Importance Of Sustainable Development In Tourism

The World Commission on Environment stated in 1987 within the introductory phrase of its report Our Common Future ” A sustainable development policy is the one that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs”( WTO, 2001).) The Earth Summit that took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 defined the sustainable development approach for the first time and then the concept was largely elaborated and mentioned in Agenda 21. The conference adopted the sustainable development elaborated concept and starting with this important moment many governments implemented it as a fundamental policy. The WTO embraced sustainability approach tourism and ever since it has been applying the sustainable

The sustainable development in tourism is highly important since tourism is an activity based on natural, historical, cultural resources. Destroying or degrading the wonderful heritage and the natural environment of an area will lead to a tourism industry failure and to the extinction of the tourism attractions. All the countries must take into serious consideration the conservation of the natural patrimony with all the specific regional, ethnical and cultural traditions and identities unless they want to ruin the national identity and pride. The principle of nature conservation or tourism resources conservation should be adopted as principle to follow by all the residents of an area and by the foreign investors

This principle implies the idea of having clean and not polluted tourism areas, the ones that most tourists look forward to visiting. If any tourism area shows the lack of interest on these specific key points, the bad quality of the environment will finally imply the death of the area. On the contrary a high quality of the environment will have a double impact, on the one hand it will attract more and more tourists that wish an enjoyable time spent there, and, on the other hand it will help the residents to feel more aware of their precious heritage, hence supporting its maintenance and future improvement