Sustainable travel has become a phrase that has travelers wanting to make a positive impact in the places that they are traveling to. According to Booking.com, “almost seven in 10 (69 percent) U.S. travelers identified sustainable travel as important to them, while just over half (53 percent) said they were more determined to make sustainable choices when looking to travel again in the future.”
I first developed an interest in sustainable travel when reflecting back on my trip to Bali a few summers ago. Although the destination was beautiful, I couldn’t help but notice the negative impact that the travel and tourism industry had on the local community. Bali was overrun with tourists, trash had accumulated on the sides of the roads, and land erosion had become somewhat of an issue to the point where some areas of mountains and rock formations were closed off to the public in order for its natural formation to be restored. Unethical animal tourism practices were a constant problem with many of the tour operators offering encounters with wildlife as tourists would line up daily to have interactions with tigers, primates, and elephants. Deforestation was also a huge problem in Bali. According to the Indonesian Rainforest Network, “Indonesia has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, and just under half of the country’s original forest cover now remains. Although estimates vary widely, conservative studies suggest more than a million hectares (2.4 million acres) of Indonesian rainforest is cleared and lost each year…” Also, there’s a high number of foreign-owned businesses which contributes very little, economically, to the Balinese culture, especially when these businesses choose to hire expats instead of locals to run their business.
Tourism has turned Bali into the Disney world of destinations where parts of the region are completely catered towards tourists while overlooking the needs of the local community that they are serving. It’s unethical that only popular tourist destinations, not just within Bali, but all over the world, are provided access to running water, nutrient-rich food, and access to other natural recourses when the rest of their local population is suffering. I decided then that the next destinations that I visited I was able to assist with bringing life into the community as opposed to having made a negative impact
What Is Sustainable Travel?
As defined by the World Tourism Organization, sustainable travel is “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social, and environmental impacts addressing the needs of its visitors, the industry, the environment, and host communities.” Sustainability focuses on meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The concept of sustainability has three pillars; Economic, Environmental, and Social.
The Three Pillars Of Sustainability
The Economic Pillar
The Economic Pillar (focuses on profits). In order to be sustainable, businesses must be able to make a profit that aligns with the needs of the community. This pillar is the foundation of being a sustainable business. Businesses being able to create profits allows them to implement other sustainability strategies into their sustainable business model.
The Environmental Pillar
The Environmental Pillar (focuses on the business’s relationship with the planet). This pillar of sustainability often gets the most attention since it’s the most visible. This factor focuses on reducing carbon footprints, packaging waste, water usage, and protecting, sustaining, and/or restoring the health of natural habitats and ecosystems. According to Investopedia, “Companies have found that having a beneficial impact on the planet can also have a positive financial impact. [for example] Lessing the amount of material used in packaging usually reduces the overall spending on those materials…”
The Social Pillar
The Social Pillar (focuses on the business relation with its people). Having the support and approval of its employees, stakeholders, and the community it operates in. Although the proper definition for the social pillar is a bit obscure this pillar of a business can be determined by the positive impact that a business has on its employees and community (locally & globally).
Why Is Sustainable Travel Important?
When the number of tourists visiting an area is greater than what the environment can handle, it causes disharmony amongst the local community with the tourist and causes a strain on the environment. Soil erosion, increased pollution, degradation of natural habitats, increased stress on native and endangered species, and higher than normal increased water usage are all factors that will be destined to happen when sustainable travel and tourism aren’t of importance.
Impact On Natural Resources
Generally, the travel and tourism industry overuses and has a greater consumption of water. This resource is usually allocated to swimming pools, spas, golf courses, and many times tourists overuse water for their personal needs than they would if they were back home in their native locations. For context, “An average golf course in a tropical country such as Thailand needs 3,306 pounds of chemical fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides per year and uses as much water as 60,000 rural villagers”
Since travel is seasonal, many destinations have 10 times more visitors in their tourist high season than they do in their low season. Many tourists that visit these destinations are coming from places that are considered developed nations. Many have high demands for their standard of living such as sufficient heating, hot water, air conditioning, and etc. Oftentimes tourists leave their air conditioning units running for longer periods than usual, even when they are not in their accommodations. These factors are exacerbated when tourists visit areas where natural resources were already scarce to begin with.
Impact On Land
Unsustainable tourism practices put a strain on land resources such as fertile soil, forests, wetlands, and wildlife. Animals are usually displaced when their natural habitats are destroyed due to construction, deforestation, or when they are disturbed by noise and nighttime lights. Land erosion caused by tourists is frequent due to the fact that tourists are trekking the same path so frequently that parts of the natural landscape erodes.
Impact On Animals
In just about every place that you travel to you can always expect to see some form of animal exploitation, such as in Thailand and India. Activities such as riding elephants, taking pictures with tigers, visiting zoos, and oceanariums might seem like a lot of fun and many people that participate in these activities are under the assumption that wild animals enjoy performing for humans. Unfortunately, these animals undergo severe physical and psychological mistreatment and are often times medicated in order to become docile.
Impact On Solid Waste & Littering
During the high season and in destinations that get a lot of visits from tourists, improper disposal of waste leads to serious natural environmental issues. Cruise ships in the Caribbean are estimated to produce more than 70,000 tons of waste each year. Many countries that rely heavily on tourists or those that are considered “developing nations” don’t have strict law enrichments on sewage disposal as they do in the United States and Canada. This results in the seas, lakes, and rivers being polluted by wastewater. This threatens not only the health of humans, both locals and tourists, but the surrounding animals and marine life.
How Can You Become A Sustainable Traveler?
There are many different ways that you can become a more sustainable traveler. These are things that you can slowly implement into your travel lifestyle to ensure that you are assisting with making a positive impact on the places that you are visiting.
- Take direct flights as often as possible as opposed to flights with layovers. Each year people take a total of 32 million flights which produces 781 million tons of carbon!
- Frequent sustainable hotels and other forms of accommodation types. Accommodations that are focused on any of the 3 pillars of sustainability are those that you should support. When I traveled to Cartagena, I had the opportunity to stay at Townhouse Boutique Hotel and Blue Apple Beach. Both are sustainable hotels that are hyper-focused on meeting the qualifications of the three pillars and are examples to the rest of the hospitality community within Cartagena on what it means to serve your community and the environment all while being able to make profits.
- Participate in responsible wildlife tourism. Tours that promise up-close encounters with wildlife are tours that you want to stay away from. Although it isn’t absolute, many tours that offer this are participating in inhumane and unethical practices in order for the wildlife that you are encountering to become submissive and docile towards you. Look for tours that don’t disturb wildlife and promote a safe distance between you and the wildlife.
- Patronize local vendors, restaurants, and food markets. Shopping locally while traveling as opposed to large chains is the best way to ensure that your dollars will be going towards the community that you’re visiting. When you support local shops, restaurants, food markets, etc., the people that you purchased your products or services from are able to circulate the money within their own community. This assists them with day-to-day expenses, caring for their family, as well as being able to provide their children with a quality education.
- Pack eco-friendly essentials. Packing reusable water bottles, storage bags & containers, reusable straws, non-toxic sunscreen, and etc., are all ways that you can cut down on waste when it comes to traveling.
SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL!! Most aren’t aware of the negative impact that travel can have especially when visiting places that don’t have the economic infrastructure to host a high number of fluctuating tourists. Macro changes happen when when we all choose to implement changes to our lifestyle.
