How Has Tourism Affected The Island Of Phuket Environmental Sciences Essay

A tourist destination that I have visited is Phuket that is Thailand’s largest island. It is located in the Andaman Sea, the western beach of Thailand and is connected to the mainland by the Sarasin Bridge and is 862 kilometres far from Bankok. People call Phuket the pearl of the south because its natural resources- rocky peninsular, white beaches, limestone cliffs, tranquil broad bays and tropical forests. It is one of the most visited and most popular tourist destinations. Phuket has only two seasons in a year the rainy season that starts May until October and the hot season that is November until April. I had visited Phuket in November that is the best period to see the clear blue sky, feel the sea breeze and marvel at the crystal clear water while lying on white, powdery beaches.

Bhuket as I said above is an area with high value natural recourses like sea, rivers, mountains, unique flora and fauna and great beauty that attracted me to visit it because of the emotional and spiritual connections I have with nature. Because I value nature, I preserved and protected natural environments and kept it from further ecological decline. Lands that could be developed can make profits by accommodating the recreational activities of tourists and me. The income that passed from me to this place it had possible used to preserved and restored historic buildings and monuments. Moreover, may had used on improvements in the area’s appearance through maintenance or cleanup and the addition of public art for example monuments and murals benefit tourists and locals alike.

I have visited Thailand in 1997, that 7.2 million overseas tourists have also visited Thailand. Such a big number of tourists may overexploit natural resources and have a negative impact on the environment. My visit and the big number of people visiting the island can put huge pressure on the area and lead to impacts like increased pollution, soil erosion, discharges into the sea, loss natural habitat, increased pressure on endangered species, noise etc. Natural resource attractions can be jeopardized through inappropriate uses or overuse. Providing to me and to other tourists services can change the landscape’s appearance. For example, visual pollution may occur from billboard proliferation and as tourism is developed, the need for land increases, particularly for locations such as beachfronts and special views. A loss of flora and fauna can happen when the land is trampled. Tourists frequently remove plants, animals, coral, and cultural or historical artifacts from Phuket area.

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In more details my visit in Phuket had the following negative impacts in the environment:

Sewage

The construction of hotels in order to offer accommodate to visitors like me, leads to increased sewage pollution. The wastewater is polluting seas and rivers, damaging the flora and fauna. Sewage runoff causes serious damage to coral reefs threatens the health of humans and animals.

Aesthetic Pollution

The tourism development requires changes in the environment in order to motivate tourists visit the island. In the island has facilitated sprawling developments along coastlines, valleys and scenic routes like roads, service areas, parking areas, hotels etc that usually fails to integrate its structures with the natural features.

Noise pollution

During my visit I had used car, airplanes and buses that causing annoyance to people and distress wildlife and can cause animals to alter their natural activity patterns.

Physical impacts from tourist activities

– Trampling: by using the same trail trample the soil and vegetation that can lead to loss of biodiversity.

– Marine activities: scuba diving, anchoring cruising re some marine activities that I had participated and can cause direct degradation of marine ecosystems such as coral reefs.

– Alteration of ecosystems: for example a wildlife viewing can cause stress to the animals and alter their natural behaviour.

– Water overuse – as a result of recreational activities e.g. golf courses, swimming pools, and tourist consumption in hotels

– Exacerbate climate change: from fossil fuel energy consumption for travel, hotel and recreational requirements

– Unsustainable and inequitable resource use: for example Energy and water over consumption, excessive production of wastes, litter and garbage are all common impacts.

Describe two actions that individuals could take in the future to maintain the sustainability of this environment.

“Sustainable tourism” is the balance between the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development in order to guarantee long-term benefits to host communities. When we are talking about Thailand and Bhuket when we say sustainable development we mean sustainable redevelopment because of the tsunami. All tourists and individuals are responsible for respecting and conserving a locations economic, environmental and socio-cultural balances. Individuals and tourist must recognize and appreciate the real value of the nature that they visit to or they live to. They must realize that if they minimize the negative effects on the physical environment they will improve its quality.

Reducing waste through good practice

The individuals, locals and tourists must be informed about the potential consequences of throwing solid objects and other uncountable polluting substances into the sewage system. In order to protect their environment must reduce waste materials from their activities wherever possible, and where they produce waste they should maximize the amount that is either reused or recycled. With a participation of each person in a plan like this they will protect their environment. Through creative and clever planning, individuals can make it possible to diminish their ecological footprint. The secret to protect environment from rubbish is the tree <> method. Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle the waste. Moreover, people can use shore handbags instead of plastic bags and use recycled paper in all material. They can reuse for example printed paper for second print. Locals and tourists can recycle newspapers, magazines, bottles, batteries etc. finally they can reduce the amount of plastic materials by changing from plastic water bottles to water coolers and glasses. The goal that each individual person must have is to zero net waste from hotel, houses and any other industry.

Saving energy through attention

Individuals must committed to energy efficiency through reducing their environmental impact arising from energy consumption throughout their home, hotel and job facilities and promoting the use of clean, energy efficient sustainability in their designs. The most houses and workplaces like restaurants, hotels, required vast amounts of energy to support lighting, air-conditioning, laundry, hot water and food preparation. Every person individually must take the appropriate actions to keep adverse impacts to an absolute minimum. That can be made by the use of modern lighting and natural lighting that saves great amounts of electricity. All light bulbs must be replaced and maintained by low watt usage. Efficient appliances can also be used because they save vast amounts of power. People must used to turning-off lights and air-conditioning when not in use. The air-condition units must be maintained every month to optimize their usage. Moreover, people must increase the use of solar powered devices for hot water ( passive solar for water heating), water filtration etc.

Describe two actions that destination managers could take in the future to maintain the sustainability of this environment.

In order the sustainability of the environment in Phuket to be maintained is required effective planning and coordination of action, enforcement of legislation and governance. As the scale of tourism grows, the resource use threatens to become unsustainable. With a degraded physical environment, the destination is in danger of losing its original attraction, increasing the levels of cheaper mass tourism and forcing more “nature-based” tourism to move on to new destinations, which are likely to be even more inaccessible and fragile.

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a) Tourists and local people often lack information and awareness about their impact in a different culture and environment so a useful recommendation for government is to promote environmental education to managers, owners, administrators, and other staff from tourism industry, tourists and local people in order to improve awareness of the importance of sustainability of the environment. Governments should create awareness through the mass media, campaigns, seminars among the general public and international tourists about protecting and preserving the environment in order to sustain tourism. The mass media, especially television through films and reports about events, sights, etc. in other parts of the world, are increasingly influential on travel decisions and consumer behavior in the destination. Seminars and workshops must also organize to facilitate the sharing of information for developing sustainability. Schools and universities must provide students with educational courses to train them in friendly environmental behavior. Making tourism enterprises, tourists and locals more sustainable by train them, their attitude on the environment will change