Toward Sustainability
Determinants of Mixed Waste Generation within the Accommodation Sector in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife: Pay-As-You-Throw Tariff
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Eugenio Diaz Fariña, Noemi Padron Fumero, Juan José Díaz Hernández
One of the most unsustainable problems of tourism is waste generation. The accommodation sector is one of the main tourist contributors, reaching up to 40% of the total MSW in tourist destinations such as Puerto de la Cruz. Tourism waste generation requires significant financial efforts from local authorities, which are not always adequately reflected in their financial budget. Indeed, tourism firms do not fully contribute to the municipal waste service costs, resulting in cross subsidies within residents and tourism industry. Firstly, we analyze the determinant variables of mixed waste (MW) generation within accommodation sector of Puerto de la Cruz and, secondly, we propose a Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) fee for hotels’ MW generation, thus introducing an incentive scheme for reducing the MW and increasing the recycling rate. For this purpose, we exploit a cross-section with variables that characterize 61 establishments, including variables describing the perception on firm’s waste management policy and door-to-door daily waste collected within a two-month period. Results reveal that the number of beds together with the occupancy rates become the most relevant variable of MW generation. Counterintuitively, the presence of an environmental policy in the establishment causes an increase in the MW generated. Information provided to employees on how to perform a proper internal waste management seems to reduce the amount of MW. In addition, the better managers’ perception of waste policy in the establishment, the lower the amount of waste generated. There is no statistical evidence that hotels generate more waste than apartments.
Tourism and Environment on a Cold Water Island: The Environmental Turn in Prince Edward Island Tourism
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Edward Mac Donald, Alan Mac Eachern
For most island tourism destinations, climate and landscape are the initial catalysts for tourist development. In this era of anthropocentric climate change, typified by global sea level rise and weather extremes, islands are particularly vulnerable. This sharpens the need to understand the historical connection between tourism, environment, and environmental awareness. This case study traces the environmental turn in tourism in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island during the second half of the twentieth century. Although tourism promoters had long marketed the small island’s pastoral landscape and restorative climate as its principal, tourism planners accepted a need for environmental protection beginning in the mid-1960s, as their industry experienced exponential growth. Concurrently, tourism development was harnessed to an ambitious $725 million, federal-provincial “comprehensive development plan,” designed to transform the island’s economy and society. All three faces of “environmental tourism,” the landscape as tourist attraction, threats to the environment from tourism, and threats to tourism from the environment, were subsumed within tourism development policy. Packaging the pastoral (landscape and culture) now meant accommodating concerns about issues such as roadside litter, overcrowding, and inappropriate attractions, testing the limits of state authority over private enterprise. The creative tension between tourism and environment that first crystalized in the 1970s continues to frame the much greater environmental challenges for twenty-first century Island tourism, as the much mediated pastoral landscape morphs in the grip of long-term agricultural trends, erosion threatens coastlines and soil quality, and tourism providers try to reconcile profit and free enterprise with environmental sustainability.
Measuring Sustainable Tourism: Case Study of Jambughoda Wildlife Sanctuary
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tanya Kewalramani
This thesis explores sustainable tourism as a catalyst to safeguard intangible cultural heritage by studying the case of Jambughoda Wildlife Sanctuary, India. This study also scrutinizes the role tourism initiatives play towards achieving the SDGs at the site. However, one cannot study the impact of sustainable development without measuring it which is meaningless without the indicators. To employ an indicator-based approach, indicators need to be developed from the grassroot level with a bottom up approach as each destination has different features. The author has mapped the interrelationship between tourism and cultural-natural heritage. The indicators for this study were devised to measure whether sustainable tourism is serving as a catalyst to safeguard and revive cultural heritage knowledge system and practices with economic, environmental and socio-cultural sustainability. Thus, promoting solidarity economy. To measure the sustainability, a matrix-based indicator system is developed based on participant observation and semi structured interviews. This thesis also explored how the indigenous communities must apply the concept of ploughing back of profits to retain the earnings from tourism towards safeguarding and promotion of their cultural heritage. This study is a fine example of Pareto efficiency as well. The conclusion indicates that institutional leadership is required to steer and delve the communities towards sustainability. The author has identified the tour operators as a key stakeholder and the link between the tourists and local community which makes them the drivers for sustainability and a funnel to implement the policy measures required for sustainability.
Environmentally-friendly Policies and Practices as a Marketing Tool in the Tourism industry: The Case of Hotels' Websites in the Region of Attica, Greece
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Georgia Zouni, Eleni Didaskalou, Dimitrios Georgakellos
Tourism has a big footprint on the environment. Accommodation, as a basic part of tourism supply, has also many environmental impacts like greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, discharge of untreated water, generation of waste, and degradation of land and ecosystems, etc. The environmentally-friendly policies and practices in hotels can contribute to minimizing negative environmental impacts of the tourism industry. The reporting of environmental policies and practices online via hotel companies' websites is increasing nowadays, as sustainable and responsible tourism, and niche travel have grown over the past several years. Thus, the communication of green practices can add value to hotels' reputations, and furthermore, can help hotel businesses to gain a competitive edge. This study aims to analyze the websites of hotel businesses in Athens and the Attica region in Greece. The goal is to provide a snapshot of where the hotel industry is in terms of online environmental reporting and communicating related environmental policies and practices. This study sets a benchmark for the communication of environmental policies by leading hotels, and offers a comprehensive view of environmental tools and practices employed among these hotels. Conclusions of the study can serve as a driving force for hospitality sector to implement an Environmental Management System as a response to the increased worldwide environmental awareness.
