Sustainable Tourism: Best Practice in Water Management

On the occasion of “World Water Day 2007”, “Water, the challenge of the century” was said by Jaques Diouf, director general of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, spoke of the critical issues related to water management that man will face in the 21st century. The importance of water derives from its being an indispensable but limited resource. We are not able to produce more than Earth offers, nor can we exploit water resources outside the planet. Nevertheless, water remains a fundamental asset whose demand is expected to grow considerably in the coming years: It is estimated that, by 2050, almost half of the world’s population will be exposed to potential conditions of water stress. The aim of this work is to analyse the role of tourism in the consumption of water resources, in particular, the volumes of water “indirectly” spent to meet the needs of tourists. We will explain in detail what these “indirect consumption” consist of and we will deepen the characteristics of the tourism sector in order to understand the mechanisms that bind it to water resources.