Responsible Tourism

Responsible Tourism is about traveling in a way that respects the environment, supports local communities, and fosters cross-cultural understanding. It differs from Sustainable Tourism in that it holds individuals accountable for their impact on society and the environment. Responsible Tourism has many benefits, such as supporting local businesses and boosting the economy. Tourists can apply Responsible Tourism by buying from local businesses, avoiding overtourism, and minimizing waste. The industry also plays a role in responsible tourism by creating opportunities for locals, protecting the environment, and respecting cultural heritage. It is important for individuals to spread awareness and apply responsible tourism principles in real life. Hello dear listeners, this is Zumra. I am an 8th grader in D'ArcelorMittal National Academy, and in today's podcast episode I will be talking about Responsible Tourism, its benefits, and more. Without any further ado, let's get started. To start from the very beginning, what is Responsible Tourism? Basically, Responsible Tourism is all about traveling in a way that respects the environment, supports local communities' cultural significance, and fosters the appreciation and understanding of cross-culture. It recognizes the interaction and interconnectedness of people, prosperity, and the planet. Moreover, it seeks to create positive and lasting impacts for future tourist generations. First of all, to get things straight in the beginning, let's look at the differences between Responsible and Sustainable Tourism, since the two can be mixed a lot. Responsible Tourism and Sustainable Tourism are like two different sides of one coin. The purpose of both is the same, to minimize the negative impacts of traveling to another place. However, the thing that differentiates them is their target audience. Sustainable Tourism targets companies and organizations to take responsibility for their actions and their impact on the environment. In contrast, Responsible Tourism holds individuals accountable for their choices and impact on the society and the environment. The first thing that we will look at in this episode is benefits of Responsible Tourism. As I have briefly explained already, Responsible Tourism is a way of traveling that is more focused on the positive impacts over the negative ones, and a way of traveling where you do your best to minimize the negative impacts. So obviously, this has a lot of benefits to the holiday destination in various ways. These can be to the environment, to the local community slash businesses, and lastly, to the economy or socio-economy of the destination. Responsible Tourism will help local businesses when tourists buy from a local rather than an internationally known brand. For instance, in Mauritius, where 1 in 8 people's income depends on tourism, which is why it is very important for tourists to buy from the locals there and support them. However, tourists supporting the local community is not only helpful for the locals, but for the growth of the economy and the growth of the country as well. When it comes to applying Responsible Tourism in real life, there is actually a ton that the tourists can do to do so. In fact, none of those things that they can do to help require more money, more energy, or more time. Out of all that can be done by the tourists, I chose three. I think this is one of the easiest ways of applying Responsible Tourism in real life, because buying your souvenirs from the locals compared to buying things from internationally known brands is basically being Responsible Tourist. And not only that, but buying from the local businesses can provide you with a larger number of choices that you can buy, as well as more unique things, since they will be a part of the culture of the place you are visiting. Being a Responsible Tourist is attempting to help communities rather than harming them. Tourism is often quite beneficial. It may assist to grow economies, particularly in small areas, create jobs, promote conservation, and boost the restoration and preservation of historic places. Overtourism occurs when the beneficial benefits of tourism outweigh the bad ones, which has grown more apparent in recent years as tourism has become more accessible. When tourism becomes unsustainable in a location, problems begin to emerge that may influence the local life, the culture, the environment, the animals, and other factors in the country. Reducing your contribution to overtourism is an excellent approach to travel ethically. Here are a few ways to do it. Avoid mainstream or iconic places. Practice second-city tourism. Travel in small groups. Travel off-season. Believe me or not, avoiding mainstream or iconic places is an excellent way of avoiding contribution to overtourism, because when you basically go to less populated attractions in a country rather than a highly populated attraction in a country, you basically help to balance the population and different attractions in one country, which is basically avoiding your contribution to overtourism. Minimize waste and recycle. This last one we will be talking about is something we should all do, no matter where we are, especially during our holiday trips. And the reason why is that mainly in hotels, there are a ton of one-use products provided to the guests, mostly plastic products such as water bottles, toothbrushes, small bottles of shampoo, conditioner, etc. All of these small little products can produce over 300,000 tons of waste every single year, just from hotels and restaurants. But the solution is easy. Few of the solutions that can be done is to bring your own toiletries and toothbrush. This way, you won't need to use the tiny bottles of shampoo, lotion, and other toiletries that are offered. Or it could be to avoid drinking plastic bottles of water that is provided. Instead, bring your own metal water bottles. Another way could be to hang up your towels to reuse rather than replace them daily. Believe me or not, this will save a lot of water. Few of the other ways could be to turn off lights, air conditioning, television, and other appliances when you leave your room. Last way could be to leave the Do Not Disturb sign on your hotel doorknob so that the hotel staff know not to wash linens and towels every single day. The last thing we will be discussing in this episode is the industry's role in responsible tourism, as they have a huge impact on the tourism of a country. But just to mention, considering the definitions of responsible tourism and sustainable tourism we talked about earlier in this episode, I think industry's responsibilities stand closer to sustainable tourism rather than responsible tourism. Anyway, looking from a perspective of minimizing the negative impacts of tourism and increasing the positive ones, I think industry's main responsibility is making sure that there is space for the local people to improve, not only for the local businesses such as souvenir shops, but for the local unemployed as well. Responsible tourism is about making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit. So, it requires for the hoteliers to have space for the local unemployed workers to work in, for the big trading companies to leave space for the small businesses to grow, moreover encourage and help small businesses to develop, for the hotels, restaurants, or any other companies to respect and pay attention to the environmental interest, to keep a clean nature for the future world, for the industries to protect cultural heritage, and last but not least, for any kind of industry to respect the rights and dignity of the local people. It is very important for every single individual to spread awareness on this and actually apply it in real life as it benefits not only one side but to everyone. With that being said, it is the end of a lovely episode about responsible tourism. Thank you so much for listening and goodbye! Thank you for watching!