Acta turistica nova, Vol. 5 No. 2, 2011.
Original scientific paper
HEALTH ECOLOGY IN THE TOURISM ENVIRONMENT
Mahira Tanković
Šemso Tanković
Marko Vlahov
Abstract
According to the definition of the
World Tourism Organisation (WTO), tourism
is a set of relations and phenomena related to
the activities of people who travel to and stay in
places outside their usual environment for an
uninterrupted period of not more than one year
for leisure, business and other purposes.
Almost every aspect of ecology relating to
health ecology (a discipline which evaluates the
interrelations of matter, forces and conditions
in the environment on the one hand, and the
health of human beings on the other) occurs in
tourism activities. The heterogeneity, dynamics,
seasonality and elasticity of tourism demand
provide a new dimension for the subject of
environmental effects, that is, health ecology.
Numerous surveys which record the trends
of domestic and foreign arrivals in tourism
destinations in Croatia have confirmed that the
vast majority of tourists come by road which
significantly increases the risks of exhaust
emissions and of other hazards which are
damaging for the environment.
Official statistics for 2009 recorded 10,935,000
tourists who visited Croatia (of whom 9,335,000 were foreign tourists). In the same period,
56,300,000 overnight stays were recorded (of
which 50,501,000 by foreigners). If we add the
fact that the largest number of visitors travelled
to the coastal regions and that the largest number
of overnights were realised there, it becomes
obvious that the problems of health ecology are
strongly manifested in Croatian tourism.
The results confirm beyond doubt that work on
strengthening ecological awareness in tourism
has created the concept of ecotourism: a type of
tourism based on an ecologically clean, natural
environment in which tourists stay, particularly
in regions which have to a certain extent a
protected environment.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
107043
URI
Publication date:
16.10.2011.
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