CTO Sustainable Presentation

While tourism has the potential to reap positive benefits such as increased economic well being, poverty alleviation, the creation of peace and tolerance among peoples, one must realise that tourism is a double-edged sword — it can be a potential blessing and it can be a blight. Many tourism destinations benefit from the flows of tourists and the hard currencies they bring. However, they have not completely avoided some of tourism's negative consequences — prostitution, crime, deviance, environmental degradation, commercialisation of culture and changing societal norms and values. These factors, if left unchecked, will continue to limit the growth of the tourism industry. And not only limit the industry’s growth potential but also limit tourism’s potential to exert positive influences on economies, peoples and cultures.

The negative impacts of tourism – from pollution to prostitution – are not insignificant. We have already seen the ugly head of mass tourism on the ski slopes of Switzerland, the coral life at the Great Barrier Reef, pollution in the rivers of the world such as the Rhine and degradation of ecotourism “hot spots” such as Costa Rica and South Africa.

The good news is that the very same factors that created ‘old tourism’ – mass consumers; new technologies; favourable frame conditions; mass production and old management practices – are themselves changing. Together, these changes are producing a new industry “best practice” and a radically “new tourism”.

In the videos that follow, Dr. Poon will explain what "old tourism" is all about and how it has been evolving onto a "new tourism" scenario and what are the implications for the travel and tourism industry.

Video Part I