PATA urges collective environmental efforts

After the gloomy outcome of the Copenhagen climate change conference, the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has come forward with a need to increase respective efforts to become "greener" by reducing the carbon footprint collectively.
The official opening of the PATA Adventure Travel and Responsible Tourism Conference and Mart 2010 on Tuesday with the theme "New Frontiers, New Opportunity" emphasised the need for collective efforts, identical goals and practices that would generate greater economic benefits for the local people and make businesses run in a sustainable manner.

Adventure travel is getting a huge response from the global community; and to tap the growing market, a real stake of the private sector and the government in long-term sustainability needs to be developed, participants pointed out.

Arzu Rana Deuba, a Constituent Assembly member and Regional Councillor for South and Southeast Asia of the International Union for Conservation of Nature in her presentation "Protecting Our Nature Capital: Challenges and Opportunities for Tourism", urged tourism captains to intensify the fact that the environment, local people and local economies are safeguarded through responsible tourism.

She underscored the need for taking responsibility for their actions and the impacts of their actions more seriously.

According to her, 20 percent of the land in the country has been set aside as conservation areas. "Challenges for adventure travel are still there to broaden the overall perspective regarding the economic value of conservation as it relates to its people and ecosystems," she added.

Kathleen Dragon, chief executive officer and founder of Travel Dragon Inc. and Dragon's Path, U.S.A., in her presentation entitled "Adventure Travel: Pulse of the Adventure Traveller" said that adventure travel that constitutes people, planet and profit needed to be run in an sustainable way.

Thus, with the growing demand of the industry and being a driver of economic development -- a life system for the non-urban areas, propping up multiple industries -- it should be realised that responsible tourism is the right thing to do, she said.

According to her, customers travelling outbound from North America, Europe and Latin America who are doing adventure travel are spending around US$ 50 billion every year.

Peter Burrell, managing director, Exodus Travel Ltd., U.K., said that customer's demand for environmental, ethical and adventure holidays had increased significantly. He pointed out that in the U.K., the YouGov report on Adventure Tourism found that about 467,000 "ethical", 615,000 "environmental" and 1,747,000 "adventure" holidays were taken by adults in the last three years.

The growing demand for such activities suggests that the market is getting a flamboyant response. "If the industry does not embrace responsible tourism, businesses might suffer largely," he added. He said that Nepal had a huge potential to increase adventure tourism destinations.

Prachanda Man Shrestha, CEO of the Nepal Tourism Board, said that there was a need for collective and individual efforts to enhance the sector along with environmental conservation and social responsibility.
Source: Kantipur