UTB 4097

Anton Fischer

Sustainable Tourism From mass tourism towards eco-tourism

Haupt Verlag

Dr. Anton Fischer ist Professor für Geobotanik an der TU München.

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1. Auflage 2014

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Umschlagsgestaltung: Atelier Reichert, D-Stuttgart

Satz: Verlag Die Werkstatt, D-Göttingen

Fotos: Anton Fischer, D-Weihenstephan

Korrektorat: David Lüthi, CH-Bern

Printed in Germany

UTB-Band-Nr.: 4097

ISBN 978-3-8252-4097-4

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2 Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

2.1 Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

2.2 Pre-tourism forms of travelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2.3 The economic power of tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2.4 Mass tourism and its “ecological costs” . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2.5 Money flow to and at destinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

2.6 The ecological footprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

2.7 Negative consequences of mobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.8 Mass tourism and its “social costs” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

3 Alternative forms of tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

3.1 Forms and definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

3.1.1 Alternative and sustainable tourism . . . . . . . . . . 36

3.1.2 Nature-based tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

3.1.3 Environmentally and socially friendly tourism

and ecotourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

3.1.4 Special forms of ecotourism: conservation and

volunteer tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

3.1.5 Farm tourism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

3.1.6 Pro-poor tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

3.1.7 Adventure tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

3.1.8 Criticism of the relevance of definitions with

regard to sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

3.2 Low-carbon travelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

3.2.1 Soft mobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

3.2.2 CO2-sequestration by tree planting . . . . . . . . . . . 52

3.3 Touristic attractiveness of natural areas . . . . . . . . . . . 53

4 Combining nature conservation and sustainable tourism . . . 55

4.1 Finding the right balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

4.2 Should there be entrance fees for national parks? . . . . . . . 55

4.3 Disturbances in protected areas caused by tourism . . . . . . 59

Contents

4.4 The concept of carrying capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

4.5 Big-game hunting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

4.6 PAN parks: combining wilderness protection and

economic benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

4.6.1 The Protected Areas Network and its objectives. . . . . . 69

4.6.2 Acceptance by local communities . . . . . . . . . . . 73

4.7 Implementation of ecotourism projects . . . . . . . . . . . 74

4.8 Tourism and ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

5 From the analysis of tourist trips to an evaluation schema . . 79

5.1 Important issues in evaluating tourist trips . . . . . . . . . 79

5.2 Analysis of tourist trips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

5.3 A systematic approach to tourist trip evaluation . . . . . . . 101

6 Guidelines for planning and managing sustainable tourism . . 107

6.1 Guidelines for sustainable tourism at the destination . . . . . 107

6.2 Guidelines for sustainable tourism in protected areas . . . . . 109

7 The future of sustainable tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

7.1 Towards a general concept of sustainable tourism . . . . . . 113

7.2 “Sustainable mass tourism”?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

9 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

10 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

1 Introduction

Soon after World War II, tourism started to develop rapidly; it became one of the main branches of economic activity worldwide. But what do tourists need? What do they do? �� They leave their homes and quite often use a car or airplane to reach

their destinations. In both cases, fuel, a limited and non-renewable resource, is needed. As a consequence, their travelling involves the emission of CO

2, which promotes global warming.

�� The use of cars and airplanes presupposes certain infrastructures: roads, highways and airports as well as land and space. Land, however, is as much a limited resource as fuel is. Especially in the vicinity of areas of high touristic value (e.g. on islands or near beaches), land and space is often very limited. �� Tourists require accommodation and food at their destinations. Fur-

thermore, they may want to buy souvenirs. Tourists thus encourage the construction of hotels, restaurants, resorts and shops, which, again, all require space.�� At their destination, tourists do not want to spend their entire holi-

day time in their rooms but want to engage in “interesting” activities (say, shopping, swimming, eating and drinking, etc.). Shops, bars and swimming pools are thus expected by tourists, and they too require land. �� In order to run hotels, restaurants, shops and swimming pools, fresh

water is essential. Water, however, is a scarce resource in many parts of the world – especially in the subtropics, which belong to the most popular tourist destinations. �� All the mentioned infrastructure facilities require huge amounts of

electricity. �� Very often, the places most attractive to tourists are located in fragile

ecosystems (e.g. beaches, dunes, etc.). (Hundreds of) thousands of visiting tourists thus lead to the destruction or degradation of those habitats. As a consequence, the concerned areas’ biodiversity may be drastically reduced.

These few remarks show that many aspects of tourism are highly prob-lematic: resources are consumed which either do not regenerate or do so

8 Sustainable Tourism

only in the long run; and the ecological environment may be brought to its degradation or complete destruction. Hence, many aspects of tour-ism seem to be really unsustainable.

There are some tourists who, in contrast to their average peers, visit their destination with the aim to enjoy pristine and untouched land-scapes. Their intention is hardly compatible with the areas visited by the many. They thus look for regions where nature is still (more or less) intact, as in national parks and nature reserves. The main activities of such tourists are hiking, birding, taking pictures, observing animals and plants, and generally enjoying nature. Their requirements at the destination are thus comparably low (they need neither resorts nor pools nor shopping centers). Such tourists, who intend to have as lit-tle impact on their destination as possible, are often called “eco”-tour-ists. At first glance it seems as if they engage in a kind of tourism that is a perfect alternative to mass tourism. However, many well-known examples of pristine areas such as tropical rain forests, coral reefs or deserts are far away from the homes of these tourists (e.g. the urban areas of Europe, the US, Japan or China). To reach their destination, these tourists too thus have to use airplanes. Doing so, however, is in strong contrast with their intention to enjoy unspoiled nature. An im-portant question therefore is whether touristic activities really deserve an “eco”-label if they involve elements that heavily contribute to envi-ronmental destruction.

Mass tourism figures at the one extreme of the range of forms of tour-ism, ecotourism at the other. In between, there exist numerous grada-tions. All forms of tourism – as all human activities in general – do have a certain ecological and social impact. It is thus an important task of the tourism industry in nearly the whole spectrum of different tourism forms as well as of every individual tourist to organize touristic activities in a less destructive, i.e. a more sustainable, manner (Fig. 1). The present book’s intention is to show how such a sustainable tourism might be achieved and what this would require.

What exactly, however, is meant by the term “sustainable”? Contra-ry to general opinion, the concept of sustainability is not an invention of the 20th century, but has a considerably long history. It was the Ger-man forester Hanns Carl von Carlowitz (1645–1714) who had first used the term “sustainable” (“nachhaltend”) in a published work. Carlowitz, director of the silver mining administration in the Kingdom of Saxony (now a part of Germany), realized that the way timber was used in his industry would sooner or later lead to an overexploitation of the forests

9Introduction

and thus to a shortage of timber. He concluded that (von Carlowitz 1713, p. 105/06; own transl.):

“we have to make every effort in science and forest practice to discover methods of protecting and producing timber in such a way that a permanent sustainable utilisation can be realized; otherwise we will experience serious economic problems.”

Carlowitz’s idea spread and developed quickly, finally finding its “offi-cial” definition in the 1987 published UN-report “Our Common Future” (better known as the “Brundtland-Report“):

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

With regard to tourism, sustainability thus means that: �� the use of non-renewable resources has to be reduced to a minimum,�� renewable resources should not be over-used,�� the global ecosystem as well as the systems at the tourist’s destination

should not be negatively affected.

Or, in more general terms: tourism should be such that future genera-tions will have the same chance to enjoy tourist destinations as we do at present. This is the topic of this book.

((ABB: 1))

Figure 1: The spectrum of forms of tourism and the possibilities to perform each in either a sustainable or un-sustainable manner.

sustainable

not sustainable

mass tourism ecotourism

10 Sustainable Tourism

Are there not enough books yet which deal with sustainable tourism and ecotourism, or with alternative tourism in general? Is there really a need for another one? It is indeed true that there are already several such books. There is, for instance, Ellenberg et al., Ökotourismus. Reisen zwischen Ökonomie und Ökologie, published as early as 1997. That one of the first titles on the issue should have been published in German is hardly a coincidence: Germany has a long tradition of tourism and gen-erates a high number of tourists; it therefore also became an early center for the scientific study of alternative forms of tourism. Other important books are Honey’s Ecotourism and Sustainable Development of 1998, and Fennell’s Ecotourism (1999). The focus of Honey’s publication is on case studies, which she uses to explain some of the basics and principles of tourism. Fennell’s Ecotourism, on the other hand, has a stronger focus on scientific background than the other of the titles mentioned; case stud-ies do, however, play a central role in his work too.

In the first decade of the 21st century, Honey’s Sustainable Tourism and Fennells’s Ecotourism were published as new and revised editions (Honey 2008, Fennell 2003, 2008). They were joined by several other interesting works, such as the ones by Buckley, who, in Buckley (2004), lays the focus on the environmental impact of ecotourism (similar also Harris et al. 2002); in Buckley (2009) on practical advice in the field of ecotourism; and in Buckley (2010) on the topic of tourism and nature conservation. Bushell & Eagles (2007) deal with the interrelation of tourism and protected areas; Graci & Dodds (2010) set their focus on island destinations, and Gössling et al. (2009/2012 a) on the future of su-stainable tourism. Another important title is Ecotourism. Management and Assessment by Diamantis (2011), who offers an improved theoretical basis for ecotourism with a focus on the capacity limits of nature-orient-ed tourism. The emphasis of Weaver’s Ecotourism (2008) is on the ana-lysis of the many aspects of ecotourism. Weaver uses examples and case studies for visualization and explanation rather than as a foundation for argument. Although he focuses on the southern hemisphere (Australia and SE Asia), a broad and global perspective is provided by the book.

Despite this abundance of books on sustainable tourism, hardly any of them concentrates on the conceptual aspects of the subject (Ko 2005, Hunter 2002). As a consequence, it is often unclear what the core issues of sustainable tourism really are. The aim of this book, therefore, is to clarify the basics of what sustainable tourism is about in the first place. The book aims at developing a conceptual framework for sustainable forms of tourism. It allows the reader to consider (and optimize) his or