TOURISM IN THE AGE OF GREEN ECONOMY

The development of mass tourism has posed threats and created problems that have affected destinations and local communities in virtually every corner of the world. To overcome the problems of mass tourism, many governments, businesses, communities, and tourism organizations have turned to alternative types of tourism development. One such alternative is 'special interest tourism'. While this has become a centre of attention for the tourism industry, in academic and professional literature, there is still much that is not known or is not widely known. The present paper underlines the necessity of internationally monitoring the ecological state of our planet,developed societies have to assume, based on their material and intelligence resources, the main part of the obligations of developing countries, which are forced to channel their efforts towards other priorities in order to respond to their most stringent necessities. Their support might help all the states to wisely advance and we refer here to both industrialization process and environment protection. On the one hand, an unpolluted environment is vital for tourism sector within the EU; the community politics for environmental protection is relevant for tourism and make reference to water quality, reduction of air pollution or improvement of urban environment quality. Post-crisis challenge for Romania is the organization and development of its natural and cultural resources in a range of tourism products with a wide appeal to the public, and transforming these attractions in a flow of tourists and benefits for the country. This requires an integrated product development and strategic marketing approach, and more attention to the environmental problems and sustainable development of tourism and environment. This study uses a framework developed from the industrial ecology literature to assess the impacts of the tourism industry on the environment. The greening of tourism, which involves efficiency improvements in energy, water, and waste systems, is expected to reinforce the employment potential of the sector with increased local hiring and sourcing and significant opportunities in tourism oriented toward local culture and the natural environment. Green tourism embraces all aspects of sustainable tourism, based on four basic principles(1) (UNWTO): environmental, social, economic and climate (i.e. the "quadruple bottom line" of sustainable tourism). Green tourism minimizes the environmental impact of tourism and maximizes its adaptation to climate change. However, educational efforts geared towards industry sectors seem most effective when cost savings and the marketing benefits of "being green" (2)are emphasized in this article.