Environmental Auditing for Sustainable Tourism Development in Australia

Abstract

Tourism, in Australia and globally, is a growth industry. With this growth has come concern about its environmental implications. As a result, the tourism industry has experienced increased scrutiny in regard to environmental management, and efforts are being made to achieve more sustainable forms of tourism development. The case for the tourism industry in Australia to develop an effective approach to improve its environmental performance is compelling. The industry depends primarily on conserving and improving the environment which is its main resource. For this reason, the improvement of environmental performance is likely to grow in importance. This study examined the principle of sustainable tourism development and analysed the current environmental impact assessment process in Australia, The study argued that the current EIA process has shortcomings. It cannot provide sufficient information for effective environmental management, and cannot meet the requirement of sustainable tourism development. Given these shortcomings, it appears that improved and effective environmental impact assessment relevant to tourism development must extend beyond impact statements to include continual monitoring and evaluation of objectives, and operational procedures and performance. To this end, it is further argued that a new approach which provides a continuing management tool that can play a key role in the environmental management for tourism is needed ... With current tourism development trends in Australia, the study selected beach resort as a case study. The result of case studies demonstrated that the EMPA tends to be well understood and supported by resort management. Improving environmental management performance of resorts does not have to increase costs or reduce comfort and convenience of guests. As better environmental practices are being sought, more solutions which enable environmental, commercial and guests service goals to be met simultaneously are being found. It further showed that improving environmental performance enhances the resorts' reputation, and responsible actions of management are positive marketable commodities. As such, environmental auditing has great potential to make a valuable contribution to improvement of the environment.