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Tourism industry requires a clean environment
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While both the federal government and corporations are working to prove that clean energy and environmental initiatives can be good for the economy, many experts are endeavoring to prove that the economy may depend on it.
In the battle to reduce carbon emissions and introduce environmentally sustainable habits, tourism is often forgotten, the Baltimore SunBaltimore Sun reports. However, tourism, more than many other industries, is often virtually dependent on a healthy environment.
Tourism brings in millions for local economies – creating revenue for small businesses and, consequently, more tax money for the state and the city. For example, in Pennsylvania, tourism generates $25 billion annually, while in Maryland and Virginia, tourism brings $14.5 billion and $19.2 billion, respectively.
Chesapeake Bay region fishing guides depend on clean waters and healthy fish to attract business. Alison Prost, Maryland office attorney with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, told the paper that it would be hard to imagine visitors coming to admire gobs of algae or dead fish. While states have yet to calculate the percentage of revenue that depends on a clean environment, many of their biggest attractions – camping, hiking, skiing and fishing, as well as the seafood industry – are dependent upon the outdoors.
Open space is a proven investment. According to Prost, for every dollar invested in the outdoors, between $3 and $4 is generated in tourism, the Sun reports. Last year, the Chesapeake Bay reported high levels of bacteria, discouraging families from visiting and fishermen from harvesting oysters and rockfish such as Maryland blue crab.
"People don’t want to see the asterisk on the menu that the crab is from somewhere else," Prost told the paper.
While ecotourism and sustainable travel are ideas that have been gaining momentum, travelers should be critical of any hotel or vacation spots that uses the label and investigate the companies’ actual practices. According to the International Ecotourism Society, true ecotourism is "responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people."
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