Sustainability Tourism and Socio-Economic Development

Introduction

All the ecological-cultural-social and environmental values of the world, in which we live today, are a common heritage of the whole humanity. It is a common responsibility of the whole humanity to improve and transfer this heritage. With the industrial revolution, our world has dealt with some serious environmental and climate challenges. Even though this situation may seem highly dreadful, it is possible to reverse these negative tendencies and trends (Bruyninckx, 2019). Since our economies depend on fossil fuels and land cultivation practices, the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere increases; and this harms both the climate and the environment, which makes it difficult to pass these values on to the future generations. Our current economies have destroyed habitats and have caused many species to become extinct. Hence, the diversity in life has been lost at an unsustainable rate. Studies have shown that our economies are not sustainable (Kılıç, 2012). Our production models generate high amounts of waste. As a result, the ecology and the environment are damaged in an irreversible way. Moreover, the benefits of economic growth are unfortunately not shared equally all around the world. Even in Europe, where the living standards are considerably above the average, there are communities living below the poverty threshold. Climate and environmental change affect these communities the most. As long as these current trends continue, the future generations will have to experience challenging tests regarding the climate and the environment (Bruyninckx, 2019). On the other hand, sustainability is an environmental reaction to the production models which cause extremely negative effects on the environment, climate and society. From this point of view, sustainable tourism is an approach which serves sustainable development and gives importance to ecology, environment and society. In this respect, sustainable tourism enables us to gain significant ecosystems back, minimise the negative effects and protect the ecological-environmental values we have in a powerful way. In sustainability understanding of tourism; economy, climate, environment and society are inseparable parts of a whole. In this understanding, ecology is not regarded as an element of economy. However, economy is a part of ecology and the sustainability of values which constitute a resource for tourism is the most crucial issue.