Article by Eamonn Fitzgerald on November 11, 2011

The first count of the global vote to elect the New7Wonders of Nature has been announced. In alphabetical order, they are: Amazon, Halong Bay, Iguazu Falls, Jeju Island, Komodo, Puerto Princesa Underground River and Table Mountain.

Announcing the results at the headquarters of the New7Wonders Foundation in Zurich, Switzerland, Bernard Weber, Founder-President of New7Wonders, said: “I would like to thank the many champions, citizens, voluntary organisations, public bodies and governments that have helped promote the New7Wonders of Nature campaign over the past four years, starting with over 440 locations from over 220 countries and all the way to the 28 Finalist candidates from whom the New7Wonders of Nature have been chosen.”

The results announced this evening are provisional and based on the first count of votes completed since voting ended at 11:11 GMT this morning. The results will now be checked, validated and independently verified. Once the voting validation process is completed, in early 2012, New7Wonders will then work with the confirmed winners to organise the Official Inauguration events.

Note: It may happen that one or more of the provisional winners announced today will not be confirmed during the validation process, New7Wonders will issue a media update should this happen.

“We congratulate each of these participants on achieving their provisional New7Wonders of Nature status, and look forward to completing the confirmation process to celebrate each one in their own Official Inauguration ceremony early in 2012,” said Bernard Weber, adding, “When the New7Wonders of Nature are confirmed they will join the man-made New 7 Wonders of the World in becoming part of Global Memory for humankind for ever.”

Read more about the New 7 wonders of nature ,

This article is quoted from New7Wonders , read the original article here posted on the 11th of November 2011.

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GDP: Direct Contribution
The direct contribution of Travel &Tourism to GDP is expected to be USD86.9bn (4.2% of total GDP) in 2011, rising by 6.4% pa to USD161.7bn (4.4%) in 2021 (in constant 2011 prices).

GDP: Total Contribution
The total contribution of Travel &Tourism to GDP, including its wider economic impacts, is forecast to rise by 6.1% pa from USD223.5bn (10.9% of GDP) in 2011 to USD405.9bn (11.4%) by 2021.

Employment: Direct Contribution
Travel & Tourism is expected to support directly 8,928,000 jobs (3.1% of total employment) in 2011, rising by 3.1% pa to 12,080,000 jobs (3.6%) by 2021.

Employment: Total Contribution
The total contribution of Travel & Tourism to employment, including jobs indirectly supported by the industry, is forecast to rise by 2.6% pa from 25,854,000 jobs (9.1% of total employment) in 2011 to 33,439,000 jobs (9.9%) by 2021.

Visitor Exports
Travel & Tourism visitor exports are expected to generate USD76.1bn (5.6% of total exports) in 2011, growing by 8.2% pa (in nominal terms) to USD148.8bn (5.4%) in 2021.

Investment
Travel & Tourism investment is estimated at USD45.4bn or 8.2% of total investment in 2011. It should rise by 7.8% pa to reach USD95.0bn (or 8.4%) of total investment in 2021.

World ranking (out of 12 regions):
Relative importance of Travel & Tourism’s total contribution to GDP
• 6 ABSOLUTE size
• 4 RELATIVE contribution to national economy
• 2 GROWTH forecast

The South East Asia Region includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand,Vietnam

Download the Travel & Tourism report on South East Asia here

About WTTC
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) is the forum for business leaders in the Travel & Tourism industry. With Chief Executives of some one hundred of the world’s leading Travel & Tourism companies as its Members, WTTC has a unique mandate and overview on all matters related to Travel & Tourism.
WTTC works to raise awareness of Travel & Tourism as one of the world’s largest industries, supporting more than 258 million jobs and generating 9.1 per cent of world GDP.

This article is quoted from WTTC . Follow the links and get an overview of 2011 WTTC region reports or country reports.

This article is uploaded by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’. Photos from Vietnam by Casper Magnussen.

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GDP: Direct Contribution
The direct contribution of Travel &Tourism to GDP is expected to be USD523.0bn (2.7% of total GDP) in 2011, rising by 5.9% pa to USD953.4bn (2.8%) in 2021 (in constant 2011 prices).

GDP: Total Contribution
The total contribution of Travel &Tourism to GDP, including its wider economic impacts, is forecast to rise by 5.8% pa from USD1,607.4bn (8.2% of GDP) in 2011 to USD2,903.3bn (8.7%) by 2021.

Employment: Direct Contribution
Travel & Tourism is expected to support directly 63,891,000 jobs (3.5% of total employment) in 2011, rising by 1.9% pa to 77,502,000 jobs (3.7%) by 2021.

Employment: Total Contribution
The total contribution of Travel & Tourism to employment, including jobs indirectly supported by the industry, is forecast to rise by 2.4% pa from 145,802,000 jobs (7.9% of total employment) in 2011 to 184,709,000 jobs (8.9%) by 2021.

Visitor Exports
Travel & Tourism visitor exports are expected to generate USD288.6bn (4.3% of total exports) in 2011, growing by 8.3%pa (in nominal terms) to USD496.2bn (3.6%) in 2021.

Investment
Travel & Tourism investment is estimated at USD247.5bn or 4.1% of total investment in 2011. It should rise by 6.7% pa to reach USD482.0bn (or 4.1%) of total investment in 2021.

The Asia Pacific Region includes South Asia, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia and Oceania. Download the Travel & Tourism report on Asia Pacific here

About WTTC
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) is the forum for business leaders in the Travel & Tourism industry. With Chief Executives of some one hundred of the world’s leading Travel & Tourism companies as its Members, WTTC has a unique mandate and overview on all matters related to Travel & Tourism.
WTTC works to raise awareness of Travel & Tourism as one of the world’s largest industries, supporting more than 258 million jobs and generating 9.1 per cent of world GDP.

This article is quoted from WTTC .
Follow the links and get an overview of 2011 WTTC region reports or country reports.

This article is uploaded by Majbritt Thomsen, administrator on ‘Views On Tourism’. Photos from Thailand by Casper Magnussen.

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The positive momentum of the previous months held strong for Southeast Asia, which led the region with 15.5% growth during the month of June. The rebound in arrivals to Thailand (+54%) positively impacted this overall result, strongly supported by the other reporting destinations in this sub-region all of which enjoyed double-digit growth. This in turn was supported by strong travel demand within ASEAN and an increase in arrivals from China.

International arrivals growth to South Asia was a robust 12% in June, boosted by double-digit increases in inbound numbers to Nepal (+38%), the Maldives (+27%) and Sri Lanka (+20%). India maintained the same pace of growth seen in the previous month at 7%. European arrivals are amongst the main contributors to this growth.

Northeast Asia saw an improvement after posting slow growth of 0.6% in May, with a 3.7% increase in arrivals for June 2011. This growth, however, was very unevenly distributed among destinations in the sub-region. Tourism demand to Japan continued to recover, reducing losses in inbound arrivals from -63% in April to -50% in May and -36% in June. Chinese Taipei (-2%) and China (+1%) registered weak results while Hong Kong SAR (+16%), Macau SAR (+15%) and Korea (ROK) (+11%) enjoyed buoyant growth for the month, supported by the key origin market of China.

It should be remembered that even though the percentage growth rate may be relatively weaker than for other sub-regions, the sheer volume of arrivals to Northeast Asia means that 3.7% growth directly translates into more than 600,000 additional arrivals for the month.

International Arrivals to the Pacific recorded an aggregate decline of 4% in June. The main destinations of Australia (-4%) and New Zealand (-10%) showed significant decreases compared to the corresponding period last year. This downturn was caused – in part at least – by the ash cloud disruption to air travel from the Chilean volcano together with the continued effects of the earthquake in Christchurch. Nevertheless, some Pacific Island nations still managed to show positive growth, especially Palau (+63%), Vanuatu (+27%), Tahiti (+19%), Papua New Guinea (+16%), New Caledonia (+11%) and Cook Island (+8%).

January to June 2011
Of the 31 destinations reporting half-year arrivals (January to June 2011), 26 indicted positive growth, with 14 showing double-digit gains. Clear growth leaders over this period were Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand with gains of 37%, 29% and 28% respectively (January to June, year-on-year).

Collectively, these 31 destinations generated growth of 5.3% for the Asia/Pacific region during the first half of 2011. Even with the loss of almost 1.4 million arrivals to Japan, this cluster of destinations collectively not only countered that contraction but managed to add enough additional arrivals to the collective count to post a year-on-year gain of more than eight million international arrivals.

Kris Lim, Director of PATA’s Strategic Intelligence Centre, said: “The first-half year growth of around 5%, given the challenges the industry has faced so far this year underlines the resilience of travel and tourism in the Asia/Pacific region. The comparatively weaker economies of the USA and Europe mean that much of this growth has had to come from intra-regional travel and this in turn has only been possible because of the stronger regional economies and the continued expansion of airline seat capacity within the region.”

Lim added that at the current rate of growth, overall arrivals to the region will push to the 433 million mark by the end of the year, up from 408 million last year. The majority of the Asia/Pacific destinations will once again look at record numbers of arrivals, led by South Asia and Southeast Asia destinations in terms of percentage growth.

“While European arrivals remain key to South Asia’s growth, Southeast Asia will be driven by the rapidly growing China and India outbound markets while Northeast Asia is expected to see strong gains in arrivals from Southeast Asia driven by the steadily growing LCC network,” said Lim.

1)Asia/Pacific is defined as including the following sub-regions for the purposes of press releases:

For more market trends and insights, please visit www.pata.org/sub-regional-trends-2011

-ENDS-

Issued by:PATA Communications,
Bangkok, Thailand.
Tel: +66 2 658 2000
E-mail: communications@PATA.org
Online newsroom: www.pata.org/Press
Follow PATA on Twitter and Facebook

About PATA
The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) is a not-for profit membership association that acts as a catalyst for the responsible development of travel and tourism within the Asia Pacific region. This year, PATA is proud to celebrate 60 dynamic years of developing responsible tourism.

In partnership with private and public sector members, PATA enhances the sustainable growth, value and quality of travel and tourism to-from-and-within, the region. The Association provides leadership and counsel on an individual and collective basis to over 80 government, state and city tourism bodies; nearly 50 international airlines, airports and cruise lines and many hundreds of travel industry companies across the Asia Pacific region and beyond. Thousands of travel professionals belong to 39 active PATA chapters worldwide and participate in a wide range of PATA and industry events. PATA’s Strategic Intelligence Centre (SIC) offers unrivalled data and insights including Asia Pacific inbound and outbound statistics, analyses and forecasts as well as in-depth reports on strategic tourism markets. For more information, please visit www.PATA.org

This article is quoted from the newsletter PATAnews from PATA . Follow the green link to read the original article published on 2011.08.31.

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Thailand: International visitors to Thailand increased 28.1% in the first six months of 2011 to reach close to 9.7-million arrivals. Key growth markets: Saudi Arabia (+84%), China (+68%) and Hong Kong SAR (+59%). Context: a year ago Thailand’s political crisis deterred many visitors. Big growth now reflects the artificially low benchmark of last year.

Australia: There were 386,600 visitor arrivals during May 2011, an increase of 2.7% relative to May 2010. This lifts Australia’s inbound total to close on 2.4% over the first five months of the year, a gain of 1.6%.

India: India welcomed 2.9-million visitor arrivals in the first six months of 2011, a year-on-year growth of 10.9%. Foreign exchange earnings grew 12.1% when measured in local currency and 14.2% when converted to US dollars.

How is your destination performing in an increasingly competitive world? Read more Follow the link to here.

This article is quoted from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) newsletter July 13 2011.

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Assist the recovery of post-tsunami tourism

Our aim: The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) set up the Consulting Unit on Biodiversity and Tourism for Tsunami Affected Countries in Bonn, Germany, in October 2006 with funding from the government of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Consulting Unit’s primary mission is to provide expertise and advisory support to the national and local governments of countries that have been struck by tsunamis. The aim of its work is to help these countries re-develop their tourist infrastructure on the basis of biodiversity principles.
In many regions, the deforestation of intact coastal vegetation (particularly mangroves), over-exploitation of coral reefs and loss of sand dunes have weakened and reduced ecosystem safeguards against natural disasters such as tsunamis. Poorly planned tourism development – as manifested in unregulated and inappropriate infrastructure – has been partly responsible for the loss of biological diversity so critical to the people who live and work in coastal regions which also provide destinations for millions of people on holiday. Consequently, respect for nature is increasingly vital to reducing future risks to local populations and foreign and domestic tourists.
Based on this awareness, the UNWTO Consulting Unit promotes a form of tourism development that supports biodiversity conservation, social welfare and economic security in equal measure in host countries and their communities.

The following chapter titles from this publication are: Our Approach, Guiding Principles, Realizing changes (project experience from Thailand and Indonesia) and Outlook.

Special focus should be given to the Guiding principles of the work of the UNWTO Consulting Unit. These inspiring principles are:
• Ensure the broad participation and involvement of stakeholders in the planning and implementation of sustainable tourism development and management.
• Use cross-sectoral co-operation and the exchange of knowledge at all levels to harmonize biodiversity conservation with tourism development.
• Provide target-group-specific workshops and training to boost the area’s institutional and human capacity for effective tourism management.
• Create an enabling environment for tourism planning and biodiversity conservation by coaching and supporting existing structures and personnel in conjunction with the development of tourism management plans for model sites.

Follow the link to download the publication Linking Tourism and Biodiversity 2009. This publication is highlighted by UNWTO as part of their World Tourism Day 2010 with the theme ‘Tourism & Biodiversity. Read more about the World Tourism Organization (UNTWO) and the World Tourism Day Resources .

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Tourism is a significant industry in these areas, as in many of the world’s poorest countries. It can have important impacts on the livelihoods of the world’s poor, but these impacts are rarely well understood and may often be negative. Strategies for enhancing impacts of tourism on the poor need to be developed.
This requires starting with understanding how different tourism approaches affect local people, how the wide range of costs and benefits are distributed among stakeholders and what factors affect benefits to the poor. However, there is a general lack of information on which to base such an understanding, despite a growing interest in promoting local benefits from tourism, particularly around nature conservation areas.
There are numerous case studies, but they are rarely synthesised to identify common trends, contrasts and explanatory factors. They tend to focus either on economic benefits or on cultural/social damage rather than the full range of livelihood issues, and often ignore issues of distribution within and between local stakeholder groups, particularly impacts on the poor.

This paper therefore aims to pull together evidence from a range of case studies on how tourism developments have affected livelihoods of different groups in a cross-section of tourism locations, and to identify some of the processes and influencing factors involved.
The case studies reviewed here cover a wide range of situations and tourism-related activities, with most focusing on the destination level. Some of the case studies give an in-depth view of what happens within village communities as tourism is introduced or expands. Some focus more on the processes of change, some on identifying impacts. Interventions that have enabled local communities to maximise gains and minimise losses from tourism activities are included though are not prominent. Some case studies deal with specific groups such as vendors and women and provide useful insights into processes and impacts affecting these groups. Given their different scope, methodologies, purposes, timing and scale, strict comparisons are difficult. Nevertheless, some instructive comparisons and contrasts emerge from a review of key points from each.

Given the destination focus of most case studies, issues at the national or regional levels or macro-economic issues are not addressed (with the exception of Nepal). Generally, economic linkages are not well explored in the literature that has been reviewed here, although those that do address linkages highlight their importance. The case studies are also limited in their analysis of private sector impacts, and of tourists’ perceptions and preferences. There is also relatively little information on exclusive resorts and the impact they have on the immediate environment, though research indicates that a whole range of new issues emerge from the development of such resorts. This paper has tried to identify these issues – particularly those that have an important bearing on local communities.
Basic details of each case study are summarised in Table 1: country, location, author, type of tourism, and focus of the study. Section 2 provides a brief description of their findings for each country or destination. Section 3 draws together findings concerning impacts of tourism on different stakeholders in local communities, exploring economic, natural resource, and socio-cultural impacts. It also focuses on distribution and seeks to identify key factors affecting impacts. The discussion draws on analysis of the case studies supplemented by information from a number of other research reports, magazines and newspapers articles. An attempt is made in the final section to draw conclusions and make recommendations for a way forward to maximise gains and minimise losses for the poor.

This article is quoted from Overseas Development. Follow the green link to read the original article, here you can also download the paper published April 200 and written by Authors: Kishore Shah and Vasanti Gupta. Edited by Charlotte Boyd.

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Read more about The Rainforest Alliance

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Tourists returning from the Indonesian vacation isle of Bali carry home memories of green rice paddies, pounding surf and colorful Hindu ceremonies. What they leave behind is more alarming: an average of 11 lb. (5 kg) of waste per person per day, 10 times what the average Indonesian piles up. Yuyun Ismawati, an Indonesian environmental engineer who made the island her home in 1996, wanted to hold the tourism industry accountable for despoiling the environment, and to convince locals they had a role in protecting Bali’s bounty. The eventual result was BaliFokus, an NGO she started nine years ago to promote community-based waste management in a sprawling island nation where the government can’t be counted on to keep things clean.

Before Ismawati, 45, set up her waste-management projects, many hotels in the luxury Jimbaran Bay enclave sold their waste to pig farmers, who rooted through the muck for scraps to feed their animals. The hogs may have been pleased with five-star leftovers, but the rest of the trash tended to be bundled up in plastic bags and abandoned in mangrove forests. “I told hotels: Your job is to sell rooms, not to sell garbage,” Ismawati recalls. “We have to protect Bali or else tourists won’t want to come here anymore.” Today, a network of hotels pays to have its trash taken away and a team of full-time workers sorts through the garbage.

Among Ismawati’s latest drives is a cleanup of Indonesia’s slums. Few poor areas have ever seen a real garbageman; the government only collects 40% of the nation’s solid waste. In 2005, in the city of Bandung, where Ismawati was born, around 140 people died when a 230-ft. (70 m) mountain of trash collapsed and inundated a village. Ismawati and her network have helped set up solid-waste-management programs in seven slums across the country, encouraging locals to make traditional handicrafts out of recycled materials. They’re just the kind of souvenirs environmentally minded tourists in Bali might like to take home.

Click here to read the original Time article, published october 5, 2009.

Click for a list on all the Heroes of the Environment 2009, published in Time magazin october 5, 2009.

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