Making tourism sustainable, again

The world has embarked on a new era of globalisation. From food to garments, games to economies, telecom to travel, and culture to knowledge, everything is global today. We are standing on a global platform of international trade propped up by the pillars of technology, integration and cooperation, and undeterred, we are pacing forward for a better tomorrow. This globalization is pragmatic and successful but here the question arises: is it sustainable? This globalisation has also brought considerable harm in its wake, and in case of global tourism, the harms outweigh its benefits.

We are more than a billion on the road right now and the pristine spots which uphold our heritage are showing the strain. There has been a very conspicuous change in the past few years. When the tourists were low in number it was easier to preseve the sanctity of a site and its history. There were fewer or no vendors and shops and the atmosphere of the place was innate and spoke for itself. But these days, they are packed with tourists and shops right from the entrance to the sanctum. And the irony, the meadows of Chahar Baghs and the historic spaces are being modernised for people who come to witness the history. For the local people, these monuments are just a patrimony, inherited to be used as picnic spots. Further, when popular destinations become overcrowded, more people seek places that remain comparatively unspoiled. But pristine wildernesses do not stay pristine for long once they fall on the holiday trail. And that is how this ‘global wanderlust’ leaves behind its carbon footprints.

Tourism has always been the fuel for globalisation; a platform for the exchange of ideas, culture and landmarks. To counter the situation we need a sustainable blueprint of tourism in all socio-economic-environmental spheres; though this very idea increasingly looks like an oxymoron. The main reason is that the tourist trade sustains itself through exploitative interactions, some that are conspicuous and others that are not so obvious. But since the announcement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the concept of sustainable tourism has gripped the imagination of people so rapidly that there is a growing recognition of tourism as a potential path to economic opportunity and environmental protection. Travel and tourism is a trillion dollar industry. Its vast social and environmental footprint also provides enormous opportunity to leverage positive, global-scale change. If the whole industry worked together to adopt more sustainable practices, there is no doubt that it could improve hundreds of millions of lives.

What we need to do today is an ingeniously engineered holistic plan which respects environments, natives and economies, engages local farmers and artisans, capitalises the communal benefits, and does all this without taking any toll on the fragile destinations which ought to be preserved for the coming generations. Stepping into the International year of Sustainable Tourism and Development, 2017 must be the annus mirabilis for the sites that await reinvigoration, care and upkeep.

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