Scientific studies say that by 2030 there will be a 25 % increase in CO2 emissions from tourism when compared with 2016 ? In 1950 there were 25 million tourist arrivals in the world in different countries. In 1970 this number went up to 166 million and by 1990 this was 435 million. Between 1990 to 2018 the number of tourist arrivals in the world became three times higher and it went up to 1.442 billion and by 2030 1.8 billion tourist arrivals are projected. Let us now relate this with India. 30 years back the number of tourist arrivals in Goa , Uttarakhand , Rajasthan, Himachal or J&K was very less but now the rush is huge.

Before 1990 few thousand pilgrims would visit Amarnath, Kedarnath or Badrinath, but now this number is huge and it is posing threat to our ecology and environment and we have already witnessed several environmental disasters in these areas. In Sonamarg , Pahalgam or Gulmarg we had very few concrete hotels in the past but now with the huge influx of tourists we have constructed a large number of hotels in these tourist destinations and these places now look like small cities rather than hill stations ? This is going to have a negative impact on our ecology and climate as these practices will cause depletion of our natural resources and will impact forests and local biodiversity as well.

Managing waste in tourist places across the world has become an arduous task and this is more challenging in hilly areas like Gulmarg, Pahalgam and Sonamarg, in Kashmir. A day isn’t far when this will go out of control and all our tourist places will be choked with trash and our tourism industry will collapse. To address that the only way out is to adopt sustainable and responsible tourism practices and all the stakeholders in tour and travel trade need to understand which these........

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