heal.abstract |
The present Diploma Thesis was carried out by Elena Papachristophorou during the academic year 2015
-16, at the Department of Geography and Regional Planning, School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, National
Technical University of Athens (NTUA). It was supervised by Anastasia Stratigea, Associate Professor at NTUA, and was
completed in September 2016. The study area of the thesis was Lemesos District, one of the 6 districts of the island of Cyprus. Due to its long coastal front, its rich cultural and historical
environment, its unique fauna and flora, and its countless historical sites, the area has, in the last 3 decades, grown into a popular tourist destination, with over 300 thousand tourist arrivals annually. The tourist development allowed the area to flourish economically, with tourism being an increasingly important
pillar of the local but also the national economy. The mass tourism
pattern that predominates in the area, however, exerts great pressures on the area’s resources. The excessive and
indiscriminate use of land, energy and natural resources for the development and ongoing operation of the hospitality
infrastructure has widespread negative influences on many facets of the social, natural, and economic structures of the area. The resulting erosion of the cultural and natural
environments of the area threatens the flourishing of to
urism itself, while setting sustainability objectives of the area at
stake. Concerns over the issue of mass tourism development
and its impacts were the main impetus for the development of the present Diploma Thesis, which sets as its goal the
sustainable development of the hospitality sector in the
area. The exploration of the current state of the sector as to the adoption of environmental management systems or relevant environmentally friendly practices was carried out by means of a questionnaire, distributed through the internet, while certain face-to-face interviews were also undertaken. Data
collected have set the ground for the development of two alternative scenarios for the sustainable development of the sector, with emphasis on the energy dimension by means of energy efficiency or renewable energy production at the hotel accommodation level. The two scenarios were then assessed for their advantages and disadvantages through the use of qualitative evaluation (S.W.O.T. analysis) as well as multicriter
ia analysis methods (multicriteria method REGIME)
, and the most suitable scenario for the attainment of the
goal of the thesis was selected. Finally, policy measures for the application of the prevailing scenario were proposed. For her constant and unwavering support throughout the course of the present study, I would like to warmly thank my supervisor, Anastasia Stratigea, Associate Professor at NTUA. In addition, I would like to extend my thanks to the hotel owners of Lemesos district that readily responded to the study’s questionnaires, thus providing the data that formed the core of this
thesis; and to the Cyprus Tourism Organisation for their
support and information provision. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their constant support, and my friends for their unreserved encouragement. |
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