Poll

Tourism: the world's blessing or curse?

Worldwatch Live Online Discussion

June 27, 2003 - 2:00pm EDT

Shaken by international terrorism and a global economic slowdown, the tourism industry began a slow recovery in 2002. But new elements, such as the borderless SARS virus, still threaten what has become one of the world's largest industries.

Could this slowdown in the tourism industry be a blessing in disguise?

Despite being an important generator of income and jobs worldwide, tourism has many negative impacts, including environmental and social repercussions and the potential loss of benefits for local enterprises as a result of foreign ownership of tourism businesses. For places of "outstanding value to humanity", such as those designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, tourism is a double-edged sword. It offers many impoverished communities the chance to reap financial rewards, but also threatens the very resources—human and natural—upon which the industry is ultimately built.

Steve Conklin, Worldwatch Institute: Welcome to this week's Vital Signs 2003 online discussion. Joining us today to discuss the topic of tourism is Worldwatch Research Associate Lisa Mastny. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa Mastny: Thanks, Steve. And thanks to everyone for participating in today's discussion. Tourism has been a fascinating research topic for me, and it seems like these days there's never a dull moment! I welcome any of your questions or thoughts.

Covington, LA, USA: What is a tourist? Was Marco Polo a tourist?

Lisa Mastny: What a great question to lead off the discussion with. I think the answer depends very much on whom you ask. Webster's dictionary defines a tourist as 'one that makes a tour for pleasure or culture.' And tourism is 'the practice of traveling for recreation.' In my own work on tourism, however, I tend to adopt the more expansive definition used by the World Tourism Organization: an international tourist is 'a person who travels to and stays in a place outside his or her usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes.' I would say that Marco Polo doesn't really fit either of these definitions'his visits were often longer than a year, and he had a very specific mission as a trader, though of course he did also appreciate the cultural significance of his trips. I would consider him more of a traveller than a tourist, particularly as he traveled at a time when the whole concept of 'tourism' had not yet really developed.

UK: The damage that over use, including over visitation by tourists, can cause to both natural and cultural heritage sites has been well documented and extremely well debated for the past 20 years. Tourism doesn't simply provide a few jobs, its economic contribution can be much more significant, and is much more complex than that. It is also extremely valuable in promoting the creation and maintenance of heritage sites. What better way is there to involve people and make them care about protection than if they visit and enjoy a site? The problems you mention in the intro, social and environmental damage, foreign ownership and benefits from tourism business do happen, but the point is not to attempt to put a halt to the industry, but to better manage it. A recent ILO report states that 6.5 million jobs are likely to have been permanently lost in this recent downturn, and that it has and will disproportionately affect the poorest workers in developing countries, not the rich expat owners. The key is not stopping people visit, or even strict and arbitrary limits on numbers, but careful, well-planned management of sites that allows for their protection, public enjoyment and turing tourists into world heritage site ambassadors through their learning from and enjoyment of these areas. The downturn in tourism will not improve the protection of sites because less people may visit them, it will simply make local people worse off and possibly less protective of these important areas that they may no longer benefit from. This is not so much a question as a comment, but it seems to me that the debate has moved a long way from the one being proposed here and many people are successfully working globally to improve the benefits of tourism to the poorest, so creating a sustainable industry that encourages the creation and protection of important biological and cultural sites. It is this experience that needs to be discussed, shared and copied, rather than re-hashing old debates about protecting areas by fencing them off. Best regards, Claudia Townsend

Lisa Mastny: Your point is well taken--I certainly don't wish to discount the benefits of tourism in terms of jobs, revenue generation, heritage preservation, and cultural exchange. Nor do I wish to rehash old debates about the perils and promises of tourism. My primary concern is similar to yours'that while we generally know what direction tourism SHOULD be going in, in regards to sustainability, the reality of the situation is that the industry, for the most part, is not moving in that direction. There are notable exceptions, of course, but the bulk of the money that is currently being invested in tourism does not go to supporting local communities or to lightening tourism's environmental footprint. And in many places, advances that ARE being made in these areas are being outweighed by the growing numbers of visitors in locations that simply don't have the resources (particularly financial) to adequately deal with this onslaught. Yes, the answer is better management, not keeping people out. But in how many places do we actually see sound management trumping the drive for dollars and development'

Eugene, Oregon: Not a question, but an observation: A telling justification for tourism occured to me yesterday, when asked whether I felt that my last 6 months in South India were a 'decadent waste of resources'. I replied that 'No,' my time had in fact been dedicated towards non-profit funding, strategic planning and biodynamic farm research, but that for all the other 'tourists' there was a valuable experience to be had through contact with something like the Pondicherry vegetable market. "Just like a zoo," I said, followed by a rush of self-conscious critique. But still, the negative impacts of tourism (the non-sex-or-destruction-based kind) are balanced against the potential enlightenment of travelers much as the imprisonment of animals is pitted against the benefits in the education of an empathic public. In both cases, an enormous demographic can be 'saved' from the lot of their impacted fellows by the exposure of the same. We can't bring polio-stricken, starving mothers to America (due to quarantine laws), and places like China Town (SF) don't inspire a whole lot of compassion for the stife of Upper Yang-Tze farmers, so in terms of direct experiental learning, this is about the only way for people to see what the impacts of international consumption systems or agro-industry really look like. If it's ignorance versus the gentrification of airport environs in developing nations, I'll gun for a tourism industry any day. PS- Autorickshaws are the pits though, along with many other highly-dependent and unhealthful travel-based occupations. Just an afterthought, but important to consider.

Lisa Mastny: I think you're absolutely right. I enjoy traveling for the very reasons that you mention'the ability to see how others live, to engage in experiential learning, to become aware of global inequities, etc. Unfortunately, I think there is a perhaps much larger group of tourists who don't necessarily see things in this way, and are content to seek out those places'hotels, restaurants, entertainment, etc'that offer them the creature-comforts, cuisine, and culture of home. Many of these visitors never come into contact with the polio-stricken, starving mothers, or the Upper Yang-Tze farmers, that you mention. And I think the real danger is that unless tourism is carefully managed, this 'other' type of tourism will icnreasingly drive the direction of the industry, making the world a more uniform'or perhaps more 'museum' or 'zoo'-like-place than ever before.

Daejeon, South Korea: Tourism as it stands is about selling people an experience. So they can go back home and say - "Yeah, I've been there", or "Yeah, I did that". Now days people are less willing to do that for fear of their own personal safety. There are of course still some who have the gung-ho attitude and go and do it anyway. Do you think that Tourism can be transformed into somehting more tangible and environmentally friendly or is it doomed to be another facet of capitalisation that will make people rich at the obvious expense of natural resources?

Lisa Mastny: Certainly there are people who travel with the goal of being able to say 'Been there, done that,' but I think this view greatly simplifies the value of the travel experience in terms of personal growth, development, transformation, and the other benefits mentioned in earlier postings. From the industry perspective, tourism may be about 'selling an experience,' but it would be shortsighted to say that from the visitor perspective it is simply 'buying an experience.' With regard to your concern about transforming tourism, I think this is still an open question. Clearly the future of tourism depends on how it is done. Research and experience have shown that it IS possible to manage tourism well, and there is growing agreement on what this would involve. But I think that getting industry to invest in the changes that are needed--while also meeting their own business ends--will be a difficult challenge.

Hilo, Hawaii: Based on personal observations, I'm under the impression that local officials are heavily influenced in their infrastructure improvement priorities by the tourism industry. Many of the infrastructure improvements, supported by local property or income taxes, benefit tourism, while projects that would serve primarily the local community go undeveloped from shortage of funding. How correct are these observations and conclusions in most tourism-intensive communities? What percentage of the "average" local community benefit from tourism? Do the majority of local residents derive sufficient benefits to justify subsidizing tourism? Have any communities managed a reasonable balance?

Lisa Mastny: I would say that your obervations are largely accurate. World Tourism Organization statistics have put the share of leakage of tourism revenues from the local economy at as high as 75 percent, particularly in the developing world. That is, as much as 75 percent of revenues leave the destination in the form of profits for foreign-owned businesses, promotional spending abroad, or payments for imported goods or labor. Most of the examples of communities that have been able to resist this type of leakage are very small scale... for instance, communities in Namibia that are reinvesting tourism dollars in local education and health, or tribes in Ecuador that redistribute tourism income among community members. But even in these cases inequities still exist.

Hilo, Hawaii: By my rough estimate, each traveler making a round trip journey between Hilo and the West Coast is responsible for the consumption of almost 0.3 tons of fuel and the generation of nearly a ton of carbon dioxide. I assume many remote communities face similar numbers. At this rate, tourism is a finite industry with a limited life expectancy. Probably worse than the logging or fisheries industries since the resource on which it depends is not renewable. What would you estimate for the life expectancy of mass tourism? Are any efforts being made to develop truly sustainable modes of practical trans-oceanic passenger transportation?

Lisa Mastny: I think you have hit on a number of key issues. One, of course, is the "shrinking" nature of our planet. People are flying further distances to seek out ever remote corners of the globe, places were long unreachable. One of the consequences is longer flights and the intense use of fossil fuels. The second issue is the fundamental irony of tourism--as the industry continues to allow the unregulated environmental and cultural destruction of prime tourism spots, it is undermining its own bread-and-butter, the reason people go to a spot in the first place. Tourism researchers often refer to the "life-cycle" of a destination--its evolution from discovery, to development, to eventual decline. More often than not, the decline is due to environmental destruction and lack of proper planning. One notable example is Barbados after the 1980s.

Billings, Montana: With new regulations allowing snowmobiles into Yellowstone National Park, and the softening of other wilderness regulations, do you see outdoor recreation and tourism as becoming a more destructive force than in the past?

Lisa Mastny: I think the growing popularity of outdoor recreation has definitely had negative impacts on our national parks. But it is important to distinguish among low-impact recreation, such as hiking and backcountry camping, and, say, snowmobiles, which generate considerable air and noise pollution. I think the government's role should be to help protect the nation's natural areas from destruction, not to encourage this by weakening hard-won environmental regulations. Speaking of Yellowstone, the Bush administration is now lobbying the United Nations to remove the park from a list of World Heritiage Sites "in danger," despite continuing threats to the park's waterbodies and wildlife populations. This is just the latest example of both environmental backstepping and ongoing disengagement from international agreements and norms.

kennewick wa: Thank you, Lisa. Of interest perhaps, there is an ecotourism game (interactive) available on "Amazon Interactive." You are posed questions and offered two answers to choose from, such as "Let's try ecotourism" or "No, let's not get into tourism."

Lisa Mastny: Thanks for providing this link. We didn't really get a chance to get into the whole topic of ecotourism today, but there are some wonderful resources on the Internet, including the International Ecotourism Society, at http://www.ecotourism.org/, and Planeta.com, at http://www.planeta.com/.

Steve Conklin, Worldwatch Institute: Thanks for joining us today, Lisa. Thanks as well to all of our participants. If you would like to learn more about tourism, and its positive and negative effects on our earth, check out Worldwatch Paper 159: Traveling Light: New Paths for International Tourism.

Lisa Mastny: Thank you all for participating, and thank you Steve for your smooth (as always) moderation.

I wish you all the best in your travels!

Lisa