Sustainable tourism and Destination Management in Business
The term sustainable is used for a tourism which does not affect or damage the destinations tours economy, environment and the tradition culture. Therefore the prime purpose of sustainable tourism is to do everything they can in order to that tourism remain positive experience of people of tourism destination together with tourist alike.
Marcel Proust has write about tourism that there are many people who want to see the entire world with their own pair of eyes but the real journey would be when they will try and see the one single place but with the eyes of hundreds of people. Tourist can make their holidays exciting and enjoyable together with making sure that sustainability requirement of tourist destination by looking for and following diversity and promotion of sustainability when selecting tourism destination.
The following are the few basic criteria given by an organization called global sustainable tourism group
Demonstrate effective sustainable management
Maximize social and economic benefits to the local community and minimize negative impacts.
Maximize benefits to cultural heritage and minimize negative impacts.
Maximize benefits to the environment and minimize negative impacts
The name Disneyland is very well known as being a resort for the holidays and recreational activities. It is located in the Marne-la-Vallee, which is a comparatively a new town can be found with in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. The exact location of Disneyland is about 20mile or 32 kilometres always from the Paris centre and located in the commune of Chessy, Seine-et-Marne.
The Disneyland of Paris, France is made up of two theme parks, seven wonderful cosy comfortable hotels owned by Disney with one retail, dining and entertainment district. Disney land was in operation since the year 1992 and is first Disney resort which is located not inside into the United States.
The estimated figures show that the number of visitors to both Disneyland Park and Walt Disney studio part were about 15 million in 2009 and that makes it most visited place in Europe.
The key fact relate with how the creation of Disneyland in Paris affect tourism revenue for France.
The total visitor who tour France some 4.8% visited Disneyland as part of their trip
Disneyland has attracted around 0.2 billion people since its inception.
1/3 of our foreign visitors combine a visit to the Resort and to Paris
In 2008, 6.43% of foreign tourist spending in France was generated by foreign visitors at the Resort
5th largest hotel accommodation capacity in France (after Paris, Lourdes, Lyon and Nice): over 8,000 hotel rooms and apartments in vacation residences (5,800 in Disney Hotels)
71% of all room-nights sold in the Seine-et-Marne department and 10.11% for the Ile-de-France region
France’s leading integrated business tourism venue: 2 convention centres host 1,000 business events every year in more than 23,500 sqm dedicated to seminars and conventions
Disney Village, the leading urban leisure centre in Ile-de-France (after Paris).
Sustainability, including identification and actions to correct any areas of un-sustainability.
The history of Disneyland from the creation of it shows that this project was result of public and private partnership which leads to creation of one of the leading destination for tourism. Together with Disneyland, a new town with name of Val d’ Europe. Both projected took almost thirty long years and used a land 1943 hectares.
There is an ongoing partnership within the framework of a “decision-making triangle”, associating the French Government, Euro Disney and local authorities including the Ile-de-France Regional council, the Seine-et-Marne Departmental Council and the Val d’Europe New Town Association (SAN) which encompasses five municipalities (Bailly-Romainvilliers, Chessy, Coupvray, Magny-le-Hongre and Serris).
the development of Disney started when Walt Disney company had identified the location for their European resort in Marne-la-Valle which was a relatively newly develop town in France but the company estimate that due to it central location it will attract a market of large number of people because of ease accessibility which is estimate at around 310 million potential visitor. But the government of France want it in lle-de-France due to number of reason such tax revenue, employment etc and most importantly they wanted to sustain environment and therefore during the implementation of this project every possible step is taken in order to not only follow the norms but to protect environment (not only the natural environment but the preservation of demographic characteristic, structure of the building and employment issues etc were also part of it) and therefore make project more sustainable from its very inception.
The Disneyland resort project were conducted in the environment where regulation were high and that make this project more sustainable as the most common problem with deregulation is that sustainability issues went into background.
This environment of high social regulation is the basic characteristic of french deregulation model as France were not yet ready to follow free market and privatization as way of controlling and monitoring and governing the industries.
The company is now in discussion with France government for further development of resort which will ensure the well being of population in that of part of the France together with improving investment in sustaining environment.
The company is very well committed to sustainability of its resort and therefore have got very detail plan in order the resort as prime sustainable tourist destination which not only limited to Europe but the whole world and therefore company’s approach towards sustainable environment, improving quality of life of its employee and local community in which it operate and especially company promote children and families in particular and make the resort number one choice for every child and environmentally conscious families who are looking for the best but sustainable tourist place.
The company is involve in number of project whose main emphasis is on the fulfilment of needs children and families and make special donation and participate in charitable activities related with children and arts. The major factors which make Disneyland resort a renown in name sustainable tourist destination is its commitment towards maintaining a sustainable environment but Disneyland Paris doesn’t stop it here but together with involving and donating generously to charities dream world improving lives of thousands of people if not million of people through creation of employment, contribute in economic growth by purchasing local material and products, hire services of local community for various initiatives, with all of these Disneyland Paris contribute in national tax revenue.
In order to promote and sustain the development of local community through education and learning as company hire people and provide them necessary training and together with that Disneyland Paris support those employees who improve the local community and has system of Cast Member in place through the company ensure that people got training from company become active citizen of their communities and help those people who desperately need help.
Disneyland Paris has created a separate department named as community relations department in order look after the community in which it operates. There is another program which is named as Disney Volunteers program in which company sponsor the voluntary actions of employees.
Since its beginning Disneyland Paris has special focus on environmental impact of its activities and taking environmental stewardship is its legacy and company has taken some real steps towards making environmental steward a part of its culture and consideration to environmental impact of its policies and decisions as automatic and embed process and part of the Disneyland culture.
How the destination has been and is being managed to achieve sustainability
Regarding environmental impact Disneyland Paris has recently publicize its environmental goal which will result in better management of the impact of its activities and decision on environment and will also inspire the visitors to promote sustainability.
The basic approach which Disneyland resort has followed in past and will continue to do so in future is based on effective use of and conservation of water, energy and ecosystem together reducing substantially the carbon emission, reducing the waste.
Disney land has announce in 2006 that it would increasing its renewable energy as of energy with at least 15% of its total energy requirement will be from renewable source which will have positive on environment .
Disneyland has taken solid and concrete step towards implementation of recycle bin across the resort and in that connection since last year 2008, there were twenty new recycle bin were put in place across the Walt Disney Studio park that’s another step in right direction by Disneyland, shows that Disneyland resort is fully committed to the sustainability objectives and is taking steps towards reduce its carbon footprint in order to protect environment.
Another example of Disneyland’s solid commitment towards improving the environment and sustain the climate is the use fully certified plastic bags which are made up of 80% of recycle material which is very encouraging step and is protecting and environment climate alike while these plastic bag are truly certified from an independent agency that is recognized for environmental labelling in Europe.
Disneyland has collected waste weighted around ten tonnes since 2008, as it is fully committed towards making Disneyland a sustainable tourism destination and environmentally responsible company.
Disneyland has one of the effective and efficient strategies towards reducing its energy requirement through effective and efficient use of existing energy resource, one of these strategies is installation of motion detectors across the 139 banglows which can automatically control lighting and therefore will save the energy and reduce the environmental footprints of Disneyland resort.
Together with the motion detectors there is water conserving showers as a replacement for bath tubs which are very effective reducing the wastage of water. These bath tubs were installed in combination with tin roof, picture window walls which make sure the natural light comes in.
Disneyland but the story is not finish here as Disney land has taken further step towards reducing wastage of water by installing 185 hand dryers which are made up of high technology but the good things is that they take 80 % less energy than traditional hand dryers in order to preserve the climate and reduce energy use while these hand dryers will also reduce the wastage paper towels which is another positive step from Disneyland in order to make it a real sustainable tourism destination.
Like any other resort water is very important for Disneyland as it has very crucial role to play in Disneyland magic and experience and that’s why is one of the areas of sustainability and environmental protection on which Disneyland has taken concrete steps and make the prime efforts to use water resource as efficiently as possible and Disneyland hope to achieve this through onsite environmental management system operate by control team which ensure the consumption of water reduced and it work by helping the maintenance people to perform effective control over the consumption of water.
The Disney company is world wide known for following an aggressive policy to achieve sustainability and as matter of fact company installed a new synthetic skating rink which replace its ice rink and this development will result in efficient usage of water resource together with energy and most importantly it will avoid the ise refrigent fluid which is not environmentally best option.
Disland has installed Rockefeller Plaza skating ring which will result in reduction in wastage of water as it will be permanently iceless and therefore that makes it the largest open air rinks in the entire Europe.
Disneyland Paris is fully aware of the threat climate change poses and therefore did every possible efforts to reduce its environmental footprints and in consistent with this strategy the Disneyland is considering taking a bold step by introducing a commuter plan which will make sure that car use is minimize as much as possible and will result optimization of travel regarding business, the project is estimate to take five more years.
In order to take immediate steps Disneyland has encourage staff on less usage of car by offering them exciting incentives, an example of is availability of scheme which encourage Cast Members towards the usage of public transport instead of personal vehicle by offering them incentive of paying 65% of cost of travel by company. Currently some 28% of total Cast members are availing this opportunity and using public transport therefore saving the carbon emission.
Another program implemented by Disneyland is regarding the carpooling which is already launched and Disneyland considering expanding this program, due to effective of this program towards the goal of sustainable environment.
This statement is proved through discussing the various plans and strategies Disneyland Paris have taken in above paragraphs. The company has another program with the name of “Green” which is program design to raise awareness across the globe and through which Disneyland give sufficient powers to its Cast Members in order to make them able to reduce their environmental impact and as result of this program Disneyland has reduce the use of bottled water by around 60% by creation of 335 water fountains backstage, a significant number of (almost over thirteen hundred) cardboard across the resort are recycled and they are replace with cardboard compactors and not only this but there were less usage of paper by an estimated of 8% were also result of this program and by the way the paper used is 100% recycled with duly certified.
Conclusion:
Disneyland is an environmental responsible and sustainable company which not always adhere to follow minimum requirement but take critical step necessary in order to achieve sustainability across all the boundaries.
Disneyland Paris has always show itself as a leader in order to achieve sustainable development and implement sustainable policies and is firmly dedicated to create an internal working environment which safe and sustainable. Disneyland Paris has invested significant resource in developing and implementation effective and efficient training and development program for its Cast Members to make this step a example for other companies to follow in order the a sustainable and environmentally aware society. Disney land support its Cast Member through offering various option together with providing them all the require tool and technique in order make them live a life which is healthier.
The number of people applying to become Cast Member in Disneyland shows that the company is putting significant resource in its program and Show Company’s commitment towards suitability.
Disneyland is truly a sustainable tourist destination with all the policies in place and implemented effectively in order to make it ensure that environment is protected and green house gas emission are reduce and together with other objective Disneyland is fully committed towards improving the lives of its employees and community through taking various initiative.
