How to Incorporate Social Sustainability in Travel

As more countries opt for tourism to prosper and boost the economy, the sector is growing rapidly, affecting the local economy and diversity.

Therefore, reliable and sustainable tourism practices are necessary for travel sites to bring balanced growth.

Design travel itineraries that promote local economic growth (job creation), cultural and historical preservation, environment and social awareness, and infrastructural development.

Read on to learn more about how travel destinations can facilitate accomplishing social sustainability.

What is social sustainability?

Social sustainability entails preserving and enhancing the quality of societal elements by creating a fair, equal, and harmonious bond between them.

Together with environmental and economic, social sustainability is frequently seen as one of the three pillars of sustainability.

These three are interconnected and impact directly on one another. For example, both social and environmental sustainability are necessary for economic sustainability.

Moreover, economic sustainability depends on natural resources and an educated workforce. Similarly, social sustainability depends on environmental sustainability because human well-being depends on ecological health.

Benefits of social sustainability:

· Improves the lives of people.

· Creates goods and services that fuel the basic necessity of people.

· Promotes cultural and natural diversity.

· Makes reach of public needs to non-profit organizations and government.

· Unlocks new opportunities and attracts business partners.

What are the obstructions?

· Global warming and climate change.

· Extinction of endangered species.

· Depletion of natural resources.

· Weak political leadership within a nation.

· Inadequate implementation of technical innovation.

Necessities of a sustainable society:

· Access to food, shelter, healthcare, and education.

· Proper employment activities.

· Preservation of dignity of all societal members.

· Social cohesion and engagement between government, civil society, corporations, and public individuals.

· Gender equality, human rights, and cultural diversity.

How to Incorporate Social Sustainability in Travel

The main advantage of social sustainability in travel is that it can help local communities with economic development and overall well-being.

Here are some crucial ways you can incorporate social sustainability in travel.

1. Economic Growth

Tourists spend money on lodging, food, and other activities when they visit a destination, which helps generate income and job opportunities for residents while reducing poverty.

Moreover, tourism revenue can fund infrastructure development, education, healthcare, and other public services.

Tourism is the main contributor to Thailand and Spain’s economies, generating about 18% and 16% of the country’s GDP.

How does a travel destination empower economic growth?

· Creates a wide range of jobs in the hospitality and tourism industry.

· Provides opportunities for transportation and retail sector.

· Increases revenue through taxes like sales tax, tourism tax, and occupancy tax.

· Building hotels, resorts, and beautiful attraction sites help to grow construction and real estate businesses.

· Promotes trade and flourishes small businesses like handicrafts, souvenirs, and other locally produced goods.

· It helps to increase sales and establish customer loyalty.

How do businesses on tourist sites uplift social sustainability?

· It focuses on education, entrepreneurship, and health.

· It helps to find opportunities that will mutually benefit an individual and community.

· It helps identify and manage positive and negative business impacts on society.

· It focuses on the contribution and well-being of communities through various social and environmental measures.

· It strengthens the capacity of residents to circulate their needs to local and regional governments.

Travel destinations can significantly generate income for the citizens, resulting in overall growth in the nation’s economy.

However, specific challenges can hinder growth and sustainability.

· Pandemic, natural disasters and terrorism.

· Inadequate infrastructure like airports and highways.

· Price race between similar business ventures.

· Seasonal fluctuations.

· Environment degradation, such as pollution, depletion of resources, and destruction of natural attractions.

2. Culture Preservation

Tourists are often drawn to unique cultural and heritage sites in travel destinations, which can directly help with social sustainability.

The preservation of these sites not only promotes tourism but also ensures that these cultural treasures are safeguarded for future generations.

Moreover, it also allows local communities to showcase their customs and traditions to visitors, increasing cultural awareness and appreciation.

How can travel destinations preserve their culture?

· Showcase local cultural and traditional values through museums and historical sites.

· Provide opportunities for visitors to engage in celebrations and regional customs.

· Help visitors to participate in various fun activities like traditional dance and handicraft workshops and learn the core values of it.

· Ensure the protection and promotion of history and architecture for future generations.

· Help to educate all the community members about the importance of local culture and its preservation.

How does preserving culture and traditions encourage social sustainability?

· It helps to bring people together and grows cultural diversity.

· It helps to pass down values and norms from generation to generation.

· It builds mutual support and cooperation between society members.

· It provides a sense of community.

· It preserves culture’s history and keeps them alive for long years.

· It creates opportunities for intergenerational learning.

· It provides opportunities for economic development, creates jobs, and stimulates the local economy.

Travel destinations significantly benefit society by promoting local cultures and traditions and fostering cultural exchange and understanding.

Cultural preservation is necessary to keep the diversity of human culture alive. However, on the verge of modernization, the marks of old norms and traditions are swiping away due to various hindrances.

Challenges for travel destinations in cultural preservation:

· Homogenization of culture along with globalization.

· Loss of traditional buildings and structures due to urbanization.

· Degradation of natural resources and the ecosystem due to pollution.

· Lack of enough funding to restore and maintain heritages.

· Adoption of modern lifestyle and accommodation.

3. Environmental Conservation

Sustainable tourism practices can provide communities with an economic incentive to protect natural resources such as forests, wildlife, and marine ecosystems.

Local communities can benefit from this by accessing natural resources critical to their livelihoods and well-being.

For example, traveling at Maasai in East Africa is a great experience for both because tourists will explore the same grazing land where Maasai tribe resides.

Moreover, travel destinations can help with environmental conservation by developing environmentally friendly tourism practices.

How can travel destinations conserve the environment?

· Implementing eco-friendly measures of travel like hiking, cycling, and boating.

· Using renewable sources to produce energy, for example, solar panels, wind turbines, etc.

· Protecting natural habitats like forests, lakes, and wetlands.

· Reducing waste by composting and promoting recycling techniques.

· Promoting eco-friendly farming methods and generating eco-tourism.

How does preserving the environment build social sustainability?

· It helps to improve the health of residents by reducing pollution and waste products.

· It lowers the rate of disease and illness.

· It helps make food and water hygienic and benefits wild habitats and humankind.

· It helps to contribute to biodiversity.

· It helps to develop the economy through sustainable agriculture, eco-tourism, and bio-resources use.

· It helps to make people connected with natural resources and with themselves.

Challenges for travel destinations in environmental conservation:

· Damage to local ecosystems due to overcrowding, like habitat destruction and soil erosion.

· Increment of harmful waste such as plastics, chemicals, and other poisonous substances.

· Wildlife disturbance, hunting, and poaching.

· Deforestation and enlargement of a residential area.

4. Social Awareness

Reaching every community member and maintaining mutual engagement is one of the critical pillars of achieving social sustainability.

Tourism can also increase social awareness by exposing visitors to new cultures and ways of life. It can promote tolerance and reduce prejudice by improving understanding and appreciation of different communities.

Moreover, tourist engagement helps to increase social awareness by maintaining cultural exchange between the natives and guests.

How can travel destinations make people aware?

· Providing opportunities to learn new languages and understand each other.

· Helping people to know about the old values and morals.

· Hosting local events and promoting them on social media.

· Using content marketing to reach vast audiences throughout the world.

· Launching tourism campaigns and highlighting unique aspects of a particular place.

74% of people use social media to get information about travel attractions.

How involvement with local communities helps in social sustainability?

· Improves social cohesion between communities.

· Encourages social responsibility.

· Fosters mutual understanding.

· Builds trust and respect among the community members.

· Encourages the preservation and celebration of local festivals.

· Helps strengthen communities by providing resources and budget.

· It helps to address deep-rooted system inequalities.

Travel destination empowers community engagement by encouraging social responsibility, creating opportunities, and protecting cultural practices.

Challenges for travel destinations to attract visitors:

· Limited budget to invest in promoting campaigns.

· Lack of adequate social infrastructure.

· Adverse publicity, such as political instability, crime, and natural disasters.

· Language barriers and cultural differences.

· Poor marketing strategies.

5. Improves Social Infrastructures

Tourism can also aid in developing infrastructure such as roads, transportation systems, communication networks, and sanitation facilities in many localities.

Infrastructure development is essential for the tourism sector and can improve the local community’s quality of life.

· Presents the need for healthcare, education, and transportation in front of authoritative sectors such as local bodies and government.

· It helps to increase revenue through taxes and aids developing countries in building schools, hospitals, etc.

· While making the destination attractive, the required changes can help modify usual structures into appealing ones.

How does improving social infrastructures make society sustainable?

· It helps to promote economic growth by creating more job opportunities.

· It focuses on community-driven development.

· It helps to improve community services by providing basic infrastructure to help residents.

· It creates additional development of parks, gardens, and museums.

· It helps to preserve greenery through renovation and reduces the need for new construction.

· It enhances resilience to natural disasters and other emergencies.

Challenges for travel destinations in infrastructure development:

· As the location becomes famous, it requires infrastructure development which can harm the environment.

· Lack of necessary finances and political instability.

· Opposition from residents while making new changes to the place.

· Poor maintenance and degradation of structures.

Conclusion:

Addressing visitors’ and locals’ needs and boosting the local economy and infrastructure is necessary for social sustainability.

Promoting cultural awareness, helping local businesses, protecting natural attractions, and funding infrastructure are the keys to sustainable development.

However, it is also crucial to put wildlife habitat and residents’ welfare first and ensure that tourism has no harmful social or environmental effects.