Delivering Sustainable
Tourism
The Challenge
Tourism is the world’s largest industry and is continuing to grow rapidly.
It is also one of the most multinational and complex, bringing together transport,
accommodation, infrastructure, catering, service, finance and more, often across
continents and cultures.
Its potential impact on local, national and regional economies, environment and
society is huge and often disproportionate to any individual project
or business activity. This is partly due to its multi-sectoral nature
and to the interdependence of the businesses involved. In addition,
the continued demand for new destinations and the exposure of existing
destinations to the pressures of mass tourism means that development
/ decommissioning often happens in a rushed manner.
The benefits of Tourism in terms of hard cash, jobs for residents of a community,
raised area profiles and potential inward investment are well documented. However,
this focus on Tourism also raises other issues and questions such as: |
- How much does the local community really benefit?
- What is the cost impact on the local environment in the short term as facilities are constructed?
- What are the long term environmental impacts due to increasing visitor numbers and the resulting implications for traffic and consumed resources
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How We Can Help
Thirdwave can help overcome these challenges. We work with
organisations to formulate strategy, policy and plans, compare
development options, draw up guidelines and tools, and oversee
compliance. In cases of project delivery, Thirdwave regularly
guides the sustainability element of tourism projects on behalf
of the client through working as an implementation partner. |
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Economic benefits - we can help you:
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Identify local skills and resources for inclusion in new activities
- Identify and promote partnerships between local companies
and major players
- Identify where up-skilling will be necessary in advance of
using local workforce
- Find ways of reducing worker churn
- Identify better or less wasteful use of resources.
Environmental benefits - we can help you:
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Design projects that reduce impact on the natural environment
- Propose schemes that design out toxins and pollutants
- Propose schemes that protect biodiversity
- Help ensure negative environmental impacts such as flooding,
deforestation and CO2 emissions are minimised
- Improve the physical and visual relationship between assets
and nature.
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Social benefits - we can help you:
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Adapt traditional skills, methodologies and approaches
as appropriate
- Help an area maintain its sense of ‘place’ and
build its cultural identity
- Help custodians protect and support cultural assets
- Build a positive relationship with the host community.
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Examples of work in Sustainable Tourism by Thirdwave >> |
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