TOPIC 1: Demonstrate understanding towards tourism in a green economy

Tourism in the green economy refers to tourism activities that can be maintained, or sustained, indefinitely in their social, economic, cultural, and environmental contexts which is sustainable tourism. Developing tourism sustainably is a big challenge for planners and policy makers. The task becomes all the more difficult in view of the multiple crises being faced by the world currently: recession, climate change, fuel, food and water crisis.

Specific challenges that need to be resolved through the greening of the industry include, (1) energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions;
The growth of energy consumption in travel, transport, accommodation and tourism related activities and the dependency on fossil fuels, increase vulnerability and uncertainty for future business growth and translate into important implications for GHG emissions and climate change.

(2) water consumption;
In tourism and recreation, water used linked to accommodation mostly spent on guest consumption, landscape and property management and laundry activities, and to food service. While water use by tourism, on a global basis, is far less important than agriculture, industry, or urban domestic use, in some countries, as well as regionally, tourism can be the main factor in water consumption.

(3) waste management;
Waste management is another increasing and well recognized challenge in the industry. Every international tourist generates at least 1kg of solid waste per day, and up to 2 kg/person/day. Based on various sources, million international tourists are likely to have generated no less than 4.8 million of solid waste.

(4) loss of biological diversity;
There are many examples where large-scale tourism has had detrimental effects on biodiversity, including coral reefs, coastal wetlands, rainforests, arid and semi-arid ecosystems, mountainous areas.

(5) effective management of cultural heritage;
Management of cultural heritage also includes built heritage which provides sense of place and cultural reference points. Most built heritage attractions were not originally intended for tourist use must be managed to protect them from over-use, misuse and wear and tear from visitor footfall. More broadly, heritage buildings can be at risk from climate change.