolables’, Annals of Tourism Research, 29 (1)

Danhostel Ribe – An eco-friendly hostel in Ribe, Denmark [WWW Document].  http://www.innotour.com/innovationCases/2010/03/danhostel-ribe-an-eco-friendly-hostel-in-ribe-denmark/ (accessed 27.09.2010)

Fairweather, J.R., Maslim, C. and Simmons, D.G. (2005) ‘Environmental Values and Response to Ecolabels Among International Visitors to New Zealand’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 13 (1)

Reiser, A. and Simmons, D.G. (2005) ‘A Quasi-experimental Method for Testing The Effectiveness of Ecolabel Promotion’, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 13 (6)

The Green Key – Ecolabel Statistics [WWW Document]. http://www.green-key.dk/English/Ecolabels%20and%20statistic.aspx (accessed 27.09.2010)

UNEP (1998) Ecolabels in the Tourism Industry, Paris: United Nation Environmental Programme

In order to establish a valid research question, I followed four stages as designed by Veal (2006) – finding a topic, reviewing the literature, designing the research question and finally building on a conceptual framework. Further down, I will present briefly the first three steps which led me to establishing the final research question.

As mentioned above, I first decided on the broader topic for my research on sustainable tourism development (STD). The topic of my interest is “green supply chain” – a subject of personal importance to me. In order to reach to a more precise issue to investigate, I undertook a research of the literature that would give me a valid question to ask. In order to select as initial materials a few books, I selected the literature based on my constructivist paradigm, “depicting knowledge as the outcome or consequence of human activity – never certifiable as ultimately true but problematic and ever changing” (Guba, 1990). “Multiple realities exist in the domain of management, where the view is that there is often not one superior reality out there to be found” (Carson et al., 2001). Thus, I selected books reviewed and/or recommended by various tourism industry professionals. To arrive to the most current issues, I reviewed various tourism industry networks focusing on the topic of green supply chain and current issues in the sector. Also, the course books gave me an initial start in order to get the general idea of my topic.

The first academic source of my choice was the course book “Understanding the Sustainable Development of Tourism” by Liburd, J. and Edwards, D. (2010). I found a relative research on innovation and supply chain, where the author of the chapter, Hjalager (2010), pointed out that ”collaboration with suppliers for innovative product and process developments has received considerable attention in the general business literature and research”. Yet, most examples were not coming from the tourism industry, but from the manufacturing sector. The author, as well, pointed out that “tourism firms lack awareness of the possibilities of learning from suppliers”. There is an apparent need to bring suppliers at the front, since they have the capacity to influence firms and overall to lead to a more sustainable tourism (Hjalager, 2010).

Supply chain management is another issue mentioned in the academic sources (Hjalager, (2010), Miller and Twining-Ward, (2005), Simchi-Levi et al., (2004)). “Supply chain management addresses actions related to the selection and contracting of service providers, using the purchasing power to improve sustainability requirements, as has previously been done to improve health and safety requirements and quality” (Miller and Twining-Ward, 2005). The authors also mention, as previously Hjalager (2010), the importance of supplier-purchaser relationships in order to introduce sustainability requirements in purchasing policies. They also developed sixteen indicators on supply chain management that only reflect on the complexity and the importance of the issue (Miller and Twining-Ward, 2005).

A recent book by Emmet and Sood, “Green Supply Chains: An Action Manifesto”, published in March 2010, gives an in-depth analysis of green supply chains and the various benefits and drivers behind them.  The benefits recognized, where the ones generally perceived by the professionals, as discussed in the industry networks and also have been pinpointed by the UN Global Compact, when considering supply chain sustainability. These being “positive impact on the financial performance, sustainability of resources, lowered cost/increased efficiency, improved quality, etc”. Though, the drivers behind the green supply chain were of particular interest to me. Emmet and Sood (2010) classified five types of environmental stakeholder groups who drive the green supply chain initiatives: “regulatory stakeholders; consumers; organizational stakeholders; community groups and media”. The authors also mention the factors driving each group. While in the book there are various examples, there are none coming from the tourism industry. Yet, the book is of particular importance of establishing the general framework of a green supply chain and as Hjalager (2010) recognized earlier, the issues of greening the supply chain in the tourism industry is still vastly under-researched area.

After I reviewed these books and a few others, to name a few: “Green to Gold” by Esty, D and Winston, A (2006) as well as “Climate Change. What’s your business strategy” by Andrew Hoffman and John Woody (2008), I arrived at the few issues I would like to integrate in my research question. In order to investigate them in practice, I also looked for an exemplifying case study and to pick a venue, as I initially had in mind, I looked into Green Key certificate – a well-established green label in Denmark, and the certified venues in the area of Esbjerg, Denmark. Thus, I decided to use Danhostel Ribe, as my case study, since they are also actively involved in innovations and their case study can be found on Innotour platform (www source). That is how I built on the following problem formulation:

“How are tourism companies, notably the accommodation sector, addressing collaboration and awareness issues when greening their supply chain for STD?” – this will be the main research question, where I will establish the overall problems addressed in the literature regarding a green supply chain, and establish my framework. Based upon this I will focus on the case study with the following question:

“Why Danhostel Ribe initiated and carried on green policies and how did they respond to the global issues of green supply chain management?” – here I will look in depth to the drivers that started the initiative of obtaining Green Key and to review with the owners their supply chain and through the established framework, to analyze how they addressed the issues of collaboration and awareness.

By Magdalina Yarichkova

References:

Carson, D., Gilmore, A., Perry, C. and Gronhaug, K. (2001). Qualitative Marketing Research. SAGE Publications.

Danhostel Ribe – An eco-friendly hostel in Ribe, Denmark [WWW Document].  http://www.innotour.com/innovationCases/2010/03/danhostel-ribe-an-eco-friendly-hostel-in-ribe-denmark/ (accessed 16.09.2010)

Emmet, S. and Sood, V. (2010). Green Supply Chains: An Action Manifesto. Wiley.

Esty, D. and Winston, A. (2006). Green to Gold. Yale University Press.

Guba, E. G. (1990). The Paradigm Dialog. SAGE Publications.

Hoffman, A. and Woody. J. (2008). Memo to the CEO. Climate Change: What’s Your Business Strategy? Harvard Business Press.

Liburd, J. and Edwards, D (2010). Understanding the Sustainable Development of Tourism. Goodfellow Publishers Ltd.

Miller, G. and Twining-Ward, L. (2005). Monitoring for a Sustainable Tourism Transition. The Challenge of Developing and Using Indicators. CABI Publishing.

Simchi-Levi, D., Kaminsky, P. and Simchi-Levi, E. (2004). Managing the Supply Chain. The Definitive Guide for the Business Professional. McGraw-Hill.

United Nations Global Compact, Supply Chain Sustainability [WWW source] http://www.unglobalcompact.org/Issues/supply_chain/index.html

Veal, A. J. (2006). Research Methods for Leisure and Tourism (3rd edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

* Aretha Franklin – Chain of Fools (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lx52sBLtKI)

At the very beginning of my work experience, I was employed in my home town (Varazdin) tourist board. The majority of the projects this organization was working on, were connected to sustainable development of the city. One of the most important projects was, and still is, the festival called Spancirfest.

Spancirfest started in 1999. as a small event focused on inviting people to walk into the center of the city in order to enjoy folklore and traditional crafts presentations. Today, twelve years later, Spancirfest already has a tradition of being one of the most visited events in the region, recognized as a member of IFEA (International Festival & Event Association) and as a winner of international marketing event festival – Eventim. Through out the years, the festival was growing rapidly, combining its original purpose with new ideas. It is now a new age festival inspired by history, culture and tradition.

During ten days, thousands of people walk into the center to enjoy the atmosphere, world music concerts, theatre shows, street performers, delicious food or just admire more than 300 stands with authentic products (antiques, clothes, arts, crafts etc). There is over a thousand performers from six continents involved in the program and more than 250 000 visitors passing through the city center streets.

In spite of all the potential to become another mass music event, this festival has managed to keep the magic of city’s history and people’s habits. Many visitors say that people who live in Varazdin make a special kind of atmosphere by proudly demonstrating the roots of their fancy baroque past. The organizers did not allow modern standards to take over, moreover, they have managed to combine the tradition and modernism, bring people back to the past and at th

e same time surprise them by being ahead of time.

I could say that Spancirfest had implemented new standards when it comes to event organization in Croatia. There are numerous sources of authentic products that can be offered to the tourists and that is w

hat Croatia should be focusing on as the main image product – to maintain the sustainable tourism development instead of focusing on fashionable trends. Following more developed countries to conceive mass tourism, can bring inspiration or conventional touch, however, is not a solution for the countries which can still offer their uniqueness.

My way of doing tourism is quite simple and always the same. No fancy places, no long trips and no any luxuries.

Normally, me and my friends use every opportunity to open few tents on the coast  which is just fifty kilometers away.

That is how we understand tourism. The right people at the right place. There are so many interesting activities that

one  could do. How sustainable is that?  If  it’s not, then which kind of tourism is more sustainable?

A very good spanish professor in Girona said: “If you want to be really sustainable, you have to kill yourself”.

So, obviously people will never be sustainable. There is no argument about this. Then what could be done?

Apparently, people need a recriation. This is human nature. Still, do they have to travel to the other side of the world

and stay in a 6 star hotel in order to recharge thier baterries?

Twenty years ago, people in my country were not allowed to go abroad. So, the whole generation between 1950 and

1989 obviously haven’t had the opportunity to pop in a  plane and go to a fancy trip. Domestic tourism had been the

only option at that time. So, logically here is one more question: Is domestic tourism a proper way for people to get

their so necessary relaxation or the more far-away they travel the better and faster they recreate?

First of all, I have to say that I know what STD states for but I have just no experience with it by myself.

Maybe I still miss knowledge on what sustainable means and therefore never realized when I crossed some sustainable tourist accomodation, event, locality, destination…I have only once experienced something close to green behaviour.

Last summer we stayed in a hotel in Prague where you could re-use your towel if you wanted. However, I do not know if it was because of saving the environment or just to save money…

I have heard about eco-lodges and I know there are places that really try to follow philosophy of sustainable development but I was not lucky to explore them by myself. They are too far or too expensive. One example that crosses my mind is a Daintree Eco-Lodge in Australia (http://www.daintree-ecolodge.com.au/). This hotel seems to be perfect but is it really that sustainable? I have never been there; therefore, I cannot say.

As I read through blogs of my colleagues from EMTM I can see that many of them have positive experience with STD. I would really appreciate if they could recommend me destinations and places in Europe where STD is working. Thank you!

My last sustainable experience was last summer when I covered of a long stretch the “Way of Saint Jacques”. I must explain to my colleagues that may not know what this is, that this is a walking route (sometimes cycling) that goes through Spain with Santigo de Compostela´s Cathedral asits final destination. There are different reasons that trigger “pilgrims” to do this: religious, nature, sport, culture, experience…

The experience was sustainable from the beginning, as I got to the start point (north of Spain) by electric train (saving the GHG emissions that air travel causes). Each day, we walked 20 -25 km. through forests and mountains (obviously being environmentally aware and intending to cause as little damage to nature as possible) finishing the journey in different rural houses, thus contributing to local economy development and also sparing the atmosphere all the CO₂ that a normal hotel creates per room and day.

The “Camino de Santiago” is very well signalled (indications, legs, routes) However, I realised that much more could be done in terms of services, accommodation and green labels. Moreover, local stakeholders should find the potential benefits of working together (meeting their needs) finding as a result the improvement of the quality of the path.

To finish my comments on this experience, I would like to say that even though I didn’t take a plane or travelled abroad, this sustainable experience fulfilled my touristic needs approaching me to a more sustainable lifestyle!!!

I must admit that back home, in Serbia, sustainable development is the concept rarely applied in practice. Usage of renewable energy sources is low. No one recycles and even if one would like to, there are no recycling bins and containers available.

So, the first real sustainable experience for me was volunteering in a work camp in Germany last year. The camp was located in Glucksburg, small place at the Danish-German border near the Baltic Sea and 10 km off Flensburg town.

During this camp, I worked on reparation of the nearby artefact power and nature park that is a centre for applied technology and sustainable development cooperation. Artefact is built in an organic manner of architecture with a renewable energy supply and water resources saving techniques.

As a volunteer on this site I also had a chance to practice environmental friendly way of living. Along with the other volunteers I lived in a tent in the nature park with facilities such as compost toilets and showers using solar energy. Also, we recycled our garbage, ate only organic food and used organically made soaps and shampoos for washing.

I can say that this camp gave me a truly unique sustainable experience and I am very happy to know that sites like this one exist and that there are people willing to practice sustainability.

 The nearest experience I had close to a sustainable tourism experience was while I was camping in two Greek islands about one years ago.While camping in Koufonisia and Folegandros we used to live in camping tents (instead of concrete houses thus preserving the environment), we used water from a well, our waste was collected and thrown to island’s dump guard and the light at night was either from the fire or from sun collecting lamps. Being what we called “free camping” we didn’t have laundry, showers, bathrooms and kitchen, facilities that other camping sites provide(ex. Elafonissos, Foinikounta). To me, it was the best way possible to live close to nature.

 If the waste management is done properly (recycling facilities), and the energy comes from carbon neutral resources, in my opinion is one of the best ways to prevent environmental degradation and moreover to promote environmental renewal.The only doubt I have regarding this, is that from what I’ve witnessed when the demand for a destination like this rises, then stops to be sustainable. It’s like in a way development, brings an end to sustainability. The first two islands are still virgin because not many tourists know about them, but I can more or less say that if that changes, then probably easy profit will find it’s way and more and more apartments will start to pop out…

I guess that through a “green” govemert policy law restricting random building could fix this but as we know people vote the goverment. And when a goverment rejects in a way mass tourism is like saying No to ten times bigger job offerings and investment funds in the island. Finally it’s again a two sided coin with the need of  further research in order to end up in solid conclusions.

Our national slogan “To feel Slovenia means to feel good.” In Slovenia is more than half country protected. We are on 3^rd place by forest and have a lot of brown bears than almost any other country in Europe. Slovenian Karst region has given name to Karst all around the world. We have more than 10thousand kilometers of hiking paths all over the country. Compare with others countries in European Union, we have a lot of waters and thermal springs and vineyards, you can find the oldest grapevine in the world in Maribor in Štajerska region. You can be in nature on every step in Slovenia. Slovenian tourist board is really working a lot on green tourism to reduce the environmental impact as well as can. So everybody is responsible of sustainable tourism in Slovenia.

I have worked for Slovenian Tourist Board (STB) as a fair representative for the promotion of Slovenian tourist offer from 2007 on. I really learned a lot about sustainable and green tourism especially in Slovenia. I feel green and I support local hotels and restaurant with buying local artisan products. I often choose bike, public bus or train; I love it, when I am travelling around Slovenia. I try not to use lights or water unnecessarily, so I can really feel eco friendly. We have at least one ECO friendly hotel in Slovenia, visit website: http://www.bohinj-park-hotel.si/, where you can try regional specialties made the natural way.

Something less than half of country lies in Natura 2000 European protected places and parks.

The responsible and green tourism being sustainable developed by Slovenian tourist board in good practice as respecting the environment: European Destinations of Excellence (EDEN), the daisy logo like friendly environment tourist accommodation, ecological tourist farms producing food in a natural, environment-friendly manner and the blue flag on beaches and marinas.

by urŠka:)

My interest in sustainable tourism development dates back to when I was working in my hometown tourist office. Even though this subject has been discussed during my high school studies, it has not been until this work experience when I realized the true importance of it. As I got to know my city better, I have noticed its unexplored potential, which made it even more interesting. Croatia is a small country fighting her way into the big world. Lately, many doors have started opening, and entering the European Union in the near future will ease the development process. In my region there are two developing agencies which have been cooperating with various organizations in the European Union and made enormous progress and improvement for the entire region. That is why I can surely say sustainable development has taken first steps in the long road thats waiting ahead. Unfortunately, there are various obstacles when it comes to realizing great ideas. That is one more reason why I have decided to search for international experience before coming back to live in my country. Beginning with the EMTM program, which is structured to provide a high quality education, my belief is that all courses will assure me with the wide knowledge and understanding of tourism industry. Even though in 2010, sustainable development is a common goal in almost every aspect of our lives, not just work wise, this goal is very difficult to achieve. Looking at the big picture, and thinking globally, it seems that it would take a long period of time to do so. However, we need to start somewhere. If we succeed to accomplish this mission staring small, one day we will have a beautiful world to live in.

In the beginning of this year I had the great opportunity to work as an intern at Asian Overland Services (AOS), a tour operator based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This company has been strongly focused on implementing their Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies for a long period of time.

One of the numerous green projects of Mr. Wong, the founder and owner of AOS, was to turn their Frangipani Resort into a green resort. During my internship I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days at this resort and experience their implementations of sustainable management practices from first hand. The resort is partly equipped with solar panels, their wastewater is recycled, energy- efficient light bulbs are used as well as sustainable building materials have been utilized in order to save energy. Moreover, the resort encourages people to recycle their waste, with neatly decorated bins, which can be found all over the place. The resort draws special attention to the presentation of their “green” practices: Hand made wooden carved signs help for orientation and make the guests aware of their principles.

The Frangipani Resort even employs an environment engineer who is responsible for further improvements and to manage the quality of the implementations, which constitutes for me the key point in sustainable tourism. There will always be room for improvement and there is a need of observation for how the policies are implemented. Personally for me, the Frangipani Resort & Spa definitely was the greenest resort in Malaysia and a perfect example for acting environmentally green.

In the beginning of this year I had the great opportunity to work as an intern at Asian Overland Services (AOS), a tour operator based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This company has been strongly focused on implementing their Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies for a long period of time.

One of the numerous green projects of Mr. Wong, the founder and owner of AOS, was to turn their Frangipani Resort into a green resort. During my internship I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days at this resort and experience their implementations of sustainable management practices from first hand. The resort is partly equipped with solar panels, their wastewater is recycled, energy- efficient light bulbs are used as well as sustainable building materials have been utilized in order to save energy. Moreover, the resort encourages people to recycle their waste, with neatly decorated bins, which can be found all over the place. The resort draws special attention to the presentation of their “green” practices: Hand made wooden carved signs help for orientation and make the guests aware of their principles.

The Frangipani Resort even employs an environment engineer who is responsible for further improvements and to manage the quality of the implementations, which constitutes for me the key point in sustainable tourism. There will always be room for improvement and there is a need of observation for how the policies are implemented. Personally for me, the Frangipani Resort & Spa definitely was the greenest resort in Malaysia and a perfect example for acting environmentally green.

In the beginning of this year I had the great opportunity to work as an intern at Asian Overland Services (AOS), a tour operator based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This company has been strongly focused on implementing their Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies for a long period of time.

One of the numerous green projects of Mr. Wong, the founder and owner of AOS, was to turn their Frangipani Resort into a green resort. During my internship I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days at this resort and experience their implementations of sustainable management practices from first hand. The resort is partly equipped with solar panels, their wastewater is recycled, energy- efficient light bulbs are used as well as sustainable building materials have been utilized in order to save energy. Moreover, the resort encourages people to recycle their waste, with neatly decorated bins, which can be found all over the place. The resort draws special attention to the presentation of their “green” practices: Hand made wooden carved signs help for orientation and make the guests aware of their principles.

The Frangipani Resort even employs an environment engineer who is responsible for further improvements and to manage the quality of the implementations, which constitutes for me the key point in sustainable tourism. There will always be room for improvement and there is a need of observation for how the policies are implemented. Personally for me, the Frangipani Resort & Spa definitely was the greenest resort in Malaysia and a perfect example for acting environmentally green.

I am looking forward to studying sustainable tourism development. I have just completed university and I expect a course of masters in science level to be more challenging. I hope I will learn quickly and succeed at it. I want to apply myself and create my own opinions on sustainable tourism as the week’s progress. I do not have much knowledge of sustainable tourism, but I feel by the end of the course I will truly (as the title of the book states) understand the sustainable development of Tourism. I think that working in groups in tutorials will have its pro’s and con’s as with all group projects; however I am curious to see how the sharing of all information on innotour will affect people; as in my university the sharing of information is seen as risky behaviour due to fierce competition.

I want to believe that sustainable tourism will work in the future. I believe that it is morally correct and we should all strive to succeed this both as tourists now and perhaps as service providers or policy makers in the future. I do believe that the future holds complex issues/concerns for sustainable tourism development, especially with economic instability, changing human expectations and increasing environmental concerns. However, I believe turning a blind eye to these problems will not help, so forming structured policies, education, innovation and networking will provide solutions. Which have to be kept flexible enough to work in future scanerios

What do I expect from this course?

My expectations correspond to two basic points:

Firstly, I expect to gain some knowledge that worth something. What does this mean? Sooner or later we are all going to look for a proper job. In order to find such we also have to show qualities that are suitable for it. In other words, when people go to the employee market they literally ‘sell’ themselves on this market. The more precious and unique their knowledge is the better ‘price’ they get- a better wage- better life for them and their families. So what do I expect from this course? The answer would be: I expect to add something that will make me more desirable (‘expansive’) when I go to the employee market in my country.

Secondly, I expect this course to be interesting or at least not as boring as some other courses I had so far. After all, we have to have some fun as well, because clock is ticking and time is passing while we are busy and stuck in a pile of books which we won’t even remember next year.

When I am at home in my tiny appartment in Esbjerg, I really do think a lot about what I can do take care of the environment. I do not take showers that last more than 5 minutes, I have switched all my electricity to sustainable energy sources, I always turn off all my eletric appliances before leaving the appartment, I always reuse the same fabric bag for my groceries instead of buying plastic bags etc. Off course I know I am not exactly saving the world, but I do what I can to act “environmental friendly”.

During my 5th semester on the Bachelor, I worked together with two of my fellow students on an assignment about a “green” hotel in Esbjerg called Scandic Hotel. I have never actually stayed at this, or any other, green hotel, and I found it very interesting to learn about all the different things you can do as a hotel, to look out for the environment. Scandic Hotels is a chain of hotels with headoffice in Stockholm, who have chosen to implement a very thorough green policy. They have chosen to go all the way in their attempt to become carbon neutral. To mention a few examples:

Only ecological products are used for all food preparations,
when the guest leaves the room, the electricity is turned off,
towels are only washed, if the guest has left it on the floor,
presorting of waste in up to 22 different categories,
new installed  water saving taps in all rooms,
environmentally educated employees  etc.

New hotels in the chain are even built with environmental friendly materials throughout the entire building. On top of that, they have even initiated a programme called “Scandic in society”. This programme consists of meetings in each hotel involving donating bed linen to shelters, serving lunch to the homeless etc. This programme is all about giving something back to the local community in which the hotel is situated.

Hmm.., a sustainable tourism experience? I had to allow myself a moment to browse through a few recent events and fast evaluate them in my mind. I wanted to first point out the Second Meeting in Paris of the committee responsible for the writing of the new ISO 20121 for Sustainable Event Management, held in May 2010. Than I remembered that, even that the meeting was really productive, the organization itself was not done in those sustainable guidelines we were putting on paper…And we all noticed it! Surely, it was easier to raise an eyebrow towards the organizers, when having in mind the level of the first meeting in London!

But, yes! I did have a true sustainable tourism experience – the training on CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) program delivery, organized by MPI (Meeting Professionals International) in Canada, January 2009! That was a true sustainable tourism experienced first hand – from the flights, which were offset, to the venue, offering incredible green program, to even the smallest restaurant visited (and visited on foot!), which used only local suppliers in order to minimize to a maximum extend their carbon footprint! And I can say – it is not that hard to achieve sustainable tourism experience – if one uses the locals and their knowledge on the destination and most importantly knows HOW to achieve the same level of comfort while not sacrificing the environment, or pushing too much the bottom line, or even affecting any of the stakeholders at hand! Through knowledge and with a little passion at hand, anything can be achieved!

I was exited to see that one of the courses this semester was called “sustainable tourism”. I think it is a very important issue to study and discuss, especially for us as future employes in the tourism industry.

For way to long the focus in the industry has been on how to exploite the resources as much as possible for gain right here and right now, not on how to preserve them for the future. That is why I think it is so important to change the mindsets of the people in the industry, but also the mindsets of everyone who contributes to the industry.

If the idea og sustainable tourism can ever be realized, I don’t know, but I hope so  for the sake of our enviroment and the generations of tourists to come.

The concept of sustainable tourism development has already been a constant companion within the course of my Bachelor programme, where we – in theory – got acquainted with the economic, environmental and socio-cultural dimensions of sustainable tourism and how these must be in a continuous balance in order for destinations to maintain their competitiveness in the long run.

Having the opportunity to attend a full course devoted to this topic now, rather than being somewhat ‘confronted’ now and then as in my previous studies, I am hoping to gain an in-depth understanding of the concept, its pros and cons and, most importantly, the feasibility of the concept in real-life.

From my point of view, given the multiplicity of players involved in the supply and delivery of tourism services at the destination level, I find it very hard to believe that the idea of sustainable tourism development will prove to be more than an idealistic concept. I do hope though, that by means of further literature, case studies, discussions and student blogs this course will dispel my doubts.

As my personal expectation for this course, I truly hope to develop a deep insigt into the sustainable development in tourism sector. It would be interesting being able to gain knowledge beyond the formal classroom, for instance the trip to Fanoe Island is absolutely a good start. From my understanding, sustainable tourism is something to do with protect the natural and cultural resources at a tourist site from being overly exploited.

In my opinion, it is vital to avert ourselves from being an armchair strategist in this particular topic. We should never halt the notion of conservation barely on paper,  letting it grows as a hot topic for academic discussion or merely become a new area for research. Instead, the concept and idea should be turned into real practice.

Participation from all stakeholders is crucial to fully realise the concept across the entire sector. The ultimate goal of preserving current resources for future generations  could be attained if each side plays their own role and at the same time working in close collaboration with each other.

Thereby, I hope to learn from this course not only the theory and strategy to develop sustainable tourism, but also on how to implement and apply it in the industry practically.

I heard a lot about the sustainable tourism and things we can do to develop that idea, but I have never actually taken an academic course on it, so don’t have the basis to argue about it, don’t have enough knowledge to clearly state my point of view about it. Hopefully this course will not only introduce me to the concept and theoretical knowledge but also will show how we can implement all that in real life, and most important, maybe teach how to adjust the theory in such a diversity of cultures and societies in the whole world. Whereas ideas and theories used in Fanø, the case study we will be doing, may not be suitable for my country – Armenia. We have different mentality and stile of life, values and costumes. And it is also very important to note that not all the countries are prepared to that idea. Nowadays many countries face much more vital problems, such as food, water and medicine supplies, development of the economy and etc.  So to me it is very hard to believe that we can actually reach that point when the world will unite to the idea of sustainable tourism. Personally I support the idea! It would be great to reach a perfect balance between environment, society and economy, but for me it is utopia, which I don’t think is accessible.

First of all, I have to say that the basic “philosophy” of sustainable development of tourism is good and fair to the people of our planet as well as our planet itself. On the other hand, I am rather critical to it. In my opinion it is a very difficult mission by which we would like to change thinking of the entire world and I am not sure if we, egoistic human beings, would ever be able to accomplish it.

I have heard about sustainable development of tourism during my previous university studies but it was mentioned just in one article from all the resources we used. Therefore, my expectations for this course are to find out more about sustainable tourism, to compare different resources and confront my opinions with other students and reality. I would like to get to know also those destinations where this approach works and I think Denmark is the right place for it.

I hope that this course will show me how to change the face of tourism which we experience nowadays. However I believe the sustainable development of tourism is the best way for our future; I am still not convinced that it could be possible. Maybe this course can change my view on the topic and I am opened to accept it as far as I can see results and implemented theory to the real life.

In the end, I am sure the course will enrich my knowledge in the field and I am already looking forward to get to know more about sustainable development of tourism from the people who have broad knowledge on it.

• It is easy to discuss sustainabilty. Implementation is the problem…The time has now come ‘to walk the talk’.(Bramwell and Lane,1993:4)

As stressed by the authors above, it is quite simple to discuss, explain and talk about sustainable tourism development. But the effective and proper implementation and operation on the real world is some what tough.

As a result, I am expecting much more in this STD course to grasp the fundamental techniques and procedures relevant for the  efficient implementation of the theoretical knowledge I understand in the class lectures.

I can still remember the first time sustainable tourism development was mentioned at the class back in college, three years ago. It was presented as something revolutionary, something that could change tourism as we knew it by that time, a turning point, etc. Everyone was in favour of it, almost none against it and it seemed a very good alternative to me too. Having only one course out of 28 related, it meant that I couldn’t actually fully understand the “technical” parts of it.

During this week I’ve read many related books and articles and found out that aren’t only positives and that many difficulties may occur in the success of sustainable tourism development.

After I complete this course I would like to be able to see all the factors that consist sustainable tourism, such as the economic aggregates, the funds that are needed in order to develop sustainable tourism in an area that has already turned to mass tourism and has facilities related to mass tourism.

To conclude, to be able to answer the question: Is turning to sustainable tourism profitable compared to mass tourism?

Sustainable Tourism comes into my life since 2008 when I was an undergraduate student in Malaysia.  Mr. Toney K. Thomas, my professor in Malaysia who is an expertise in tourism management and development, especially the sustainable tourism development brought me the concept of STD.  His energetic spirit and enthusiasm had influenced most of my classmates and me to approach STD in both theoritical and practical experiences.

I am glad to touch on STD course again in this beginning of my first semester in the University, I expect that this course will provide me more complement and updated information regarding STD. Besides that, I am looking forward to study and understand this course in an international environment, where I could “observe” everyone’s expectation and read their ideas in this board.

The interaction between professors and other classmates will also motivate myself to carry out more researches and discussions in both visible (in the class) and invisible (uploading blog) ways. I greatly desired to maximize my educational level in this STD course.

Certainly tourism is one of the world’s largest income and employment generating industries. For underdeveloped and developing countries it can be more useful as after initial investment, revenue comes very long days. From my real life experience I would like to say sustainable tourism is one kind of tourism that is concerned with environment and its existence.

Thailand, my home country and also popular as tourist destination, is expanding rapidly in tourism but threats toward natural and other resources (e.g. sea, hills, socio-cultural heritage)  are not being considered very carefully. It makes me aware to study on tourism so that I can contribute in the proper development of tourism sector of my country.

Discoveries enable self-sufficiency and autonomy in the area of community based tourism and community-led development. I strongly expect to discover some practical knowledge which will be really helpful to meet up the challenges for upcoming world tourism. As it is proven now that practicing STD doesn’t reduce income rather it helps to ensure long term incomes, I expect, I will be able to make understand the policy makers the necessity of accepting ST programs.

Though last few years the jargon ‘sustainable’ is recurrently uttered by the academicians, social activists, and policy makers, all over the world, very few of us understand the core meaning of this phenomenon. Generally it is thought that sustainability means lingering the life time of any substance which is very similar to ‘durability’. But in tourism, does durability always matter?

I think ‘no’. Rather, ensuring quality of tourism products, infrastructures, environments are more imperative questions. Only lingering the life time of this wonderful earth should not be the motto of pursuing sustainable tourism movement. We have to remember, to save the planet, we can not prohibit huge employment and income generating tourism business. If the efforts can combine uninterrupted touring practices and anticipated long-lasting of the whole world, to me, it will be worthwhile.

Unquestionably it’s a great opportunity for me to gain factual insights of sustainable tourism through studying this course. I keenly expect that the gained knowledge will make me enriched as a real life practitioner of sustainable tourism development. As in future, I strongly desire to work for the development of tourism industry of my country, Bangladesh, I wish to dig up the practical examples of the spots/countries that have really proven their skills in achieving sustainable tourism. Moreover, the thought provoking case solutions will enhance my decision making skills in sensible world, I hope. To be aware of the upcoming challenges, different parts of the world and forms of thumps, toward this sector and finding out escape routes are also should be a significant part of understanding.

I had a chance to attend a course:  “Tourism and sustainable development” at the university in my home country as an undergraduate student. I received only a theoretical experience which gave me an introduction in that area of studying, but now I am looking forward to gaining practical experience. It is such an honor that we will be given an opportunity to implement our knowledge, that will gain during the course in this semester, on sustainable tourism of Fanø Island.  Hopefully, sometime we’ll have a chance to do similar project in different areas/countries and problems.

Today we live fast in a world that is changing constantly and it is a huge challenge to reach the balance between environment, society and economy.  Sustainable tourism is a new term to many people, so we, students, should be taught how to approach to problems critically and how to become an important part in developing and implementing ideas in the area of Sustainable tourism development in order to protect environment, cultural heritage and to improve the economy and living standards of developing countries and regions.

I have high expectations of this course and look forward to exchanging thoughts between professor and other students.

Sustainable Tourism development and as a matter of fact sustainable development is a concept that has reached an impasse both theoretically and practically. In the general sense, academia’s are trying their best to convince stakeholders about the viability of the concept of sustainability where as these economic forecasters are only interested in listening to the high’s and low’s of their investment. This brings me to the point where I ask myself, which way forward now, and if there is a way forward, how do we proceed from wherever we are now.

At this point, I have two simple thought about STD, one is that the study of STD has become like cul-de-sac. Even though much attention is paid to this concept in the last decade, the concept still lacks consensus. This is not only related to it definitions and the theoretical background of the concept but also the point to which the theory can be transformed into a set of practical principles, strategy and measures for effective planning and management of tourism in the real world (Berno and Bricker 2001). Especially, STD  debate is often declared as incoherent, theoretically flawed and based on weak or false assumptions (Liu 2003), whilst it has long been suggested that the principles of sustainable tourism represent little more than a micro solution to a macro problem (Wheeller 1991). Secondly, there are diminutive facts about principles of sustainability or sustainable development.  Because these principles are taken from individual tourism businesses, sectors of the travel and tourism industry, and indeed, at the declinational level. Undoubtedly, STD remains a concept that enjoys much publicity at a Global level, for instance it is given reference in the Report of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Because at some level, Tourism is thought to have the real potential and excellent opportunity to promote sustainable development since it provides an economic component for cultural and environmental conservation.

In a nutshell, my thought about STD is that there still remains a gulf between theory and practical STD. This makes the theory a MYTH to me but at the end of this course, I expected my insight into STD be broadening, and some borders eliminated.

My desire to study Sustainable Tourism Development can be explained by my goal to make my country a famous tourist destination and to make its citizens proud of living in such a beautiful place. However, I find it very hard to expect sustainability from a developing country like mine, simply because people are too busy trying to earn their living and they do not have much time to ponder over sustainability. I am not saying it is right, I just think it is somewhat explainable.

Nevertheless, it is obvious that something needs to be changed in Ukraine in regards to tourism, otherwise in a few decades the visitors will not be able to admire fabulous cathedrals that go way back to the 11-12^th centuries anymore because of the irresponsibility of  the officials, who allow private construction on the territory of historical landmarks.

Although I have never studied sustainable tourism, I am hoping to learn as much as possible in this class. I would love to study ways of making my country and the world in general attractive not only to our, but also to future generations. Also, I hope to study ways to engage society in becoming sustainable.

Sustainable Tourism Development is one of the class I was looking for when I knew I am accepted to study here. This is not because I want to “save the earth” but I want to keep traveling happily again and again.

It goes without question that my country, Thailand, is rich for its various kind of tourist attraction. I’ve traveled to several parts of Thailand, several times for each place. That’s enough to see the changes occurring to those areas, effected by what we call “tourism”. It is clear that if those changes continue, Thailand will be a victim of capital economy (if it not already be). To freeze culture and environment from any change is not possible. But what we need is to know how to be developed in a smart way – keep economic progress in both governmental and local level, increase living standard, and preserve our precious culture and national resources in the same time.

However, to be honest, I really want to travel around in European countries to study them. It is not an exaggeration to say that this region is somehow the model of clever policies in sustainable tourism development.

I believe that everybody likes concept of sustanaible tourism development. The vision of protecting landscape, our cultural and national treasure sounds very impressive and somehow we want to believe that we will be one those who will have an influence on it. But does it really work like that?We have beautiful visions but what do we do about it?. I have been travelling around,making observations, working in tourism sector in countries which were in different stages of development and I have to admit that educating people is the key to sucess.I do not only  mean creating a group of specialist who will know what must be done, what policies and planning issues to consider  but spreading information among whole societies. As tourism students and future professionalists we should be able to take responsibility for the shape of this industry. I expect that this module will not be based only on  theory. During long years of education we sometimes reach the moment when the theory is not something which can satisfy us anylonger. What I would love to do is to analyse  examples where sustainable tourism was  implemented. How did the cooperation between public and privete sector look like, what were the socio-cultural, economical , environmental impacts on the destination, what role was played by marketing ?  A lot of  questions are coming to my mind and I could write them all but, hopefully I will have the chance to ask them  during our classes and the answers will satisfy me completly:)

I am looking forward to this course because I am convinced that sustainability is the core approach in future tourism development although it is impossible to reach it. It does not mean we should ignore the consequences of our human behavior. Although, it is a hot topic discussed worldwide in a last decade, unfortunately in many cases it only remains in mission statements without any implementation.

I hope to learn from this course innovation methods that could be applied to maintain sustainable tourism in newly creating destinations. It is important to think of such development at the early stage not when a place is being destroyed already. In addition to this, I expect to discuss problems in existing destinations where mass tourism is present, particularly finding ways of transforming such destinations to the sustainable ones.

I think that the sustainability come out from peoples values and therefore it is important to bring this values to the stakeholders in the destinations. I believe that after finishing this course I will be able to implement sustainable strategies from different perspectives .

Country that I’m coming from, Serbia has only recently become an attractive tourist destination among foreign tourist. I think that well-preserved nature, a richness of natural and cultural resources is one of the fundamental competitive advantages for its positioning on the international tourist market. Since the number of tourist is increasing, it is in the same time very important to ensure the development of tourism with minimal damage to the environment and the local community. By preserving our natural and cultural heritage we will enable the future generations to enjoy them too.

Therefore, I would like to deepen my knowledge on sustainable tourism and get an insight in the way this concept is applied internationally and in different tourist destinations. Hopefully, I will be able to practice the knowledge gained in this course in my country.

  The place Taiwan I come from is like a newly born baby in tourism industry, it only developed less than 25 years. In my island, we have bountiful tourism resource from nature to social ethnics; however, it is evitable while we met the global environmental issues at the same time in the past ten years. Moreover, from the social-economic aspect can’t be reach as western standard which challenge the sustainable tourism developing in a smooth way.

     Tourism is contained variety subjects; it can be describe as a bridge or mean to connect the idea of sustainable development. Given an example of wetland eco-tour not only has it a trip to get close to nature but with a consciousness of environment protection. In my opinion, to address the concept of sustainable development with tourism is important to integrate the ideas and get the balance of the situation.

   With this precious opportunity to learn from Nordic “green” experiences, I hope I can gain the knowledge of how to integrate the idea into Taiwan and China situation. In a word, with this course, it allows me to look deeper into the situation, analysis the case and come out a future research based. Last but not least, it would be wonderful from this course I can have the information from western side and give a feedback back to home for better policy.

Honestly I have to admit that I have high expectations in the Sustainable Tourism Course. First of all, I am of the opinion that we will get through an extensive literature review (journal articles, recommended books) a major insight to the sustainable tourism, its’ development, political frameworks, innovations and so forth. I hope that this gained theoretical knowledge can be undermined with the help of case studies as well as further practical examples as for instance the excursion to Fanoe Island.

Well, in the past couple of years the term “sustainability” has occurred in society and media at an increasing level. Being “Green” for instance, has become a social trend and a new lifestyle that one after the other is starting to follow. As we know, trends are apparently not of long-lasting nature. With acting “green” I do not only refer to the society engaged in waste management, using hybrid cars etc, but also on tourism professionals, responsible for the sustainable development of various projects of different scopes.

I hope that this is not just a trend to follow, which will be replaced by another, and that the present and future professionals and tourism leaders are acting on the basis of the five guiding values in sustainable tourism development: ethics, knowledge, mutual respect, professionalism and stewardship. If these values will be followed accurately by each and everyone, the term “sustainability” and being “green” will be not just a trend, but a new integrated part in our life.