Field trip report Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Field trip report - Research Paper Example Tourists and tourism companies have began to seek more sustainable tourism activities, with one of the key areas being carbon neutrality. Carbon neutrality was introduced for the first time in the climate change context. The industry contributes approximately 6% of emissions of CO2 globally, with 94% being from travel by air. Carbon neutrality’s implication is carbon emission balancing via offsetting of the carbon footprint of a destination. This mainly involves investing in renewable sources of energy and also investing in forestry. It is achieved when a tourist, company, or destination manages to neutralize the emission of carbon from travel and high carbon emitting facilities like electricity generators. This paper aims to report on the carbon neutral activities that support the move towards sustainable development in tourism via the use of indicators specific to carbon neutrality. Introduction In the sustainable tourism context, indicators are sets of information that are chosen in order to make regular measurements of changes in issues and assets which are vital for development of tourism, as well as a destination’s management (Ball, 2009 p101). ... The publication is descriptive of more than forty issues concerning sustainability, which range from natural resource management to control of development, tourist and host community satisfaction, cultural heritage preservation, climate change, economic leakages, seasonality, among others (Ball, 2009 p109). Each issue is listed with management techniques and indicators suggested along with examples and practical sources of information. The publication is also inclusive of how to develop indicators that are destination specific. The tourism industry responded to the issue of climate change in a two fold manner (Association, 2008 p34). These are mitigation and adaptation. In the past, the industry had taken steps to deal with climate change based on service provider activities. The transport operators, both rail and air, tried to cut down CO2 emissions, while facilities for accommodation made an attempt to regulate and control emission. In recent times, however, there has been a push f or the realization of a future with low-carbon. The tourist destinations aim to achieve tourism that is sustainable. This is referred to as destinations that are carbon neutral. In July 2009, Caribbean countries revealed their plan to become the world’s first carbon-neutral destination, citing tourist resource vulnerability assessment, as well as evaluation of tourism’s impact on the environment. This marketing plan does not aim at increasing tourist numbers, but rather their consumption, leading to increased travel quality. UNWTO has set an average tourist consumption of approximately 50%. Carbon neutrality can be defined as the process through which emissions are calculated via a transparent process, reduced and residual emissions offset so