What is Sustainable tourism?

Sustainability Principles:

Sustainability principles refer to the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development, and a suitable balance must be established between these three dimensions to guarantee its long-term sustainability. Thus, sustainable tourism should:

• Make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity.
  
  
• Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.

The United Nations World Tourism Organization defines sustainable tourism as tourism that meets the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future. Rather than being a type of product, it is an ethos that underpins all tourism activities. As such, it is integral to all aspects of tourism development and management rather than being an add-on component
The objective of sustainable tourism is to retain the economic and social advantages of tourism development while reducing or mitigating any undesirable impacts on the natural, historic, cultural or social environment. This is achieved by balancing the needs of tourists with those of the destination
- WTO

What can I do as a tourist? Be a sustainable tourist!

Global economists forecast continuing international tourism growth, ranging between three and six percent annually, depending on the location. As one of the world's largest and fastest growing industries, this continuous growth will place great stress on remaining biologically diverse habitats, which are often used to support mass tourism. Tourists who promote sustainable tourism are sensitive to these dangers and seek to protect tourist destinations, and to protect tourism as an industry.

Sustainable tourists can reduce the impact of tourism in many ways, including:

• Informing themselves of the culture, politics, and economy of the communities visited
• Anticipating and respecting local cultures' expectations and assumptions
• Contributing to intercultural understanding and tolerance
• Supporting the integrity of local cultures by favoring businesses which conserve cultural heritage and traditional values
• Supporting local economies by purchasing local goods and participating with small, local businesse
• Conserving resources by seeking out businesses that are environmentally conscious, and by using the least possible amount of non-renewable resources

What is 3 Monkies Tours doing as a responsible sustainable tour operator?

Our phylosophy is to follow principles of sustainability and convert objectives into specific targets of sustainable tourism, in which our operations could take action:

• Waste minimisation, reuse, recycling.
  
• Energy and transport efficiency
  
• Conservation.
  
• Involvement of staff, communities and customers in environmental issues.
  
• Participating and supporting local small businesses
  
• Respecting and promoting the legislation concerning to illegal extraction and captivity of wild animals and plants, deforestation, hunting, fishing, environmental pollution, as well as the illegal captivity of wild animals and plants.
• Designing sustainable tour programs for our customers, in order to reduce the impact of tourism.
• Joining and contributing to partnerships for sustainable development