Relevance of Impact Studies on the Environmental Impacts of Tourism and Sustainability: A Review and Analysis

Introduction

The science of ecology is increasingly being applied to different environmental problems. Among these, environmental management is a subject of great concern with a rapid increase in the nature of problems and their complexities (Sherbinin et al., 2007). Among one of these, the relation of tourism and the environment is of great concern in recent times. Tourism, a global industry has involved hundreds of millions of people in international as well as domestic travel each year (WTTC, 2015). According to the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in 2014, the tourism sector, in terms of international tourist arrivals recorded a high of 1133 million arrivals worldwide (UNWTO, 2015). The international tourist receipts are the earnings generated in destination countries from the expenditures on accommodation, food and drink, local transport, entertainment, shopping and other goods and services (Habibullah et al., 2016). According to UNWTO 2015, the Asia Pacific region constitutes 263.3 million numbers of the tourist arrival in 2014 and recorded 4 per cent growth in International tourist receipts. Africa and the Middle East also recorded +2 per cent and +3 per cent growth respectively in international tourist arrival from 2013 to 2014 being developing countries (UNWTO, 2015). The relationship between the environment and the tourism is a very close one and connected to the impacts on economy and in particular to environment (Habibullah et al., 2016) and threat on biodiversity conservation (UNEP, 2013; Christ et al., 2003). Rapid tourism development adversely impacts and negatively transforms not only natural areas like forests, marine environment, wetlands, wildlife, etc but also transforms negatively behavioral pattern of local communities and their perception towards tourism development (Sharma et al., 2016; Du Plessis et al., 2013), World Heritage Sites and archeological important sites (Leong, et al., 2017). Even before the Rio- Summit in 1992 and the signing of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the importance of the interrelationship between the tourism and biodiversity had been realized. In the last decade noted that tourism depends ultimately upon the environment, as it is the major tourist attraction itself, or is the context in which tourism activity takes place (Barros, et al., 2015; Buckley, 2012; Scherrer et al., 2011; Holden, 2000). Researches pertaining to the physical environmental impacts mainly observed and recorded environmental changes occurring in recreational areas has been increased in recent years (Gonson et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2017; Lee & Hsieh, 2016; Ballantyne & Pickering, 2015; Huhta & Sulkova, 2014). The mass tourism is one of the main causative phenomenon for biodiversity loss (Musoro et al., 2017; Gladstone et al., 2013; UNEP 2002). Research and reports on the environmental impacts of the tourism illustrated the fact that: “A high-quality environment is essential for tourism while the quality of the environment is threatened by tourists’ development itself…..because of its economic importance” (Leong et al., 2017; OECD 1980). Thus, on the one hand, environmental resources provide one of the necessary “ingredients,” a critical production factor, for the production of the tourist product: the natural and man- made a setting for the tourist to enjoy, live in, and relax. On the other hand, tourism produces a variety of unwanted by-products, disposed of, intentionally and unintentionally, to and modify the environment; the case of the negative environmental externalities (Banday & Ismail, 2017; Mejia & Brandt, 2017; Sun, 2016; Meleddu & Pulina, 2015; Briassoulis, 1992). In many regions of the world, tourism now represents a major threat to the environmental integrity of host regions, and hence constitutes a major management problem to be faced (Dong et al., 2015; Kaján, 2014; Kasprzak, 2011; Edgar et al., 2010; Finkl & Charlier 2003; Reading et al., 1994; Butler, 1991) by those responsible for the management and policy implementations. In a broad view, environment in relation to the tourism area encompasses the full range of elements of an area, including human as well as physical factors.