Sustainable Tourism

In this essay, PATA and United Nations, an international and supranational organisation respectively, will be evaluated on their roles, responsibilities and on how they implement sustainable tourism planning and policies, how the destination is affected from the intervention of these organizations and how effective the impact was. Besides that, the involvement in tourism at international level and the three aspects of sustainable tourism will be discussed as well.

Tourism is a vital role for national development, therefore leading to the intervention of international organizations to expand the tourism industry nationally or internally by developing the social and natural environment. On international level, efforts are more focused on marketing

Ensuring that economic benefits are secured whilst costs are incurred is an important principle of sustainable development. Thus, economic policies are implemented to maximize the contribution of tourism to the economic prosperity of the host destination, including the proportion of visitors spending locally (UNEP and WTO, 2005, pg. ). The social aspect refers to the overall development of the entire community, with social and mutual understandings being the major assets. Policies regarding social equity should aim to help disadvantaged people by benefitting them in the economic and social aspect. Poverty issues is an aim that is prominently important in international declarations and related agendas for sustainable development, hence being the main focus (UNEP and WTO, 2005, pg. ). Lastly, it is necessary to “maintain the environmental sustainability not only for a tourism purpose as it is also an essential element for people and other living organisms” (Thapa M. D., 2012, pg. ). Environmental policies are implemented to prevent loss natural habitats and environments where even low number of visitors can threaten

The organization combines the expertise and experience of the public and private sectors to increases the growth, value and quality of travel and tourism and to form the strong partnership agency it is today. From this, we can see that PATA’s positioning is strong enough to be able to speak on behalf of its members’ interests. Besides acting as a catalyst for the responsible development of travel and tourism as well as marketing efforts for the region, the organization also takes a lead role in sustainability by focusing on conservation and taking on tourism industry issues. PATA believes that for the tourism industry to thrive for generations, all activities should be conducted in the most holistically socially responsible and sustainable way possible. In 2016, PATA signed an agreement with the South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) with the aim to enhance the promotion of sustainable tourism across destinations in the Pacific Island. With this agreement, PATA has granted special access to SPTO the utilise the Association’s online data platform known as PATAmPower, giving access to Asia Pacific’s visitor economy and arrivals. In return, the SPTO encourages destinations to provide relevant statistics for PATA’s Strategic Intelligence Centre to provide analysis of trends in order to give accurate,