Lecture : Drs. Usmar Salam, MIS
Nama: Nur Rahman Satria Perdana (07/254626/SP/22338)
Jurusan: Ilmu Hubungan Internasional
Mata Kuliah: Pariwisata Hubungan Internasional (PARHI)
Tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world. It is an increasingly important source of income, employment and wealth in many countries. However, its rapid expansion has also had detrimental environmental (and socio-cultural) impact in many regions. In this paper, I examine the main economic benefits and environmental impact of tourism, and review the development of the international sustainable tourism agenda. While much of international tourism activity takes place within the developed world, this paper will focus on the (economic) development of the industry in developing countries. I conclude that new approaches to sustainable tourism development in these countries should not only seek to minimize local environmental impact, but also give greater priority to community participation and poverty reduction. I argue, in particular, that more emphasis should be given to a 'pro-poor tourism' approach at both national and international levels.
Tourism can be considered one of the most remarkable socio-economic phenomena of the twentieth century. From an activity “enjoyed by only a small group of relatively well-off people” during the first half of the last century, it gradually became a mass phenomenon during the post-World War II period, particularly from the 1970s onwards. It now reaches an increasingly larger number of people throughout the world and can be considered a vital dimension of global integration.
Although domestic tourism currently accounts for approximately 80% of all tourist activity (UN, 1999a), many countries tend to give priority to international tourism because, while the former basically involves a regional redistribution of national income, the latter has now become the world’s largest source of foreign exchange receipts. According to the latest figures compiled by the World Tourism Organization (WTO), foreign exchange earnings from international tourism reached a peak of US$ 476 billion in 2000, which was larger than the export value of petroleum products, motor vehicles, telecommunications equipment or any other single category of product or service (WTO, 2001).
International tourist arrivals grew at an annual average rate of 4.3% during the 1990s, despite major international political and economic crises, such as the Gulf War and the Asian financial crisis. According to the latest WTO figures, the turn of the millennium recorded one of the most impressive annual growth rates in international tourism. As table 1 shows, all regions of the world recorded significant growth in international tourism in 2000, during which the number of international arrivals grew at an extraordinary rate of nearly 7% to reach almost 700 million arrivals.
The September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, however, appear to have had a more serious impact on the tourist sector than any other major international crisis in recent decades. The attacks had a particularly severe impact on air transport, business travel and long-haul travel. Worldwide travel reservations were estimated to have dropped by 15% at the end of October 2001, although not every destination nor every part of the tourism sector was badly affected (see WTO, 2001c). For example, while air transport and luxury hotels have suffered from considerable fall in demand , travel within the same country or region, as well as travel by rail and road, appear to have weathered the worst effects of the crisis, or even benefited from it.
Nevertheless, initial forecasts of 3-4% rise in international tourist arrivals for 2001, made before the September 2001 attacks, were subsequently revised downwards to around a 1% increase over the 2000 figures (WTO, 2001). The latest WTO (2002) data show that there was an actual decline of 0.6% in international arrivals, to a total of 693 million, in 2001. Given that the northern hemisphere summer holiday season was coming to end by the time the attacks took place, this significant drop confirms that the short-term impacts of the attacks were devastating to international tourism as a whole. The last four months of 2001, in fact, recorded a drop of almost 9% in arrivals worldwide and substantial decreases in all regions of the world.
It is worth noting, however, that this considerable fall in international arrivals was caused not only by a widespread fear of traveling generated by the attacks—particularly in airplanes and to certain destinations—but also by a downturn in the world economy. The economic downturn that began in the United States during the first half of 2001 had already been affecting the tourism sector before the terrorist attacks were carried out. The attacks aggravated the economic slowdown already under way. The expected recovery in world tourism in the near future will thus depend on the evolution of the world economy, amongst other factors, including the possibility of further terrorist acts or regional conflicts. Some destinations will in any case experience a prolonged decline in tourism revenues—regardless of any world economic improvements—for various reasons, including proximity to areas of regional conflict.
In the medium and long term, however, international tourism is expected to resume its rapid growth, in view of rising living standards and discretionary incomes, falling real costs of travel, expansion and improvement of various transport modes, increasing amounts of free time and other factors. This helps to explain why WTO (2001) has reiterated its long-term forecasts, made before the September 2001 attacks, of an average annual growth rate in international arrivals of over 4% in the period up to 2020. The number of international arrivals is thus expected to reach the striking mark of 1 billion by 2010 and 1.6 billion by 2020.
While tourism provides considerable economic benefits for many countries, regions and communities, its rapid expansion can also be responsible for adverse environmental, as well as socio-cultural, impact. Natural resource depletion and environmental degradation associated with tourism activities pose severe problems to many tourism-rich regions. The fact that most tourists chose to maintain their relatively high patterns of consumption (and waste generation) when they reach their destinations can be a particularly serious problem for developing countries and regions without the appropriate means for protecting their natural resources and local ecosystems from the pressures of mass tourism.
The two main areas of environmental impact of tourism are: pressure on natural resources and damage to ecosystems. Furthermore, it is now widely recognized not only that uncontrolled tourism expansion is likely to lead to environmental degradation, but also that environmental degradation, in turn, poses a serious threat to tourism activities.
It is not easy to Indonesia as a developing country to gain economic benefit from tourism development, because of limited funding, the geographical position, and the quality of human resources. In an international context, Indonesia achieves only a relatively low number of tourists coming from its neighboring countries. This is probably due to a very small chance to promote the short-vacation market due to the geographical location of Indonesia, which is relatively far from a potential market such as the European Union or Japan. Further, a low quality of the human resources involved in the tourism industry in Indonesia and various changes in the national tourism development such as uncertainty policies causes negative impacts and consequently results in a low performance in their tourism development. It can be said that the main indicator of low tourism performance in Indonesia might have contributed to the fact that Indonesia has failed to increase tourist visit quota in the last decade. Regarding that, the government nowadays was put forward that in the future the orientation of the national tourism development would focus tourism development based on nature and culture.
The Indonesian government believes those natural and cultural are the potential tourism assets that could bring benefits to the local people and the country, if the proper roles of government prepare designated regions for tourists by good planning, minimizing the harmful influences of tourists and protecting the local culture and way-of-life. This has been adopted as the template for tourism planning and development throughout the country, which consist of around 400 autonomous regencies that want to gain economic benefit from tourism sector.
Furthermore the national government realized both the potential and pitfalls of tourism as an engine of economic and social development for Indonesia. To avoid the negative effects of unregulated and uncontrolled growth, a national master plan for sustainable tourism development for the entire country was mapped out, supported by international agencies such as UNDF UNESCO, WTO, and ILO working closely with the appropriate government departments. Moreover, provincial master plans for tourism development that assess tourism’s social, economic, cultural and environmental impacts in detail and guide its growth also have been produced for selected provinces.
Tourism has been Hawaii’s largest economic sector since the early 1960s (Hawai‘i Tourism Authority 2005). As growth slowed in the 1990s, policymakers began to look toward niche markets, including ecotourism, for continued growth. The Hawai‘i Ecotourism Association (HEA) was formed as an outcome of the statewide Conference on Ecotourism held in Waikiki in October 1994. The conference planning committee members continued to meet throughout 1995 to form HEA and quickly signed on over 100 members. In 2001, HEA obtained a grant from the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority (HTA) to develop a certification program entitled Hawai‘i Pono. The effort did not produce a program, because HEA members could not agree on the process or content for such a program. Then, the events of September 11, 2001 had a considerable negative impact on the tourism sector and shifted focus away from development of niche markets toward maintenance of the existing market. HEA members likewise struggled to keep their businesses profitable, and by 2007 membership had dwindled to half of its peak.
In spite of the state’s focus on mass tourism in recent years, some work has been done to develop a clearer understanding of sustainable tourism and ecotourism by policymakers. HTA defines sustainable tourism as maximizing “social and economic benefits to Hawaii’s communities and businesses while respecting, nourishing, preserving and enhancing Hawaii’s natural, cultural and human assets” (HTA 2005), while the Hawai‘i Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBEDT) describes sustainable tourism as “managing tourism so as to sustain the environmental and social vibrancy of Hawai‘i for the people of our state” (DBEDT2005). Clearly, the definitions used by these agencies are not the same, which presents challenges as the policymakers behind Sustainability 2050 strive to make the state more sustainable. At the same time, HTA (2005) also proposed the following definition for ecotourism: Ecotourism in Hawai‘i is an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable activity that responsibly and authentically connects visitors with Hawaii’s natural and cultural landscapes, resulting in beneficial exchanges among these landscapes, the host community, and the visitor.
Tourism can be considered one of the most remarkable socio-economic phenomena of the twentieth century. From an activity “enjoyed by only a small group of relatively well-off people” during the first half of the last century, it gradually became a mass phenomenon during the post-World War II period, particularly from the 1970s onwards. It now reaches an increasingly larger number of people throughout the world and can be considered a vital dimension of global integration.
Although domestic tourism currently accounts for approximately 80% of all tourist activity (UN, 1999a), many countries tend to give priority to international tourism because, while the former basically involves a regional redistribution of national income, the latter has now become the world’s largest source of foreign exchange receipts. According to the latest figures compiled by the World Tourism Organization (WTO), foreign exchange earnings from international tourism reached a peak of US$ 476 billion in 2000, which was larger than the export value of petroleum products, motor vehicles, telecommunications equipment or any other single category of product or service (WTO, 2001).
International tourist arrivals grew at an annual average rate of 4.3% during the 1990s, despite major international political and economic crises, such as the Gulf War and the Asian financial crisis. According to the latest WTO figures, the turn of the millennium recorded one of the most impressive annual growth rates in international tourism. As table 1 shows, all regions of the world recorded significant growth in international tourism in 2000, during which the number of international arrivals grew at an extraordinary rate of nearly 7% to reach almost 700 million arrivals.
The September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, however, appear to have had a more serious impact on the tourist sector than any other major international crisis in recent decades. The attacks had a particularly severe impact on air transport, business travel and long-haul travel. Worldwide travel reservations were estimated to have dropped by 15% at the end of October 2001, although not every destination nor every part of the tourism sector was badly affected (see WTO, 2001c). For example, while air transport and luxury hotels have suffered from considerable fall in demand , travel within the same country or region, as well as travel by rail and road, appear to have weathered the worst effects of the crisis, or even benefited from it.
Nevertheless, initial forecasts of 3-4% rise in international tourist arrivals for 2001, made before the September 2001 attacks, were subsequently revised downwards to around a 1% increase over the 2000 figures (WTO, 2001). The latest WTO (2002) data show that there was an actual decline of 0.6% in international arrivals, to a total of 693 million, in 2001. Given that the northern hemisphere summer holiday season was coming to end by the time the attacks took place, this significant drop confirms that the short-term impacts of the attacks were devastating to international tourism as a whole. The last four months of 2001, in fact, recorded a drop of almost 9% in arrivals worldwide and substantial decreases in all regions of the world.
It is worth noting, however, that this considerable fall in international arrivals was caused not only by a widespread fear of traveling generated by the attacks—particularly in airplanes and to certain destinations—but also by a downturn in the world economy. The economic downturn that began in the United States during the first half of 2001 had already been affecting the tourism sector before the terrorist attacks were carried out. The attacks aggravated the economic slowdown already under way. The expected recovery in world tourism in the near future will thus depend on the evolution of the world economy, amongst other factors, including the possibility of further terrorist acts or regional conflicts. Some destinations will in any case experience a prolonged decline in tourism revenues—regardless of any world economic improvements—for various reasons, including proximity to areas of regional conflict.
In the medium and long term, however, international tourism is expected to resume its rapid growth, in view of rising living standards and discretionary incomes, falling real costs of travel, expansion and improvement of various transport modes, increasing amounts of free time and other factors. This helps to explain why WTO (2001) has reiterated its long-term forecasts, made before the September 2001 attacks, of an average annual growth rate in international arrivals of over 4% in the period up to 2020. The number of international arrivals is thus expected to reach the striking mark of 1 billion by 2010 and 1.6 billion by 2020.
While tourism provides considerable economic benefits for many countries, regions and communities, its rapid expansion can also be responsible for adverse environmental, as well as socio-cultural, impact. Natural resource depletion and environmental degradation associated with tourism activities pose severe problems to many tourism-rich regions. The fact that most tourists chose to maintain their relatively high patterns of consumption (and waste generation) when they reach their destinations can be a particularly serious problem for developing countries and regions without the appropriate means for protecting their natural resources and local ecosystems from the pressures of mass tourism.
The two main areas of environmental impact of tourism are: pressure on natural resources and damage to ecosystems. Furthermore, it is now widely recognized not only that uncontrolled tourism expansion is likely to lead to environmental degradation, but also that environmental degradation, in turn, poses a serious threat to tourism activities.
It is not easy to Indonesia as a developing country to gain economic benefit from tourism development, because of limited funding, the geographical position, and the quality of human resources. In an international context, Indonesia achieves only a relatively low number of tourists coming from its neighboring countries. This is probably due to a very small chance to promote the short-vacation market due to the geographical location of Indonesia, which is relatively far from a potential market such as the European Union or Japan. Further, a low quality of the human resources involved in the tourism industry in Indonesia and various changes in the national tourism development such as uncertainty policies causes negative impacts and consequently results in a low performance in their tourism development. It can be said that the main indicator of low tourism performance in Indonesia might have contributed to the fact that Indonesia has failed to increase tourist visit quota in the last decade. Regarding that, the government nowadays was put forward that in the future the orientation of the national tourism development would focus tourism development based on nature and culture.
The Indonesian government believes those natural and cultural are the potential tourism assets that could bring benefits to the local people and the country, if the proper roles of government prepare designated regions for tourists by good planning, minimizing the harmful influences of tourists and protecting the local culture and way-of-life. This has been adopted as the template for tourism planning and development throughout the country, which consist of around 400 autonomous regencies that want to gain economic benefit from tourism sector.
Furthermore the national government realized both the potential and pitfalls of tourism as an engine of economic and social development for Indonesia. To avoid the negative effects of unregulated and uncontrolled growth, a national master plan for sustainable tourism development for the entire country was mapped out, supported by international agencies such as UNDF UNESCO, WTO, and ILO working closely with the appropriate government departments. Moreover, provincial master plans for tourism development that assess tourism’s social, economic, cultural and environmental impacts in detail and guide its growth also have been produced for selected provinces.
Tourism has been Hawaii’s largest economic sector since the early 1960s (Hawai‘i Tourism Authority 2005). As growth slowed in the 1990s, policymakers began to look toward niche markets, including ecotourism, for continued growth. The Hawai‘i Ecotourism Association (HEA) was formed as an outcome of the statewide Conference on Ecotourism held in Waikiki in October 1994. The conference planning committee members continued to meet throughout 1995 to form HEA and quickly signed on over 100 members. In 2001, HEA obtained a grant from the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority (HTA) to develop a certification program entitled Hawai‘i Pono. The effort did not produce a program, because HEA members could not agree on the process or content for such a program. Then, the events of September 11, 2001 had a considerable negative impact on the tourism sector and shifted focus away from development of niche markets toward maintenance of the existing market. HEA members likewise struggled to keep their businesses profitable, and by 2007 membership had dwindled to half of its peak.
In spite of the state’s focus on mass tourism in recent years, some work has been done to develop a clearer understanding of sustainable tourism and ecotourism by policymakers. HTA defines sustainable tourism as maximizing “social and economic benefits to Hawaii’s communities and businesses while respecting, nourishing, preserving and enhancing Hawaii’s natural, cultural and human assets” (HTA 2005), while the Hawai‘i Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBEDT) describes sustainable tourism as “managing tourism so as to sustain the environmental and social vibrancy of Hawai‘i for the people of our state” (DBEDT2005). Clearly, the definitions used by these agencies are not the same, which presents challenges as the policymakers behind Sustainability 2050 strive to make the state more sustainable. At the same time, HTA (2005) also proposed the following definition for ecotourism: Ecotourism in Hawai‘i is an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable activity that responsibly and authentically connects visitors with Hawaii’s natural and cultural landscapes, resulting in beneficial exchanges among these landscapes, the host community, and the visitor.
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