The Way Tourism Unites Us All

By Zahra Shirpurwala

As a journey of thousand miles begins with just a single step, the journey of our life, being no short in itself, is influenced mainly by travel that has been a major part of inculcating adventure, mystery, happiness and even this sense of discovery in anyone and everyone’s life.

The world is a book, with each chapter bringing along its secrets and each page flaunting its richness in culture and diversities; tourism has helped combine many people of different religions, traditions, castes, creeds and even mindsets to unify.

We can all agree as to have heard of the common saying that there is unity in diversity. In fact, the father of our nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, quoted, “Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and test of our civilisation.”. As Tourism is a simple tool to bond unity with diversity, it is assured there is no direct connection between the two.

For years, travel and tourism have benefited countries highly and been nothing but a boon. The following are the ways that tourism has and will always unite us all.

Tourism promotes education and employment that have helped generate revenues for relatively poor nations. It empowers multiple minority communities and helps raise the voices of many others. It spreads awareness of critical environmental issues as humans tend to destroy nature and the incredible and exotic tourist spots by littering, scribbling on our monuments, etc.; together with unity, it assists us in finding solutions over a period of time.

It generates foreign direct investments that have helped expand denominations and invest in currencies across the world. Tourism promotes each nation’s history and teaches us to embrace past empires, warriors and patriots and the efforts made by each one of them to help their civilisation develop and meet the pace of this fast-changing society. Modernisation within countries has increased as we witness an advanced digital and virtual era.

It promotes import and export businesses of traditional and cultural hand-crafted goods that have opened to international markets. Finally, world peace and cross-relations have developed better relationships between the countries of the world.

The unity brought by tourism has become a significant economic asset. It stimulates tourism entrepreneurship whilst being a building block of international understanding and leaving no stone unturned in our increasingly globalised world.

In fact, the UNWTO United Nations World Tourism Organisation is an agency set up by the UN to promote sustainable, responsible and, most important, universally accessible tourism to one and all. Sustainable tourism aims to increase its benefits whilst decreasing its negative impacts, such as overuse of natural resources, deforestation, soil erosion, natural habitat loss and extinction of many endangered species, keeping them in control.

As a significant boost in economy and wealth, tourism has helped nations with relatively weak economies rise and state a place in the world. With the Covid – 19 situation controlled and the impacts of the virus at a decrement, countries of the world have started to engage with one another and resume tourism. Tourism has helped break barriers of superstitious thoughts about other countries and theories that we make up about their people. Tourism has opened doors for the world to stand as one.

Social Media and Tourism pair well and equally for they both promote sharing experiences and being eye-catchers to more and more viewers. People who visit other countries often post their experiences on social media, which thus intrigues viewers to also see the same places, further expanding tourism. Study states that 46% of the Gen-Z population say that Instagram has highly influenced their travel decisions, plus 50% claim it was due to Facebook posts. Therefore one could say that social media plays a vital role when it comes to encouraging travel and tourism across the globe.

Finally, travel and tourism help humans separate their differences whilst learning from each other and respecting one another’s cultures, traditions and lifestyles. It helps build a mutual relationship and collaborate with other states and nations to boost economic growth. It helps tackle stereotypes and promotes love, peace and harmony within everyone. It is not only us that benefits but even the flora and fauna as we preserve nature to enhance our tourist spots and destinations.

Tourism unites us all in fraternity, diversity and companionship.

By Zahra Shirpurwala