Green Tourism Practices in Cox’s Bazar

Abstract

Tourism is an expanding international business contributing a lot to the GDP of world economy and also to the GDP of each country which has the tourism products to offer to the tourists. With such positive contribution of the tourism industry now-a-days it is claimed that it has a great negative impact on the environment. Especially, pollution of the environment by the tourism activities has made concern to the stakeholders of the industry which leads to the green tourism practices. Green tourism practices focus on trying to minimize the negative impact on the environment by tourism business through applying the various tools and techniques. Bangladesh is a potential and rising country in tourism business that needs to understand the green practices in tourism to grip the competitive advantage. Green tourism practices are the burning issue now and also it is timely one and widespread issue from the sense of its consequence. So, the study of ‘Green Tourism Practices in Cox’s Bazar’ is a significant one. The basic objective of the study is to check the green tourism practices in Cox’s Bazar of Bangladesh which is achieved by (i) measuring the attitude of tourists, hotels and restaurants and (ii) examining their actual activities toward the green tourism practices. The study is an extensive one which covers the various aspects of green practices. Review of literatures proves that no specific research on such a topic is done in the previous years in Bangladesh. So, the study will provide the necessary clues for understanding how green issues can be utilized for attracting more tourists in Bangladesh. To conduct the study, a systematic research methodology is followed which includes the various steps as selection of the study area with consciousness, following the appropriate research process, development of research questions and hypotheses, selecting and applying the proper tools and techniques to collect data, using the feasible interviewing techniques, planning sample and sampling design, questionnaire design development, making decision on using suitable statistical tools for the study and following the system of data analysis and reporting. Firstly, the problem is defined precisely as the step of research process that is done by reviewing more related literatures. For the study both exploratory and causal research design is applied where the first is applied to define the problem precisely and also to find out the research gap and the latter is used to interpret the collected data. Under the survey method the data are collected by face-to-face interview in which structured questionnaires are used as the tools of datav | P a g e Green Tourism Practices in Cox’s Bazar collection. The target population for the study consists of tourists, hotels and restaurants of Cox’s Bazar. In choosing sampling technique simple random sampling is used for the tourists and two-stage sampling method (stratified and simple random) is used to select the sample from the hotels and restaurants. Questionnaires are developed based on the variables and before final field work questionnaires are pre-tested. To analyze the data both mathematical and graphical analytical models are used. Chi-square test, Correlation Matrix Analysis, Descriptive Analysis and Factor Analysis are used as the statistical techniques to analyze the data. The collected data are analyzed by using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) and computer program. This software helps to organize the data into tables and graphs and also performs statistical calculations that are pertinent to the data analysis process. From the study of measuring tourists’ attitude and their genuine attempts toward green tourism practices, it is found that there is a positive association between Green Practices and the independent variables. The study expresses that in the context of genuine activities by the tourists several green practices are found (use of reusable tote bags, recycled cloths, reusable water bottles, walking instead of driving where possible, using public transportation, buying recycled content products and buying greening products) among them and the remaining actions toward green tourism practices are frustrating. To provide the importance on green practices in the hotel, majority of the hoteliers think that such practices are very important or important. Except customer education program as the tool of green tourism practice in the hotel industry hoteliers give the importance on other techniques (energy saving program, water conservation program, waste management program, employee education program and pest and weeds management program). The study explores that there exists association between green practices and the six independent variables. Real actions toward green tourism practices by the hoteliers depict that most of the hotels are using the tools of setting the rules of energy linked to the guest room, shutting down energy appliances manually, use of florescent lamps, use of cold water instead of hot as much as possible, giving the attention to purchase the recycled content products, donating excess food to employees under food waste reduction program, picking weeds by hand rather than using weed killers, giving out information on green practice in public areas of the hotel and guest room, and organizing the training program. But to the interest of the environment they are not applying other variables. Majority of the respondents give the importance on greenvi | P a g e Green Tourism Practices in Cox’s Bazar practices in restaurant business. There is a positive and significant association of Green Practices of restaurants only with two variables as Offered Manu and Energy Saving Program. With other variables association is positive but not significant. No restaurant was found in involving composting program. Most of the restaurants do not use eco-friendly cleaning supplies and a poor number of restaurants have environmental procurement guidelines. All the three stakeholders have the distinct suggestions to popularize the green practices in tourism. Recommendations on transportation, procurement of environmental product, water conservation program, waste management program, promotion of green practices, energy saving program, education and training program, tourists initiatives, hoteliers responsibility, restaurants’ actions, tourism industry’s obligations and government attempts are provided. Such recommendations can be applied toward green tourism practices for the betterment of the tourism industry