Impacts and Sustainability

As a traveler, your choices may have impacts that go beyond what you normally think about when you’re planning a vacation. Providing an understanding of the potential impacts you can have as a traveler is one of the main reasons I created this site. Armed with this knowledge, you can utilize the travel planning strategy guide I’ve provided to be intentional about the types of impacts you want to have as a traveler. It is not always feasible to take trips that leave the destination community better off than when you arrived, so try not to get discouraged by all of these possible impacts. By simply understanding all of the possibilities out there you will already be miles ahead in your thoughts and actions than you were before.

Impacts and sustainability

Sustainability is a huge buzzword these days – leading me to actually dislike the term quite a bit. The problem is – sustainability means something different to everyone.  That can lead to a lot of confusion when people are using the same word but meaning different things. So – for the purpose of this site, let’s say sustainability means using limited available resources wisely so that future generations are not negatively affected by our actions. We have a long way to go to achieve sustainability as humans and as a tourism industry, but at least we are working to get there. By learning about tourism impacts, you can start to implement small changes in your travel habits that can move you toward being a more sustainable traveler. This brings us to what those in the biz call the ‘triple bottom line’ of sustainability – economic impacts, sociocultural impacts, and environmental impacts. We call this the triple bottom line because it is impossible to have sustainability without all three – sustainable tourism needs to be economically viable, socioculturally acceptable, and environmentally sensitive all at once. I’ve written specific sections on economic impacts, sociocultural impacts, and environmental impacts for you to learn more!