The power of the tourist

tourist’s visit, with the visitor becoming closer and feeling an affinity with the places visited. More understanding and a greater appreciation lead to a stronger affinity and this encourages tourists to re-visit, to spend more time in a place and discover more. Naturally, this also leads to the generation of more income.

Interpretation also brings meaning to the cultural resource and gives communities a better understanding of their heritage. And local residents also have an important role as they can contribute to making the experience of a destination more complete.

An affinity with the places we visit comes not only from the experience but also from being aware of the importance of respecting and protecting these places. Tourism does not only bring economic benefits – it also carries a lot of weight from the environmental perspective. This is why more and more stakeholders are pushing for an ecoconscious industry as the only way forward to participate in the protection of an already very fragile world.

The Global Sustainable Tourism Council was established in 2010 to certify and label those involved with the industry such as providers of accommodation and transport companies (including airlines). The idea behind this initiative is that the visitor who is more environmentally aware will participate better in the sustainability of a place they visit, become more engaged with that place and enjoy a more memorable and rewarding visit.

Effectively, the tourist has a lot of power. Tourists can shape the industry into a more sustainable one when they make conscious and responsible choices to travel in an eco-sustainable manner by seeking destinations, hotels and facilities that have been certified as ‘eco-sustainable’.

The need for sustainable tourism is creating a very big market. Proof of this is the fact that, currently, there are more than 60 ecolabels across the world, all pushing for more ecosustainable operations by tourist destinations, all committed to contribute to more sustainable and responsible tourism.

German multinational travel and tourism company TUI is only promoting hotels with ecosustainable certifications. In 2013 it promoted 1,200 hotels with such certifications and 5.8 million visitors stayed in hotels that had acquired independent sustainability certification in 2012 and 2013.

When you have a global tourist operator such as TUI pushing eco-certified tourist destinations, you know where the future of tourism is heading and this should be a wake-up call for many other operators to follow its example.

There are also websites such as Bookdifferent.com, one of the first hotel booking sites to be set up specifically to indicate and promote hotels that adopt green measures, thus providing travellers at the booking stage with the option to travel more sustainably.

Sustainability in tourism is so important that it was one of the four main pillars during the recently completed Heland Project along with the the socioeconomic, cultural and heritage pillars. The Heland Project was a pilot project that took the city of Mdina as its case study, due to its unique and fragile qualities as one of Europe’s smallest cities, and explored ways in which tourism in Mdina could take place in a more sustainable manner.

Another current project is the Fit On Olive Trails project currently being coordinated by 5 Senses Malta. This project takes the village of Żejtun, its rich historical legacy and its cultural link to the production of oliveoil and, through the organisation of an international Żejt iż-Żejtun Half-Marathon, has devised special tourist packages for all those visiting Malta who – apart from running along Żejtun’s olive trail, can also experience the Żejtun itself and its surrounding unbeaten tracks during their holiday.

Whilst tourists need to remains at the very centre of all policies, sustainability depends to a large extent on how tourists decide to travel. The more they seek eco-sustainable ways of experiencing the world around them, the more resources will be invested in delivering eco-sustainable measures. Indeed, the power of the tourist can shape the entire industry.