Your Easy and Handy Guide Book to Green Tourism

If you are a travel buff or simply struck by the wanderlust bug, the chances are that you might have heard the term “Green Tourism” thrown around pretty much everywhere these days. While the word immediately conjures up in mind, images of picturesque natural landscapes with lush greenery and tranquillity show a fair bit more to Green Tourism.

What is green tourism?

Essentially, any form of tourism that does not hurt the environment can be considered green tourism. The Green Tourism website outlines its essential functions and modes of assistance as given below:

1. Reducing energy use

2. Saving water

3. Efficient & eco-friendly waste disposal

4. Ethical buying

5. Staying local & seasonal

6. Minimising food miles

7. Promoting biodiversity

8. Adopting an intelligent, sustainable outlook from top to bottom

While the tourism industry around the globe keeps burgeoning with every passing year, its impact on the local environment and biodiversity, and by extension, the climate of the area and the world, is a net negative and is largely overlooked. Green tourism promotes a more economically and socially conscious and ecologically sustainable experience for travelers and locals alike.

Benefits of Green Tourism

While green tourism is an attractive venture for all kinds of travelers, it inherently calls for a personally eco-friendly, sustainable, and minimalistic lifestyle. There are numerous benefits that offshoot from the proliferation of green tourism.

First, it creates awareness for the need to be personally vigilant about the harmful impact that conventional tourism poses. This is seen especially in the fact that green tourists are encouraged to live productively and enjoy themselves while staying respectful of local customs and responsible for their actions.

Second, it helps preserve the biodiversity of the tourist spots. Often one notices the offshoot of a traveling boom in tourist-friendly places through the pollution, commercialization, and overcrowding of such areas. Green tourism promotes the personal responsibility of travelers to not litter, clean up after themselves, and stay accountable about their conduct in public places.

Third, it supports human rights and democratic movements to preserve the local way of life and the natural landscape. It stresses sustainable growth, affordability, and consensual participation of the locals and natives.

Fourth, it detracts from the natural wastage caused by conventional luxuriant tourism. Fifth, it contributes directly to global efforts for ecological conservation and against climate change.

Top 15 Global Tourist Destinations That Support Green Tourism

1. Costa Rica

2. Torri Superiore in Italy

3. Galapagos Islands in Ecuador

4. Bristol in England

5. Raja Impat near Bird’s Head Peniunsula, Indonesia

6. Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda

7. The Azores in Portugal

8. Sukau Rainforest Lodge in Sabah, Malaysia

9. Bocas del Toro near Panama

10. Cabo Polonio in Uruguay

11. Reykjavik, Iceland

12. Helsinki Islands, Finland

13. Northwestern Spain

14. Amsterdam, Netherlands

15. Chumbe Island Coral Park, Zanzibar

Be smart, practice green tourism when you travel next, and contribute to your environment’s conservation. Give back to Mother Nature and keep the legacy green for your future generations.