Importance of sustainability for tourist companies

 

As presented above, the impact of tourism on the world economy is extremely significant. As it is a worldwide phenomenon, tourism has become one of the sectors with the greatest growth. Nonetheless, the scope and magnitude of the sector‘s growth poses several questions about its negative impacts, not only from an economic viewpoint, but also from environmental and sociocultural perspectives. By their nature, the hotel offering in particular and tourism offering in general largely depend on the environmental and cultural resources at the destinations. As the tourist industry offers activities that constantly interact with natural systems, this sector has a great capacity to initiate significant changes in the physical setting (Wahab and Pigram, 1997; Hassan, 2000). By way of example, tourists‘ wishes for isolated and picturesque accommodation lead to an increase in the use of natural areas dedicated to developing resorts and/or tourist complexes.

Owing to the complex structure of tourism and its connection to other activities like trade and transport, it is not easy to generalise its impacts, especially because they depend on a series of interconnected factors like the state of conservation and the particular characteristics of the local environment, the type of tourism and the local community‘s capacity in managing its resources. According to many authors, tourism‘s impact can be fit into one of three areas: economic, sociocultural or environmental (Ayuso and Fullana, 2002). Some of the negative impacts to bear in mind are (Hong, 1985; Wahab and Pigram, 1997; Mowforth and Munt,1998; Ayuso and Fullana, 2002) (Table 4):

 

· Economic: Costs of opportunity stemming from the use of resources for alternative uses, costs derived from fluctuations in tourist demand, possible inflation due to tourist activity, as well as a possible loss of potential economic benefits if the investors are foreign.

· Sociocultural: Change in social values and religious beliefs, changes in the economic structure and the host community‘s social roles, as well as an increase in social problems like violence and prostitution, loss of authenticity in local crafts, and a possible displacement of the local population in favour of tourism development.

· Environmental: Problems related to trash treatment, pollution of waters by discharging wastewaters, sound pollution from tourist transport and activities, air pollution from vehicle emissions, damage to geological structures, damages to buildings from the tourist influx, destruction of natural habitats, change in the diversity of species, changes in migration and reproductive cycles of species, elimination of specific species from hunting and the souvenir trade, damages to vegetation, exhaustion of mineral resources, fossil fuels and supplies of underground water sources, proliferation of fires and the desertification of specific areas, and the alteration of urban and rural landscapes.

 

These changes can be perceived by the main authorities in the corporate arena. On the one hand, by clients, who are gradually altering their attitudes and behaviours, starting to buy products from companies that are more sensitive to the natural and social environment and, on the other, the political-legal context, which is subjected to drastic transformations, aimed primarily at limiting the environmental damage caused by commercial activities (regulatory standards for products and processes) and respect for human rights. All of this is encouraging companies to adopt active and advanced policies of social and environmental management, which have these advantages (Ludevid, 2000): security (risk reduction), quality, savings (profitability), market (attracting new clients), image, ethics and social responsibility, attempt to continue and survive in the future, and business opportunities (management and application of technologies aimed at prevention, mitigation and restoration, to resolve environmental problems). In this regard, a new company concept, broader and not exclusively centred on economic issues, is evolving, along with consumers’ expectations.