Tourism Ecological Footprint Measurement of District Abbottabad: A Way Forward for micro to global level sustainability.

Abstract

The tourism destinations are viewed as hub of commercial activities without taking into account the regional sustainability and environmental degradation. The tourism is one of the most rapidly blooming industries across the globe with a growth rate of 4% per year. The tourism industry involves trillions of dollars with associated commercial sectors, subsectors and jobs opportunities. Many countries in the world rely upon tourism industry for their economic growth. The consumption of bio resources for tourism activities of tourism destinations are needed to be quantified to have comparison with respective national productivity and consumption of the same. The comparison can give a holistic view of the sustainable regional tourism carrying capacity and potential. This paper is quantifying the bio resources being consumed for tourism activities in district Abbottabad, located in Khyber Pakhtonkha province of Pakistan by accounting tourism ecological footprint (TEF) of district Abbottabad. The TEF of the district is accounted by using ecological footprint calculator provided by Global Footprint Network. The TEF of District Abbottabad is measured through a structured questionnaire for three classes of hotels being classified upon their rating as one star, two star and three star. The results of TEF were found as 5.31 gha, 3.21gha and 1.59 gha for three star, two star and one star hotels respectively. The TEF of the region is later compared with national EF. The comparison can help in conversion of regional tourism into ecotourism planning and policy making leading to regional environmental conservation.