BlueTourism_ENG

PAGE Introduction Sustainable tourism People are curious travellers by their inherent nature. From the dawn of our species, we have walked, rode, and sailed to new places. First, because of the necessity and curiosity, but today we mostly travel for enjoyment and recreation. However, our way of traveling and spending free time has changed. We are contributing greatly to the negative impact on environment and local communities. Global warming, biodiversity loss, waste generation together with soil, water and air pollution are some of the negative environmental effects. In addition, many communities have to deal with health difficulties, inappropriate living situations and unfair working conditions. In 2019, the Travel & Tourism sector contributed to 10.3% of global GDP and employed 333 million globally. In 2020, a 50% decline has been recorded due to pandemic mobility restrictions, however tourism activity is again on the rise in 2021 (WTTC, 2022). Global tourism accounts for about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The largest contributors are transport, shopping, and food. Most of the footprint is exerted by and in high-income countries (Lenzen et al., 2018). Prior to the pandemic, 50% of the global international tourist travelled to Europe. Tourism in EU is based on 2.3 million SMEs businesses, employing approximately 12.3 million people. In 2018, the sector directly contributed 3.9% to EU GDP and accounted for 5.1% of the total labour force (EU, 2022). Since travel and tourism is inherent to our nature, we need to change our tourism habits according to sustainability principles. Although there is no universal definition, World Tourism Organization defines sustainable tourism as "tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities" (UNWTO, 2022). Environmental aspects relate to developing lowimpact activities not damaging to natural ecosystems, social elements include ensuring permanent employment with safe working conditions and equitable pay and economic dimension covers profitability and efficient use of resources. All three pillars of sustainable tourism should be developed based on local resources while respecting local cultures. Integrated water resource management There are many forms of tourism, one of the most popular being water tourism, which is based on rivers, lakes, oceans, and other waterbodies. Considering the sustainability in water tourism, Integrated water resource management (IWRM) encompasses many useful principles and practices. The concept is defined as "process that promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzYwNDE=