Enhancing the Role of the Travel Trade in Reducing Tourism”s Carbon Footprint
Tourism is now recognised as a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.Tourism has become an increasingly visible target for the conservation movement.Some proponents feel tourism is one activity that could be eliminated.It is unreasonable for a number of countries and destinations within countries are economically reliant,on tourism.The viable solution is to alter tourist behaviour.The UN World Tourism Organisation concludes that tour operators could play a central role in mitigation,through their capacity to influence the tourism supply chain,and shape demand patterns.The objective of this paper is to understand current awareness,misconceptions,beliefs,policy,practice etc.about climate change and the outbound travel trade in Hong Kong.A semi-structured in-depth interview with the general manager of one of the top five outbound travel agencies in Hong Kong and found that the outbound travel trade in Hong Kong tends to count on others in reducing carbon emission.They are not proactive,reactive or sometimes passive as they trust the market determines what should be included in the tour.They opined that low carbon emission products do not have high marketing value and therefore do not get the attention from the senior management of the travel agencies.However,they are willing to get information of how to reduce carbon emission so that their tour escorts can use it to advise tourists when traveling outside Hong Kong.
sustainable tourism development travel trade reducing carbon footprint
Barry Mak Bob McKercher
School of Hotel and Tourism Management,The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,Hong Kong
国内会议
张家界
英文
291-297
2011-07-13（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）