Sustainable Tourism in the Republic of Cyprus
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In essence, the model of sustainable tourism has been a guiding principle in which all countries inspire to have. Sustainable tourism consist of eco-tourism, cultural responsible tourism, environmentally, ethical travel and fair trade. The fundamental role of sustainable tourism is to ensure that growth brings in a positive experience for the tourists, tourism companies together with the country economy. Sustainable tourism ensures that tourists enjoy their holiday in addition, taking care of the environment. Borne in mind the environment is mostly damaged by tourists, the role of sustainable tourism is to ensure that the damaging does not occur. Concerning this, many countries have participated towards tourism sustainability. For instance, following the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus that occurred in 1974 that led to loss of tourism infrastructure, this was a heavy wakening of sustainability tourism. This paper is aimed at explaining the critical issue of Sustainable tourism in Republic of Cyprus.
First, in the period of 1974-1981, a period of reconstruction of the Cypriot economy followed the event that occurred in 1974, which greatly attributed to depreciation of economic growth of tourism industry. In 1982-1990, there was substantial development in tourism that gradually had various challenges such as lack of public access to the coastline, increases in the price of land, pollution, overcrowding especially in high seasons, changes of customs and local habits and destruction of village heritage along with decline in rural population. Thirdly, Godfrey towards Sustainability Tourism in the Republic of Cyprus argues that, in June 1989, the country was faced with scale recorded on adverse effects on the tourist book. In response to this, the growing environment, Cypriot ordered moratorium on coastal tourist development giving them time to devise on tourist development. In conjunction with this, various factors contributed to these problems as discussed below.
The first problem include, threat of ecosystems and biodiversity. These include loss of wildlife, rare species, degradation and habitat loss. Research indicates that, this has been contributed by growth of tourism industry, which as a result has led to threat of resource use becoming unsustainable (Altinay, 2005). Degraded environment contributed to increase of cheaper mass tourism, which in return forced the nature based tourism to move to destination that are likely to be more inaccessible and fragile. In conjunction with this, biodiversity plays a major role in maintaining stable ecosystem. When there is sudden change in the Republic of Cyprus, the balance of the community changes, which may lead to destructions. As a result, soil erosion with loss of valuable species occurs.
The environmental problems have been contributed by air pollution, soil pollution and noise pollution. Pollution has harmful effects to non-living things with living things. As a result, this has highly affected the tourism industry in that, An article on Tourism management have shown that, as the population grows, the amount of sewage produced tends to increase (Sharply, R. (2002). Many times, sewage has ended up not treated, thus disposing into seas and rivers. As a result, this has greatly affected the tourist behavior in that many are unlikely to visit again.
Additionally, domestic waste has become hazard in the environment. As the rubbish rots, it releases toxic substances that as a result cause water pollution. This may directly kill species of animals in addition, destroy many habitats. This may occur because the water supply may end up being polluted and as a result affects fresh water. One of the factors contributing to overcrowding is urban problems, which is caused by congestion and heavy traffic jam. Because of population increase, threats of overcrowding have emerged. Habits have been destroyed through building roads, houses, factories and supermarkets. By destroying the habitats, people are gradually reducing the amount of land available for animal and plants. This greatly impact the climate in that as a result of cutting trees, there is no fresh air in addition, no likelihood of heavy rainfall because of deforestation.
Overcrowding leads to beaches becoming packed, traffic congestions offend tourists who would prefer to relax. This becomes worse in cases when the tourist is travelling. As a result, they end up wasting time in their journey which if no traffic jam would be better.
Borne in mind tourism is one of the vital leisure activities in the world, it greatly attributes to environmental problems. Because of overcrowding in urban areas, there are no enough places used to build houses. In this case, when tourists flock together, mangrove swamps, coral reefs and sand dunes are destroyed to get enough cites to build them accommodation.
In the article Tourism management, Saveriades (2002) argues that, since 1990, a number of activities were launched to preserve the natural resources, do away with the damages that had polluted the environment and controlling pollution together with waste management. Other aims were to set up partnerships that were to raise environmental awareness. These actions included development planning at regional, national and local level. Categorization of three vulnerable areas of national parks, increased measures on tourists’ growth within three kilometer of coastline, application and adoption of measures sustainable development of Cyprus along with cultural resources of tourism. Other action were to campaign for alternative forms of tourism development in interior areas, government backing the environmental protection measure, support of media along with awareness of local population.
These measures were to maintain quality life of local population, offer tourists high quality services and products and still securing tourist operators on decent return on their investments. These measures were later divided into six categories. These were planning policies that consisted of national, local level and regional, regulatory procedures that particularly influenced studies, economic measures that were in form of financial incentives to motivate schemes in keeping sustainable development and taxes penalizing activities that were harmful to environment. The fourth category was environmental indicators that emerged from the analysis of information gathered through exchange of experiences, databases and checks. Fifth category was operational networks that included professional and tourist offices and the last category was voluntary schemes, which was comprised of codes of conduct, training sessions, promotional events and exchanges of experiences.
Three recommendations on these actions are required in addressing the critical problems experienced within the Republic of Cyprus. These include a balance between the rights and duties of citizens. A part from having right to poses property there should emphasize on co-responsibility of natural heritage with the natural resources within the environment. The second effective recommendation include providing training in the tourist training professional so that tourist operators may be educated and as result encourage tourists to respect the area they are visiting.
Thirdly, the government and members of the society should support measures that preserve environment. All company, institutions along with people should be controlled on polluting environment. The government should introduce policies to punish those that pollute environment. By doing this, it will reduce cases of pollution and as a result, solve some of environmental problems. Additionally, the government should come up with development tools to offer sustainable solution in addressing climate change along with reducing global production of air pollution.
Individuals should have a personal responsibility in whatever they do. Every person should be responsible in keeping the world a better place so that we can preserve all the natural resources. Having a sustainable lifestyle is the key aspect, which the environment can support without using the valuable natural resources. There should emphasize that promote energy conservation. This would contribute to less energy being used, which as a result implies that, non-renewable resources will last longer thus less pollution caused.
In conclusion, as discussed in this paper, it vital noting that, the basic role for sustainable tourism is to ensure growth which as a result brings in a positive experience for the tourists, tourism companies together with the country economy. Sustainable tourism ensures that, environment is prevented from pollution, soil erosion, overcrowding among others. As a result, the environment becomes safe for the tourists, animals and plants. In essence, sustainable tourism greatly influences the tourists to enjoy their holiday in addition making a country economy to grow. Therefore, it is fundamental for all countries to come up with ways that manage environment, cultural responsible tourism, ethical travel and fair trade. With this in mind, it is worth concluded that sustainable tourism is vital in all essence.
References
Altinay, M. (2005). Sustainable tourism development: a case study of North Cyprus. International. Journal of Contemporary. 17(3) 272-280
Godfrey,B.K. Towards Sustainability Tourism in the Republic of Cyprus. Retrived from: https://mail.google.com/mail/h/h67mwumebr51/?view=att&th=12f48a193daece48&attid =0.3&disp=vah&realattid=f_gmei9i512&zw
Saveriades,A. (2002). Establishing the social tourism carrying capacity for the tourist resorts of the east coast of the Republic of Cyprus. Journal of Tourism management. 21 (2) 147- 156
Sharpley, R. (2002). Rural tourism and the challenge of tourism diversification: the case of Cyprus. Journal of Tourism management. 23 (3) 233-244
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