sustainable tourism

FYI – transient travels has moved to a new url, transienttravels.com and this post can also be viewed here: http://transienttravels.com/?p=98

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In a recent article in Forbes, “World’s Most Endangered Coastlines,” Rebecca Ruiz pointed out that according to the Travel Industry Association, beach tourism accounts for 9% of domestic trips in the U.S. and although The United Nations World Tourism Organization does not track coastal tourism spending, its research has shown that the world’s most popular destinations are coastal countries such as Spain, Italy and Mexico.

So what if some of the most popular tourist destinations disappeared?

Ruiz went to on to write that environmentally harmful circumstances such as climate change and overfishing will largely impact a billion-dollar tourism industry. I was only going to post a few photos of the world’s most endangered coastlines (shown below), which were posted alongside the article last week, but they were all so beautiful I couldn’t decide on just a few.

[Taken from Forbes.com – In Pictures: World’s Most Endangered Coastlines: Gulf of Maine]

[Taken from Forbes.com – In Pictures: World’s Most Endangered Coastlines: Pacific Northwest]

[Taken from Forbes.com – In Pictures: World’s Most Endangered Coastlines: Eastern Philippines]

[Taken from Forbes.com – In Pictures: World’s Most Endangered Coastlines: North Sea]

[Taken from Forbes.com – In Pictures: World’s Most Endangered Coastlines: Central Chile]

[Taken from Forbes.com – In Pictures: World’s Most Endangered Coastlines: Mallorca, Spain]

[Taken from Forbes.com – In Pictures: World’s Most Endangered Coastlines: Caribbean Islands]

[Taken from Forbes.com – In Pictures: World’s Most Endangerd Coastlines: Phuket, Thailand]

What is being done to prevent some of the most beautiful desinations from deteriorating?

As defined on their web site, “Sustainable tourism in its purest sense, is an industry which attempts to make a low impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate income, employment, and the conservation of local ecosystems. It is responsible tourism that is both ecologically and culturally sensitive.”

So what options do we as tourists have to combat the impending destruction? To start, The Ecotravel Center, The Eco-source and The Tourism Futures are great resources that can also be found at the Sustainable tourism site. Businesses heavily impacted by tourism are making efforts to be more sustainable, and we can go out of our way to search for such businesses and take advantage of them. I know that certain hotels and transportation companies are also becoming “greener,” but I would also like to learn of other businesses taking responsibility.