Key Pillars of Sustainable Tourism and Hospitality

Discuss About The Sustainable Management Of Hospitality Enterprises.

The tourism and hospitality industry are makes of the largest industries in the world. The industry has internationally grown from 2013 by 5% which has brought in the revenue collection to 1.087 billion and is expected by 2020 to get to 1.5 billion as predicted by the UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organization, 2013). However, as the tourism population grows, there are more and more strains being experienced in the natural resources as well as consumption patterns, pollution levels as well as the social systems. This among many more contributing reasons, resulted to the development of sustainable tourism. This has overtime become more recognized and there is more buzz happening around it for the tourism operator and the travel agencies as well. This has been done in a bid to create a suitable level ground between the three key pillars; environmental integrity, economic development and social justice (Wojciechowska, 2014).

The article seeks to detail the history behind such developments and the strides that have been taken to ensure sustainable tourism and hospitality. More to that, the three key pillars aim to ensure a long-term sustainability plan for the tourism industry. This doesn’t just look into the environmental aspects of sustainability bit also the social and economic impacts and how that will impact the daily activities and the mannerism employed into conducting the activities that create the dimensional aspect of tourism development in terms of economic, socio-cultural and environmental (Wojciechowska, 2014)l.

For the use of the environment to be achieved optimally, the ecological processes need to be maintained, the natural heritage conserved as well as the biodiversity. This is due to the fact that they make up the sustainable tourism development. There is need for the tourism key players to respect the socio-cultural authenticity of the host communicates as this will conserve their built and living cultural heritage and the traditional values as well. It will also positively contribute to inter-cultural understanding as well as tolerance. This ensures that viable and longtime economic operations are ensured and thus providing socio-economic benefits to all the stake holders and more to that ensuring that the socio-economic benefits are fairly distributed. This results to stable employment and more income earning opportunities and more to that, to ensure that the social services are able to host communities and also help in alleviating poverty (Wojciechowska, 2014).

Conserving Natural Resources for Long-Term Sustainability

There are many forms of tourism activities and products tat are availed and that have contributed to the development of the tourism industry and even greater economy at larger. More to that, they have contributed towards creating demand for services and products for a geo-location, Debates have been held over the definition of small scale activities and this has brought about the conceptualization of agritourism and rural tourism (Patterson, 2016).

Local tourism is quite important to the economic development of a locality and it entails the use of local resources to diversify on the local economic base, rural multifunctional activities and utilization of the benefits to the local populations. Endogenous development is very much looked to the local development and the potential it ha to creating and building a platform for competitiveness from the local resources as well participation. It’s also characterized but the local areas as well as the greater environment through network (Patterson, 2016).

Of key importance is the capacity in building local institutional developments that is able to mobilize the internal resources and also able to navigate through the external forces issues that affect a region. This means that development is important but embedding the development in the region is of greater importance with the only constraints being how to achieve the objectives for the participation of the local actors and development processes (Patterson, 2016).

Tourism has been identified to provide an alternative source of revenue and income opportunities to different persons especially those that marketing up the farm households. The rural development that was experienced between the 1990s contributed to the state of many nation interactions. More to that there is the creation of synergies that a between different activities that are created by tourism. They will happen at different farms but also in different farms than the rural ones. Therefore, the value of the product is generated by an agricultural exert and thus the taxi companies still want to hold on to any penny, then there will be many people refereeing to matters (Brás, 2012).

These various forms of tourism are referred to as agritourism that has increased more and more especially lately but there is still little explored into the facts the agritourism has especially in terms of economic development. This creates loopholes between the evaluation framework. There is the agritourism development and the egfeects that they faced is adreesed recent times and this has evidence frim communication transcripts (Butler, 2016).

Respecting Socio-Cultural Authenticity for Stable Economic Operations

The role of tourism has been taken up as an alternative source of income for many farm households and host especially within the rural development setup. It has also enabled synergies between many different activities that are not only at farm levels but also between the different farms and other rural area activities. The development framework for the rural areas tab t involve increasing the value of the products that are generated by the business agricultural enterprises and this is done through construction of new linkages with the markets that are by on e way of the other disconnected from the farmers. Though there are many different terminologies used to refer to these activities, they are all summed up to a general and more identifiable world, agritourism (Bosworth, 2015).

Overtime, the importance of agritourism has increased but even that being so, there are several implications towards the community are yet to be fully explored. In the 1980s, there was a popular movement that people took to in a bid to gain and live the “Goodlife” as they so often referred to it back then, many were able to do so through rediscovery of the rural areas in the 1980s. This is due o the fact that the rural areas were associative with geometrical dispersion ad sparsely populated areas. More to that, they were associated with agriculture, social and environmental functions and other nature events. The rediscovery led to rising standards of living and also incorporation of motor car ownership especially for the skilled manual workers, higher income groups and even more so the middle classes.  This sort of tourism is rather different from the other trades in the country. Tourism was seen aa a measure to which the country would seek development for the developing countries. This created more market for the goods and services as well as long terms expansion and also avail the opportunity of subemployment (Binns, 2002).

The consumption rate has been the consumption in rural areas and the food taken by the person in charge of the “Goodlife” developed between the 60s and 70s Thus majorly due to rediscovery of the rural areas. This increased on activities that farming and agricultural ocojv. The rural areas pay close attention to family amongst other key speakers. Their discovery was linked to skilled manual workers, higher income groups, sparsely populated areas, agriculture and dispersant. The rediscovery in the agritourism prompted the work bank to make investments in the resorts and tourism projects that saw many regions develop in the 1970s. Tis contributed all the more to the global recognition of tourism especially for the rural communities. This saw recreational centers crop up and more opportunities rise in the expansion and marketing of the outdoor opportunities.

Agritourism and Local Tourism as Alternative Sources of Revenue

Since them, the tourism industry has been growing and even more so the rural tourism that has seen many investors encompass the diversity that the rural setting provides.  By the conception of agritourism, services and activities have been developed in order to attract Victoria island tourist include tours, overnight stays, hiking, and other recreational activities like horse riding. The importance of this is to enable the national and local tourism development in what is referred to as the pro-poor strategy. This can also be achieved through external purposes that see a major replacement of the other economic activities (Barbieri, 2008).

It’s important that the degree of marketing or any other activity in agritourism includes a local market so as to market itself to the investors and other tourist in using the place marketing method. This enables economic growth. Festivals and capitalizations on locally available resources leads to regional economies and positive externality of the growth in tourism and thus increasing in the local services that can be provided and also involving more contribution for the society. This leads to expansion of local leisure spaces and most especially in the peripheral regions as well as the marginalized regions (Barbieri, 2013).

More to that agritourism presents more job opportunities that are friendly to all participants and also those that create inspiration to the students and other aspirants. Additionally, it creates harmonious opportunity to met the tourist demands in terms of service rendering and also the willing local people able to provide those services. This can be seen in the Tuscany and Umbria that proves that the rural tourism and verified foods have manage to provide alternatives to a remote rural area. It also creates more jobs, provides additional incomes, fills in the labor gaps, promotes local cooperative development, empowers the local community and controls exposure of culture especially for the women tat tend to display many profitable skills and more to that it creates a platform for qualifications for successful applicants and a source of income. The benefits of agritourism are more direct and more beneficial to the community in terms of individual earnings, community income and some of the non-financial elements like infrastructure through which the tourism sector earns revenue ether directly or indirectly (Barbieri C., 2015).

Agritourism is a dynamic fuel of tourism that involves coordination and relationships between social practice economic activity and industrial growth. Studies have shown that the services and products offered have better market than any other form of tourism. The research on agritourism may be somewhat lesser but of key importance to any aspiring investor is the nature of contact between the tourist and the agricultural activity, the product availability or not in a working farm and the degree of authenticity in the tourism and hospitality industry.  

• There is the non-working farm that has an indirect relationship to agritourism and is not based on physical connection but rather an imagery connection.
• There is the non-working farm with direct interaction to the agritourism that is based on location of the farm abd conducting of agricultural shows amongst others.
• There is the working farm that has indirect interaction agritourism that includes accommodation like a farm house and other amenities like leisure facilities like tracks for biking’s and even distort attraction like children’s playground.
• There is the working relationship between the working farm directly stages and the agritourism where there is a direct interaction with agriculture and the animals and crops and machinery amongst others. This increases on tourism.
• There is also the working farm with the authentic interaction agritourism where visitors are able to participate fully in the farm form physical investment to participation in the farm tasks(Karampela, 2016).

Job Opportunities and Community Benefits of Agritourism

Agritourism has managed to become one of the most booming industries having more activities and more areas of occupancy and more people involved. It’s a tourism enterprise that provides accommodation, modest tourism services, a wonderful experience and great hospitality. Its linked to many destinations, practices as well as enterprises. The new technology has enabled the tourism to grow and reach a wider audience in terms communication and brand marketing. The professionals in the tourism sector continue to grow and also the dynamics utilized are changing the agritourism (Baldacchino, 2013).

There is site more that can be done especially in the social setting space whereby the scale of operation needs to be defined and also the co-operations of the enterprise at different levels and proportions of the added value also analyses.

Scale

In terms of scale, enterprises avail the agrotourism with a platform for assessing the economic, social and environmental impacts of an area. They need to be considered jointly in order to understand the success of an individual agritourism success and the sale of operations. Being that success is relative, there are many particulates that contributes towards it depending on the viable separate enterprises that supply owners with additional income. The scale can be big or small depending on the range of operations and the success of each (Baldacchino, 2015).

Network.

This is an important element towards enhancing competitiveness in both enterprises and the regions as well especially for the tourism sector. Therefore, there is need for different cooperation to collaborate with service prides abd other entities to make the venture more successful and also promote the industry (Ashley, 2000).

Conclusion

The conceptual framework of agritourism is one that is dependent on area and also other determinants like networking. Therefore, it’s important for any investors to place key importance to mapping of an are and also the scope of activities or operations expected to happen in the enterprise. Being that agritourism is flexible and can be small or big, it presents more opportunities for portable ventures, growth and excelling of not only one enterprise but all agritourism ventures. It also has a bigger impact in the community due to the direct interaction that is often than not applied (Abrham, 2014).

References

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Ashley, C. R. D. &. G. H., 2000. Pro-poor tourism: Putting poverty at the heart of the tourism agenda. ODI: Natural Resource Perspectives, p. 51.

Baldacchino, G., 2013. Island tourism. Routledge, London: Routledge.

Baldacchino, G., 2015. Feeding the rural tourism strategy? Food and notions of place and identity. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, pp. 15(1-2), 223-238.

Barbieri C., X. S. G. A. C. &. R. R. S., 2015. Agritourism, farm visit, or . . . ? A bradning assessment for recreation on fams. Journal of Travel Research, pp. 54 (1), 1-5.

Barbieri, C. &. M. P., 2008. The role of the firm and owner characteristics on the performance of agritourism farms. Sociologia Ruralis, pp. 48(2), 166-183.

Barbieri, C., 2013. Assessing the sustainability of agritourism in the US: A comparison between agritourism and other farm entrepreneurial ventures. Journal of Sustainable , pp. 21(2), 252-270.

Binns, T. &. N. E., 2002. Tourism as a local development strategy in South Africa. The , pp. 168(3), 235-247.

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Brás, J. C. C. &. B. D., 2012. Network analysis and wine routes: The case of the Bairrada wine route. In: N. S. &. E. Laws, ed. Advances in service network analysis. New York: Routledge, pp. 41-61.

Butler, G. &. R. C. M., 2016. Inclusive local tourism development in South Africa: Evidence from Dullstroom.. Local Econom, pp. 264-281.

Karampela, S. K. T. S. I., 2016. Evaluating the impact of agritourism on local development in small islands. Island Stusies Journal, 11(1), pp. 161-176.

Patterson, I., 2016. Special Issue “Sustainable Management in Tourism and Hospitality”. Sustainability Journal, 31 May.p. 5.

Wojciechowska, J., 2014. A summary assessment of the Agritourism Experience in Poland. PASOS: Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural, 12(3), pp. 569-571.