Sustainable Tourism: It’s now or never!

By Maria Athanasopoulou

The great global crisis of Covid19 has totally changed the landscape of tourism worldwide. The way we traveled, but also the way we were professionally active in tourism, has dramatically changed in a period of a few months. There are many who say that the global crisis we are experiencing will change the way we travel. Still others argue that once the right medicine and/or vaccine is found, everything will return very quickly to the pre-Covid crisis19 period.

The big question of course is whether we took some life lessons concerning the way we traveled and the relative consequences. I also wonder if all of us who work in the tourism industry realize that we have a huge opportunity ahead. An opportunity to properly organize the restart of tourism globally. An opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past. An opportunity to try together to do the right thing.

The method to properly restart is one and it is called Sustainable Tourism, in my opinion.

What is Sustainable Tourism?

The UNWTO defines sustainable tourism as: "Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities".

In short, "sustainable tourism seeks to reduce the negative impact of tourism on the environment, society and the economy".

Sustainable Tourism is a very broad concept that includes almost all forms of tourism.  Sustainable Tourism can be the method to offer us the opportunity, when we visit a place as tourists, to leave our positive mark on the environment, society and economy of this place.

"Sustainable tourism is the concept of visiting somewhere as a tourist and trying to make a positive impact on the environment, society, and economy"

Sustainable Tourism for me is a way of life more than a standard business process. Sustainable Tourism will help us become both better professionals and better visitors. Sustainable Tourism is the method that will help us use tourism positively, for our place, our business, our environment, our local economy and our local community.

Let's look at some of the major problems that have arisen in relation to tourism, on a global scale, to date:

Overtourism

We talk about Overtourism when we notice that too many tourists visit a destination. The fact that a tourist destination welcomes more tourists than can handled, creates a number of problems both in terms of the environment and the economy, as well as with the local communities.

Overtourism, however, is also observed in tourism companies such as hotels and travel agencies, which for the sake of profitability undertake to host and serve a bigger number of tourists than they should.

But you will tell me, this is not the meaning of entrepreneurship;?  To constantly increase my profits?  No, that's the meaning of so-called bad entrepreneurship. The point is to win by providing my customers what they need and what they paid for. Providing them beautiful and sustainable places of hospitality, destinations that they will be able to offer comfort, quality food that will create unforgettable experiences, guided tours in which they can comfortably admire the monuments and learn more about them, without being stacked together with thousands of other visitors just to take a quick walk. All the above are problems of Overtourism, that we must face with great concern in the near future.

Additional issues

But even if we did not have Overtourism, in destinations that were just popular or showed increased traffic at certain times of the year, we observed practices that made us thinking: Many people traveled until recently without care about their destinations or if they left a negative imprint there. They traveled with as much luggage as they could, they used means of transportation that simply made it easier for them, without considering the burden of the environment, they did not consider the burden of a place in waste, they did not look a little longer to use environmentally friendly products, they did not care about the local community of the area they were visiting etc.

The above are just some of the problems that have arisen in recent decades. We could discuss for days about negative effects in many tourist destinations across the world. These problems are a common secret. And now is the time to think seriously about how to deal with them.

The States, the destinations, the tourism professionals and the travelers themselves, should be involved in solving the above problems. And for this to happen, everyone must take a specific field of action and corresponding initiatives.

I would not like to speak at all about what the State should do. We all know, but also the Governments themselves, that a modern State should move on, and there are a lot of tools for this movement.

However, I would like to refer to the destinations but also to the tourism entrepreneurs

Tourist Destinations

Now more than ever it is necessary for the representatives of the tourist destinations to seriously study how they can adopt the practices of Sustainable Tourism for the benefit of their place. They should seriously investigate the specific characteristics of their own destination, the problems that have arisen  until today, and possible ways to solve them and find practices to improve the situation.

Associations of professionals

The professionals’ associations in  each destination, also have an important role to play in this. They can record problems through communication with their members, suggest solutions but also educate their members to the practices of Sustainable Tourism

Entrepreneurs

Each individual entrepreneur should be informed about sustainable tourism, trained and choose those methods of Sustainable Tourism that can help his business to stand out in the future!

From Maria Athanasopoulou, founder of the tourism marketing company Respond On Demand, co-founder of the non-profit company Top Tourism, Chairwoman of the World Food Travel Association, Ambassador of Green Destinations and Ambassador in Greece of Evintra. Maria hold a Master Culinary Travel Professional degree and she is also a Sustainable Tourism Marketing expert.