THT2114 Current Sustainability Issues Facing the Tourism Industry Assignment Sample

Sustainable Operations And Destinations

Table of contents

Introduction.

Importance of Tourism for Australian economy.

Effect of disasters and unexpected events.

Sustainable Tourism in Australia.

Conclusion.

References.

Introduction to Sustainable Operations And Destinations

The tourism industry has been drastically affected by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic had a significant impact on the travel industry and has resulted in the imposition of restrictions on traveling leading to reduced demand among the travelers. Most of the countries have been massively affected due to the spread of coronavirus and have introduced travel restrictions to control the spread of the virus. It has been estimated by the United Nations World Tourism Organization that in 2020, there might be a decrease of 20-30% in International tourist arrivals (Wittwer, 2020). Tourism plays a major role in Australia's economy, the country is also at risk of other world events, changes in the environment and there has been a fluctuation in the Australian economy. Due to these factors, it has become difficult for Australia to maintain stability and growth. The report discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the tourism industry and its impact on the Australian economy as a whole. It discusses the enablers and barriers of Tourism as an economic growth driver in Australia. It explores the relationship between natural disasters, man-made disaster events, and unexpected events and tourism (Wittwer, 2020). It analyses the considerations of a tourist destination in Australia to the recovery, reconstruction, and marketing strategies after it has been devastated by an external force. It explains the sustainable tourism and how the tourism industry can generate income and employment without producing negative impacts on the environment.

Importance of Tourism for The Australian Economy

Tourism plays a major role in maintaining Australia's economy. It contributes around $91 billion to the gross domestic product of the country. Along with a major contributor to the GDP of the country, the tourism industry also provides job opportunities to almost 930,000 people (Raisi, Baggio, Barratt-Pugh & Willson, 2020). It is responsible for the economic development of regional Australia and spends 44 cents of every tourism dollar in regional Australia. Australia has become an attraction for people to visit, pursue studies, doing business, and investment (Raisi, Baggio, Barratt-Pugh & Willson, 2020). Many natural attractions act as a competitive advantage for Australia. The private sector is seen as the main driver of the economy in Australia. The Australian government plays the role of an enabler that makes sure the policy settings on immigration, aviation, employment, transport, and the environment of business supports tourism businesses to expand. If the country wants to take complete advantage of growth opportunities, the government must be progressive, must focus on the market, and take actions against the barriers to growth (Raisi, Baggio, Barratt-Pugh & Willson, 2020).

Tourism Multiplier Effect:

The tourism sector not only helps to generate income and employment in the tertiary sector, but it also helps in improvement of primary and secondary industry sectors for their growth and development. This effect is called the Multiplier effect. In simple words, this means that the money of tourists keeps circulating many times through the economy of the country (Shafiullah, Okafor & Khalid, 2019). For instance, the money spent by a tourist at the hotel helps in creating jobs in the hotel as well as creates jobs in other sectors of the economy also. The hotel needs to purchase food from the local farmers, who may be purchasing fertilizers and clothes and spending some money. Hence, the money circulates. There is an increasing demand for souvenirs from the tourists which in turn again increases secondary employment. This effect continues until the money leaks through the import of goods from other countries (Shafiullah, Okafor & Khalid, 2019).

Effect of Disasters and Unexpected Events

The tourism sector is affected by a variety of factors. The occurrence of natural disasters and unexpected events are the main examples of such factors that have a great impact on individuals and society and hence it has a considerable effect on tourism too (Hughes, Stock, Brailsford & Alexander, 2018).

The occurrence of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, bush fires, hurricanes, droughts, and heatwaves is very common (Hughes, Stock, Brailsford & Alexander, 2018). The humans have become familiar with these events and have learned to live with them. However, recently due to major changes in climatic conditions and also because of the increasing complexity of socio-ecological systems in a globalized world, there has been a substantial increase in the impacts of these disasters. The outbreak of COVID-19 has also affected the tourism sector this year (Barua, 2020). It had a major impact on the economy of the country as traveling can lead to the spread of the virus, therefore, there have been restrictions imposed on travel by the government (Barua, 2020).

Most of the disasters affect the individuals, organizations, and communities and hence also lead to a negative impact on tourism activities. Melbourne Tourism is one of the significant industry in the state of Victoria, Australia. The consequences of these disasters are that it affects the tourism of the host country such as Melbourne, but it also has an indirect influence on the tourism sector as it will restrict the travel to and from the affected region.

The devastating bushfire of 2019-2020 in Australia is also one of the vulnerabilities of the country. This had led to impact the tourism of the country as the people’s perceptions regarding Australia being a safe tourist destination are altered (Hughes, Stock, Brailsford & Alexander, 2018).

As the country moved towards improvement after the bushfire disaster, there came another blow for the country- COVID-19, which led to a drastic downfall in the number of tourists and affected the Australian economy to a great extent.

Therefore, it is critical for Australia to plan tourism and build quick recovery to disasters for its economic development. It is also important for the country to mitigate the changes in climate and to prepare and prevent as well as recover from future disasters. The government is currently working on its Tourism 2030 strategy (Char-lee, Becken & Watt, 2016).

The Australian forests and wilderness is an attraction for many tourists but it includes areas which are affected by bush fires. If tourism is not well planned, it can lead to new developments in the areas which are already at high risk and which are exposed to natural hazards.

Urban planning has imposed regulations to minimize the movement of vulnerable people and tourists in high –risk areas (Strydom, Mangope & Henama, 2019).

There has been an introduction of new patterns of use of the building and the occupations accelerated by the sharing economy. These include using residences for the accommodation of tourists which can be booked through sites like Airbnb (Char-lee, Becken & Watt, 2016).

Sustainable Tourism in Australia

There has been a belief regarding tourism that it can never be sustainable as traveling involves a huge amount of fuel, carbon, and resources to be used for domestic as well as international travel (Abascal, Fluker & Jiang, 2016). However, regardless of this, people are not going to stop traveling and the number will keep growing. Only a few places in the world have got away with the rapid growth of the tourism industry. This has become possible at the expense of local economies, natural resources, and local communities. Most of the tourist do not realize that their actions produce a negative impact and there are many tourist destinations such as vulnerable South Pacific islands, who are not well experienced and are unaware of the problems that may occur if tourism is not managed properly (Ruhanen, Moyle & Moyle, 2019).

As the negative effects of tourism are being seen and realized, people are also asking for more responsible holidays and there is a growing need for sustainable tourism. These may include nature-based tourism, ecotourism, and sustainable tourism.

The green hotels such as the Ovolo Nishi in the ACT and the Alto Hotel on Bourke in Melbourne, are making use of environmental policies and the small operators on their site can be seen some extraordinary work which must be applauded and supported by every traveler who is in favor of sustainable tourism and cares about the future of tourism (Carr, Ruhanen & Whitford, 2016).

Sustainable tourism can be defined as tourism which respects both local people and the traveler, the cultural heritage, and the natural environment (Carr, Ruhanen & Whitford, 2016). It aims to reduce the negative impacts produced by tourism and increasing the positive impacts by taking care of the society, the environment as well as the economy (Cheung & Li, 2019).

It is not possible to make tourism completely sustainable; however, sustainable tourism aims to minimize those activities which create negative impact on the society and environment. It is crucial to work towards achieving an overall balance in environmental, socio-cultural, and impacts on the economy (Cheung & Li, 2019). The experiential impact means the effect that visitors have on each other and the socio-cultural impact refers to the effects on local people produced by the visitors. In some places, there have been cases when the locals don't feel like living in their cities because of the impact of tourism.

Sustainable tourism ensures that tourism does not lead to the destruction of the natural environment or local communities. It engages with the local communities in making plans for developments. In responsible tourism, it is ensured that the infrastructure helps to bring improvement in the lives of local people and benefit both local people and tourists (Ruhanen, Moyle & Moyle, 2019).

The city of Melbourne has introduced innovative programs that can help city hotels to save the environment by cutting energy costs, water, and waste management costs. The program aims to provide support, recognition, and suggestions to hotels in the region (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018). This will help the hotels to take the required actions to reduce the consumption of energy and the costs of operating.

Conclusion on Sustainable Operations And Destinations

The report analyzed various factors that affected the tourism industry in Australia. It included the COVID-19 pandemic which is a recent unexpected event that has led to bringing major changes in the tourism policies. Along with it, the country is exposed to several other natural disasters, man-made disasters, and unexpected events that have together affected the tourism industry of Australia. Australia has always been a country preferred by people for spending their vacations, studying, doing business, and more. However, there have been events like bush fire which have led to changing perceptions of people regarding the country and it has become difficult for people to consider it as a safe tourist destination. However, most of the economy of Australia is dependent on the income that the country generates from the tourism industry. There is a multiplier effect leading to the circulation of money spent by tourists in other sectors of the economy until it is finally used for importing products from other countries, Therefore, the tourism sector is crucial for the country and needs to be saved to maintain its GDP and high economic position. To achieve this, the country has taken some steps in the direction of sustainable tourism to save the environment, local communities, and society while generating income for growth and development. The hotels have introduced some policies which help in saving energy costs and operating costs, hence creating a better approach towards sustainability and responsible tourism. The social, environmental, and economic welfare of people and society is taken into account and efforts are being made to minimize negative impacts of tourism and maximize positive impacts while contributing to the generation of income and employment.

References for Sustainable Operations And Destinations

Abascal, T. E., Fluker, M., & Jiang, M. (2016). Domestic demand for Indigenous tourism in Australia: Understanding intention to participate. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 24(8-9), 1350-1368.

Barua, S. (2020). Understanding Coronanomics: The economic implications of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. SSRN Electronic Journal https://doi org/10/ggq92n.

Carr, A., Ruhanen, L., & Whitford, M. (2016). Indigenous peoples and tourism: the challenges and opportunities for sustainable tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 24(8-9), 1067-1079.

Char-lee, J. M., Becken, S., & Watt, M. (2016). Learning through a cluster approach: lessons from the implementation of six Australian tourism business sustainability programs. Journal of Cleaner Production, 111, 348-357.

Cheung, K. S., & Li, L. H. (2019). Understanding visitor–resident relations in overtourism: Developing resilience for sustainable tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 27(8), 1197-1216.

Higgins-Desbiolles, F. (2018). Sustainable tourism: Sustaining tourism or something more?. Tourism management perspectives, 25, 157-160.

Hughes, L., Stock, P., Brailsford, L., & Alexander, D. (2018). Icons at risk: climate change threatening Australian tourism. Icons at risk: climate change threatening Australian tourism.

Raisi, H., Baggio, R., Barratt-Pugh, L., & Willson, G. (2020). A network perspective of knowledge transfer in tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 80, 102817.

Ruhanen, L., Moyle, C. L., & Moyle, B. (2019). New directions in sustainable tourism research. Tourism Review.

Shafiullah, M., Okafor, L. E., & Khalid, U. (2019). Determinants of international tourism demand: Evidence from Australian states and territories. Tourism Economics, 25(2), 274-296.

Strydom, A. J., Mangope, D. J., & Henama, U. S. (2019). A critique of the interface between tourism, sustainable development and sustainable tourism in community-based tourism theory. African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure, 8(5), 1-12.

Wittwer, G. (2020). The 2019-20 Australian Economic Crisis Induced by Bushfires and COVID-19 from the Perspective of Grape and Wine Sectors.

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