The Beginning of the End...

To all the fellow students, friends and welcome strangers out there that have stuck with me throughout the course of this blog, I would like to say a huge thank you! With the new year starting, I'll have less time for blogging although I do hope to continue posting in the future. As I reflect on the last few months, I can say that maintaining this blog has been challenging but extremely rewarding, as I was able to focus on a topic that captures a lot of my interests as a keen traveller and geographer! 

As the blog has developed so has my knowledge of the subject and my opinions on the matter. Before starting, I had no idea of the huge contribution of tourism to global environmental problems such as carbon emissions, invasive species transfer and coral reef destruction. I have particularly enjoyed exploring the relationship between the local and the global when discussing these issues, as many environmental problems associated with the tourist industry take place locally but add up to create global issues. Although I have been pretty negative in my posts about tourism's impact on the environment and possibilities for sustainable tourism, I do have hope for 2017 as the Year of Sustainable Tourism! Furthermore, I believe that with increasing notice of tourism in global negotiations such as COP-21, the global tourism sector will be able to move towards an effective emissions reduction strategy. 

Lastly, this blog has given me a unique opportunity explore the relationship between science and popular media - something I have often found quite frustrating as facts and figures often get blown so out of proportion and context! Yet I believe popular media can be a force for good, as it can raise public awareness of important issues, such as the contribution of sunscreen to coral reef destruction, as can thus really make a change in people's actions.

All in all, I hope you've enjoyed reading my posts as much I've enjoyed writing them!

Blog News: Sustainable Tourism Finally Takes the Forefront!

Reflecting on the course of this blog so far, I feel I’ve taken a pretty negative stance in exploring tourism’s role in global environmental change and possibilities for sustainable tourism. So for a bit of a change, here is my blog proclamation of some fantastic news: following the deliberations at COP-21 this month, the United Nations has officially declared 2017 the ‘International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development’!

Most notably, the resolution emphasises that “well-designed and well-managed tourism can make a significant contribution to the three dimensions of sustainable development, has close linkages to other sectors and can create decent jobs and generate trade opportunities.”

The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has taken the lead role in this plan, with their Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai, claiming this “is a unique opportunity to advance the contribution of thetourism sector to the three pillars of sustainability – economic, social and environmental, while raising awareness of the true dimensions of a sector which is often undervalued”. I honestly couldn’t agree more – tourism has barely been mentioned in previous initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals. Considering the sector accounts for 10% of GDP globally and 1/11 jobs, tourism has real power to make a change. Rifai added that the UNWTO is looking to work with loads of other stakeholders including governments, relevant sectors of the UN and NGOs, inviting them all to participate. I believe that the collaboration of stakeholders is key for achieving the goals of the declaration and sustainable tourism more generally, which, although fairly vague, is still in its early stages and will surely develop by 2017.

To add to this, the UNWTO has released this document which shows how tourism can potentially contribute - both directly and indirectly - to all 17 of the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)  as part of Agenda 2030. Furthermore, tourism has been featured in specific targets for 3 of the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals. Most notably, these include Goal 14 , which is to “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”, with the specific target to “by 2030 increase the economic benefits of [Small Island Developing States] SIDS and [Less Developed Countries] LDCs from the sustainable use of marine resources, including through sustainable management of fisheries, aquaculture and tourism.” One little quiff I may have is that tourism really should have been mentioned in a target for Goal 13 as well – ‘Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts’ – considering it's direct emissions contribute 5% of all global CO₂ emissions!

All in all, however, it seems that tourism is finally taking the forefront in global discussions for achieving sustainability. Whether 2017 will play out to be a success cannot be said yet – but the fact that International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development’ exists and is being talked about can surely only be positive!

Last Chance Tourism: Effective Ecotourism or the Devil in Disguise?

Following my largely theoretical introduction to sustainable tourism, this post aims to critically assess a particular form of ecotourism, known as “last chance tourism” or “doom tourism”, using the example of cruise tours to Antarctica. Last chance tourism involves marketing destinations particularly vulnerable to climate change, with the selling point of seeing these places before they disappear. Proponents claim last chance tourism raises awareness of climate change and the related vulnerabilities of the destinations, and is thus a form of climate change “adaptation”.

By the late 2000s media outlets such as travel and lifestyle magazines started featuring lists of “must-see” endangered locations, with destinations such as Alaska (melting glaciers), the Great Barrier Reef (bleaching corals) and the Maldives (drowning islands) often featuring – here’s an example. Tourism operators also capitalised on this opportunity, with press releases such as this one by Fresh Tracks Canada instilling a sense of urgency through language like "your last chance to see polar bears", "the future uncertain" and "until it’s too late".

Of all the endangered locations, the sectors' favourites are currently the Arctic and Antarctic, with the number of cruise passengers to Antarctica tripling from 2000-2007. In a 2010 survey of Antarctic cruise passengers, over 1/3 chose the option “see the Antarctic before it is gone” as a travel motive, confirming the “last chance to see” element. 

CO₂ Emissions

Figures 1 compares the per-day emission figures per-passenger for Antarctic cruise tourism with those of a range of other travel types. The results are arresting: the three highest emitters all involve an Antarctic cruise, with a trip to the Antarctic from Europe emitting almost 7 times as much CO₂ than the average international tourist trip of 8 days. Ship travel distances for polar cruise tourism are pretty much always higher than the average for international tourism journeys, due to the remoteness of polar locations. Furthermore, the added long-haul flight increases CO₂ emissions by over a third; the vast majority of Antarctic tourists are from the USA and Europe meaning they first need to take a long-haul flight to their port of departure (commonly Ushuaia in Argentina). Worryingly, a passenger taking an Antarctic cruise can emit more in one journey than the average European in a whole year!

Figure 1. Emissions for each passenger per day for selected tourism trips. Source.

Clearly, this creates a paradoxical situation, whereby ecotourism aiming to make passengers more aware of anthropogenic climate change and sustainable tourism is disproportionately contributing to climate change itself. This is one of the strongly debated problems of ecotourism more generally.

Effectiveness of Environmental Education

Proponents of ecotourism often stress its positive effects on tourists’ environmental attitudes, resulting in “longer term intentions to engage in conservation actions”. It has been argued that polar tourism can be used to form “ambassadors” to help protect the visited areas. However these assertions have been widely criticised in the literature, with little evidence for a link between awareness of global warming and actual changes towards low-emissions tourism and transport choices.

For example, a 2010 survey of passengers travelling to Churchill in Canada for polar bear viewing found that 30% of respondents did not even realise that emissions from air transport add to climate change. Another similar survey of passengers on an eco-tourism based Antarctic cruise found that of even those who did realise travel contributed substantially to climate change, only 1 person planned on using a more sustainable form of travel such as coach or train for their next trip, whilst 61% planned to continue using airplane or cruise-ship. This suggests that even if ecotourism results in raised environmental awareness (which it might not), this may not lead to an increase in pro-environmental decisions.

Thoughts and Alternatives

Reducing the carbon emissions of tourism to the Antarctic is tricky, due to the need for long-distance trips via airplane and ship, which comprise the main source of emissions. Personally, I believe last chance tourism to Antarctica is more a form of mass tourism to polar regions, rather than an effective form of ecotourism. Instead, I would argue that keen ecotourists could alternatively visit cold destinations threatened by climate change closer to home, for example in mountain ranges. Figure 2 highlights the emissions for an "alternative" last-chance holiday from Germany (the third greatest source of tourists to Antarctica) to the Alps. 

Figure 2. Emissions for each passenger per day for selected tourism trips. with the "alternative" last-chance holiday highlighted. Source.

Due to more efficient transport forms and lower travel distances, this particular trip produced 16 x lower CO2 emissions than a trip from Germany to Antarctica, demonstrating that there are forms of last chance tourism that produce far less emissions that polar tourism. These can also be combined with more effectively raising awareness of climate change impacts on the visited destinations through discussions with experts and local communities about sustainable tourism and environmental protection, as demonstrated through the Inuit-owned Cruise North Expeditions’ 2006 program “Polar bears on thin ice”. However, even with reduced emissions and effective education last chance tourism still creates a tricky paradox reflective not only of ecotourism but tourism in general – are the benefits really worth the environmental impact?