It is commonly known that tourism can have many impacts, positive and negative, on a destination. The goal of Responsible Tourism is to minimize the negative impacts of tourism and to “make better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit.”
The extremely important role of responsible tourism, given the fact that every destination’s economy, environment and local life are affected by each and every tourist that visit the destination, cannot be overstated. Since tourism can have a very extensive environmental damage, responsible tourism aims to minimize that damage as much as possible and to raise awareness in both the service provider and the service consumer on how environmental damages can be limited since they cannot be eliminated.
Moreover, responsible tourism aims towards the contribution in the conservation of the host community’s natural resources. In addition, concerning the economic impact of tourism, responsible tourism aims to generate economic benefits for the local population, evenly distributed among stakeholders but also to enhance the well-being of host communities. Apart from the environmental and economic goals, responsible tourism also aims for the local communities to participate more in the decision-making of tourism development and to respect the local cultures by raising awareness concerning the local culture and heritage through its development.
Its implementation though can be difficult to attain. It requires all tourism entities (hotels, tour operators, travel agencies etc.), along with the consumers and all the stakeholders, to take action to make tourism more sustainable.
