Sustainable Tourism Law

SUSTAINABLE TOURISM IN ARGENTINA 529 Socio-cultural Impacts Positive: infrastructure improvement, interrelation among different cultures and appreciation of tangible and intangible heritage, as well as impacts. Negative: Cultures adapt to tourists and tend to disappear. Environmental Impacts Positive: Protecting measures for natural areas, promotion of different codes, norms, guidelines, conservation and quality programmes and the relation to the impacts. Negative: As a consequence of the excess of the carrying capacity 4 , there is pollution, because of an increase in water and energy consumption, solid wastes and carbon dioxide. Economic Impacts Positive: tourism increase contributes to a balancing of payments, impact on the GDP, employment generation. Negative: increase of informal employments, considering that in the tourist activity most of the jobs are temporary. IV. SUSTAINABLE TOURISM The negative impacts of mass-tourism and the global concern about contamination have given rise to Sustainable Tourism. It refers to a new style of tourism that intends to satisfy the needs of present generations without compromising the enjoyment of natural resources by future generations, raising awareness of nature and culture values, reducing environmental damages and maximizing the regional economic benefits. The UNWTO (World Tourist Organization) defines Sustainable Tourism as “Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities” Additionally, in order to raise awareness of population and of those who have public and private responsibility in the area, as well as to increase its significance, 4 Carrying capacity: it makes reference to the maximum number of people that may visit a tourist destination at the same time, without causing destruction of the environment.