Tourism Towards Sustainability

Tourism & Cyprus

Tourism and Cyprus

Tourism-Towards Sustainability: Case of Cyprus

Tourism-Towards Sustainability: Case of Cyprus

Republic of Cyprus

Sustainable Tourism Development

Tourism-Towards Sustainability: Case of Cyprus

The current paper is an exploration of the concept of tourism as a contributor of sustainability and sustainable growth and for this purpose the author has selected the Republic of Cyprus as a case study. Cyprus has been because tourism here is the most significant economic activity. In addition, besides the economic point-of-view, the casino industry and tourism have their contribution in the social development of the community

Tourism now has become an industry which has a significant role in the economic growth of any country. Visitors coming to a destination spend money on shopping, hotel accommodation, eatables, and transportation as well as on entertainment and thus contribute to increase the gross domestic product (GDP). Tourism also helps to create employment and provide socio-economic development. The data show that during the year 2008 almost 80 countries were able to earn 1 billion USD from international tourism (UNWTO, 2009). Figure 1 represents the international arrivals during the period 1999-2008.

The current research paper is aimed at exploring the concept of shopping tourism. Particularly the researcher will focus on exploring the scope of Hong Kong for being a shopping place for tourists. For this purpose the researcher conducted survey with 70 tourists at Honk Kong to know whether Hong Kong is a good place for shopping or not.

Republic of Cyprus

The Republic of Cyprus is a Mediterranean island in Western Europe. The country was divided into two parts after attack by Turkey in 1974: the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Both parts of the country depend on tourism which has contributed to the economic growth of the country. The country is sited at the north-eastern end of the East Mediterranean basin and it is 380 kilometres away from north of Egypt, from Syria 105 kilometers and from south of Turkey 75 kilometers. As stated in the Government Web Portal (2006), Cyprus is the third biggest island in the Mediterranean; the first is Sicily and second is Sardinia. The area of Cyprus is 9,251 sq. kilometers out of which 1,733 consists of forests

The industry of tourism in Cyprus has gain significance due to its role in the economic growth of the country. As described by CTO (2006), during the year 2006 there were 2.6 million arrivals at Cyprus, and 1.037 million Cyprus pounds were generated as revenues. The attraction for tourists is its geographic location, beautiful weather, rich neighboring culture and generosity that carve up the holiday-makers inspirational experience. Recently a Strategic Plan has been developed by the tourism authorities along with the government. This plan is aimed at developing exceptional forms of tourism, for example conducting seminars, development of cultural tourism, focus on athletic tourism, cruises and development of walk and cycling tourism. The idea of establishing casino facilities has also been discussed amongst tourism practitioners as it has been seen that casino industry is seen as a provider in developing the tourism industry.

Different initiatives are offered by tourism practitioners to maintain competition with each other and with other Mediterranean destinations which help to make their contribution in developing tourism. For an instance, gaming services in the islands are considered as one of the main attractions for tourists.

Sustainable Tourism Development

The term "sustainable tourism" has been originated from the theory of "sustainable development." This theory has been adopted and applied on tourism. Academicians have a tendency to correlate the "sustainable development" with the report of World Commission on Environment and Development which was carried out in 1987, and this indicated the core task of the term: "bringing together the concepts of the environmental protection and economic development."

The concept of sustainable tourism development emerged in the 1990s in consequence to the rapidly increasing awareness of environmental impacts being causes by tourism industry. Altinay and Hussain (2005) discussed that the industry is impacting environment as there tourism demands wide creation of general infrastructure such as "construction of roads, airports, and tourism facilities which can destroy environmental resources gradually. The World Summit on Sustainable Development" (2002) has also provided support to this argument by offering different instances of unsustainable outcomes of tourism. These consequences identified by World Summit were that; culture and labor are exploited, people are displaced from their land, local communities are not consulted, and tourism planning is no appropriate and high leakage of foreign exchange which decreases benefits of local communities. Yet in the case of Cyprus, consequences mentioned above can be reduced as here tourism facilities have already been developed and can lodged the supplementary incursion of tourists and this has been initiated with the casino introduction.