Mild tourism
Soft tourism (also: sustainable tourism ) is a form of travel that pursues three main concerns:
- to affect or damage the nature traveled as little as possible,
- to experience nature as close, intense and original as possible,
- to adapt to the culture of the visited country as much as possible.
Soft tourism is part of the concept of strong sustainability , combined with the requirement to preserve the remaining stocks of natural capital and to invest in it.
In addition to the ecological aspect, the socio-cultural and economic aspects play an important role here: According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), tourism is sustainable if its current and future economic, social and ecological effects are fully taken into account and the needs of visitors, industry and the environment and the locals are integrated.
Soft tourism as an alternative to mass tourism
Gentle tourism tries to reduce the negative effects of mass tourism in the holiday areas. For example, sustainable tourism avoids changing the natural conditions at the holiday destination. The journey should be possible with public transport (ÖPNV). In the holiday area, the traffic development is reduced to a minimum, the guests should instead get around in the original way, i.e. mainly on foot , possibly with boats or riding animals. In addition to recreational offers, there are often also offers for environmental education . With a too large number of tourists are visitor management worth protecting core areas of nature with the establishment of strict reserves respects what about in the development of show caves or Red List species and natural monuments is in the tourist area of importance. Protected area supervision , nature and nature experience offers such as treetop paths can complement visitor guidance.
In the hotel industry, too, there are efforts to be more sustainable and to support gentle tourism. Renewable energies are used more and more often , the amount of waste is reduced and drinking water is also used more sparingly. When choosing the furnishings, attention is paid to environmentally friendly materials and regional craftsmanship is preferred. Sustainable hotel businesses are awarded corresponding certificates .
Gentle tourism makes it its goal to make the unadulterated nature of the area visited, tangible "with all the senses". This peculiarity means both natural and cultural characteristics ( city tours ). The life of the local population should be affected as little as possible, so that the visitor also gets the most genuine impression of the cultural zone visited.
Already 17.5% of travelers pay attention to sustainable travel when they go on holiday and 53.7% would like to make their trip more sustainable.
Practical examples of soft tourism
Exemplary offers of gentle tourism are:
- Themed hiking trails that skilfully guide visitors through protected areas with hidden observation stations.
- Barefoot paths that convey an original contact with nature and also health benefits.
- Swingolf courses , which represent a simplified version of the game of golf and which are developed on the basis of local initiatives
- Guided snowshoe tours , which represent an ecologically more compatible variant of winter sports in sensitive mountain regions than the complex provision of technical winter sports with ski lifts , snow groomers and energetically problematic snow cannons .
- Farm shops selling locally produced food.
Conceptual history and development of the idea
The term “gentle tourism” was first coined and described by the Bernese architect and spatial planner Fred Baumgartner in 1977 in his article “Tourism in the Third World - Contribution to Development?” ( Neue Zürcher Zeitung of September 16, 1977). Robert Jungk deepened the term in 1980 in an article in GEO magazine . The term integrative tourism, which was coined in 1995 by the Friends of Nature and the Institute for Integrative Tourism and Leisure Research , can be understood as an extension of gentle tourism . According to these associations, integrative tourism promotes the networking of tourism with all other areas of the economy and life within the framework of independent regional development and demands that travelers share responsibility for the tourist regions. In 2006, the German federal government founded an advice center for sustainable tourism development .
Numerous certification programs attempt to clarify the sustainability concept in various segments of tourism, to define standards, to carry out independent tests and, if the standards are complied with, to award environmental quality seals . Tourists should be able to correctly assess the sustainability of offers and the providers should be given incentives and assistance in improving their offers. Since the late 1980s, more and more certification programs have emerged. In 2001 there were over 100 such eco-labels worldwide. Few of these programs are cross-sectoral and globally active. Green Globe is one of the most important . Examples of sector-specific, national or regional programs and eco-labels are the Blue Flag in beach management and marinas , the Green Key for hotels or the environmental seal of approval for Alpine Club huts , and TourCert for tour operators . For the European Ecolabel , standards for accommodation establishments (2009/578 / EG) and camping services (2009/564 / EG) were developed, but it was hardly awarded in these categories until 2013.
In March 2008, the state government of Baden-Württemberg started the special soft tourism program. As part of this special program, investments in the state of Baden-Württemberg to improve the tourism infrastructure in the areas of soft tourism can be funded. These include in particular
- Bicycle ,
- Health ,
- Culture -,
- Eco - as well
- Hiking tourism , especially " barrier-free " hiking.
This special program is intended to strengthen the tourism industry in the state of Baden-Württemberg against the background of structural challenges such as climate change and demographic development.
See also
literature
- Torsten Kirstges: Soft Tourism. Chances and problems of the realization of an ecologically oriented and socially acceptable tourism by German tour operators . 3rd, completely revised and expanded edition. Oldenbourg, Munich and Vienna 2003, ISBN 978-3-486-25756-4
Web links
- Sustainertourismus.li: Community for sustainable tourism in Liechtenstein
- igmobil.at: Interest group for soft mobility in Austrian tourism
- ikzm-d.de: Learning module about sustainable tourism on the Baltic coasts
- respect.at: Institute for Integrative Tourism and Development
Individual evidence
- ↑ Martin Schmied: Dream goal sustainability. Innovative marketing concepts for sustainable tourism offers for the mass market . Springer, Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-7908-2095-9 .
- ↑ Helmut Schneider (Ed.): Sustainability as a regulative idea in geographical urban and tourism research . LIT, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-8258-7814-6 .
- ↑ World Tourism Organization on Sustainable Tourism , accessed July 29, 2014
- ↑ Information sheet Sirnitz Hochrindl Nature Park ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), with the Austrian model for nature parks, accessed on January 21, 2014.
- ^ Opinion of Germans on the topic of sustainability on vacation 2017 | Survey. Retrieved February 20, 2019 .
- ↑ Xavier Font: Environmental certification in tourism and hospitality: progress, process and prospects . In: Tourism Management . No. 23 , 2002, p. 197-205 , doi : 10.1016 / S0261-5177 (01) 00084-X .
- ↑ EU Ecolabel - overview of all product groups and criteria. RAL non-profit GmbH, April 13, 2012, accessed on June 21, 2013 .
