Tourism is a powerful tool for development. It represents 10 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and provides 10 percent of jobs globally. The industry is also interlinked with every other sector in the economy.
The arrival of budget airlines has seen the tourism industry enjoy unprecedented growth, with a rising middle class increasingly seeking new and exciting destinations to visit.
Tourism is a powerful tool for development. It represents 10 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and provides 10 percent of jobs globally. The sector is also interlinked with every other sector in the economy.
Tourism is a powerful tool for development. It represents 10 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and provides 10 percent of jobs globally. The sector is also interlinked with every other sector in the economy.
Tourists landed by the boatload Friday on the Philippines' Boracay island, which re-opened with a slew of new rules after a six-month shutdown aimed at undoing the impact of years of being loved to death by millions of holidaymakers.President Rodrigo Duterte shuttered the tiny white-sand island in April, declaring it a "cesspool" where businesses flushed raw sewage into the once pristine turquoise waters and trash soiled its beaches.Among the first to land after the government
Proclaimed as a ‘paradise on earth’ in the 1970s, the Philippine island of Boracay landed on the bucket lists of western tourists seeking sun, sea and surf. However, by the mid-1990s, tourist arrivals dropped due to degradation caused by a non-existent sewage system on the island. Despite the improvements in clean water, sewage treatment and waste management systems in the late 1990s, environmental issues persisted due to the noncompliance of the island’s business establishments.
Originally the home of the indigenous Ati people, Boracay was a sleepy agricultural island with a population of 100 that lived on rice cultivation and fishing, supplemented by goat farming. Part of the Aklan province in the Philippines, the island first started to receive intraregional migration from other nearby islands in the 1900s, leading to transformation of more land into farms for coconut and fruit trees. With continued migration, the island's population grew.
Over the past decade, Southeast Asia has increasingly become one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. This comes as no surprise as the region isn’t short of beautiful beaches, lush forests and historical sacred sites. Southeast Asia also has its fair share of UNESCO World Heritage sites. With such attractions and the proliferation of budget airlines, the number of tourists in the region has risen rapidly.
