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Sustainable Tourism Short Essay

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Sustainable Tourism Short Essay
Running Head: TOURISM IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Ethical implications of tourism in developing countries

Emily McIntyre

3378148

September 26, 2006

TREN 3P12

Sonya Graci

Introduction:

Tourism is instituted in ad hoc fashion, with little regard to appropriate socio-ecological planning. This paper outlines the ethical implications of tourism in terms of the social and political, environmental and economical issues in developing countries. All resolutions for these implications, follow the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (GCET) which is a set of principles whose purpose is to guide stakeholders in tourism development: central and local governments, local communities, the tourism industry and its professionals, as well as visitors both international and local (UNWTO, n.d.).
Background on the industry:

In general, tourism occurs in developing countries, because businesses have adopted a development-oriented perspective. The emphasis is on development (use) in order to reach optimal economic gain by extractive use of resources rather than protection and preservation (Fennell, 2002). There has been a trend in humans, to take on the role of being bad rules, by trying to exploit and dominate for short-term personal gain at any expense (Peterson, 1996). It is a harsh reality that there are a significant lack of resources for effective management of visitors and the environment (Fennell, 2002). Therefore, resource management is a critical issue that needs to be dealt with, and not defined by the primary stakeholder, the industries, but rather shared interests.
Functional management aspects:

Social & Political:

There are many social and political implications as to how tourism operations are run in developing countries. There are many tourism operations that ignore the interests of the local community and do not allow them to partake in the decisions of any



References: Daltabuit, M. & Pi-Sunyer, O. (1990). Tourism development in Quintana Roo, Mexico. Cultural Survival Quarterly, 14(1), 9-13. Fennell, D.A. (2002). Ecotourism Programme Planning. New York, NY: CABI Publishing. Fennell, D.A. & Ebert, K. (2004). Tourism and the Precautionary Principle. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 12(6), 461-479. Gossling, S. (1999). Ecotourism: a means to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem functions? Ecological Economics 29, 303-320. Honey, M. (1999). Ecotourism and Sustainable development: Who Owns Paradise? Washington, DC: Island Press. McKercher, B. (1993). The unrecognized threat to tourism: can tourism survive ‘sustainability’? Tourism Management 14(2), 131-136. Saveriades, A. (2000). Establishing the social tourism carrying capacity for the tourist resorts of the east coast of the Republic of Cyprus. Tourism Management 21, 147-156. Steeles, P. (1993). The economics of eco-tourism. In Focus 9, 7-9. Sweeting, J.E.N., Bruner, A.G. & Rosenfeld, A.B. (1999). The Green Host Effect: An Integrated Approach to Sustainable tourism and Resort Development. Washington, DC: Conservation International UNWTO’s Ethics in Tourism (n.d.)

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