Zeitschrift für Tourismusforschung und Gastgewerbe

Water value Contrasting the Travel Industry.

Hillary Benitton

Every year on the 22nd of March 2018, the United Nations celebrate World Water Day to highlight the importance of freshwater and the need to manage water resources sustainably. Recent trends of increasing intensity of agricultural production, rapid development and urbanization have resulted in increased withdrawal of freshwater resources, with mounting risks of water stress. Globally, domestic water use alone has grown on average by 2.2% every year for the last 60 years. Since 1995, this growth has been driven to a considerable extent by increased consumption in Asia and Africa. Asia, in particular, is considered a hot spot for future water supply, because of continuous population growth, which means that about two billion extra people will require water resources by 2050.Research from Northern China highlights how increased demand, coupled with decreased precipitation and run off, triggered large scale investments into water engineering and, more recently, water transfer projects.