TravelMag - le Forum des journalistes du tourisme ! - Sustainable development and tourism

by Dr Christine Richter

A qui profite le tourisme? Bilan plutôt négatif pour les populations locales.
Résumé en français à la fin de cet article en anglais.

Can we limit the negative impact of tourism and reverse the present situation?

The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Rio Summit, identified Travel & Tourism as one of the key sectors of the economy which could make a substantive contribution to sustainable development.

Since the early 90’s we are flooded by a multitude of books, government papers, seminars, symposiums, forums, associations all dealing with “sustainable development and tourism” and proposing imaginative strategies for dealing with sustainability.

Let me raise some questions as a professional observer who has worked in the tourism industry for more than 25 years what is happening and trying to draw the attention that tourism has to be managed carefully, otherwise the negative impacts will outnumber the positive ones.

When I was preparing my thesis in the seventies, the World Bank was promoting tourism as a foreign currency earner for the developing countries without which they could not achieve economic prosperity. Today, sustainable development of tourism is used as an instrument to eliminate poverty, a program launched by the WTO and UNCTAD during the World Summit of Sustainable Development.

To whom does tourism benefit?

Tourism has become the first economic activity worldwide: 700 million international tourists generate close to 500 billions US dollars of receipts. By the year 2020 the number of international tourists would reach 1.6 billion. National tourists are not included in this figure. Can this growth be handled by applying the principles of sustainable development? Or, how can the ecological and other impacts be minimized when tourism consumption continues to grow in most places of the world?

Of course, tourism provides foreign currencies, creates jobs, helps regional development, etc…This is just one aspect. We forget to see what is behind. Foreign currency earnings are fine, but who benefits in reality and how high are the expenses allowing to obtain these hard currencies.

Let us take the example of the infrastructure necessary to tourism: roads, airports, communication, water and power supply. In many developing countries there is an important concentration of these infrastructures in the touristic regions whilst a major part of the country has none. Priority is given to tourism development, leaving aside the needs of the local population. We know:
- that the average daily consumption of water of a tourist is 200 litres, depleting heavily the water resources of the regions concerned.
- that the annual consumption of electricity of a hotel in Cairo equals the annual consumption of at least 4000 households.

Is it worth to invest huge amounts in an infrastructure reserved for the tourists and of which the local population does not really benefit? Most of these investments have to be paid in hard currency as the needed equipments and goods are seldom locally available and have to be imported.

Which proportion of a package purchased by a tourist from a tour operator in Western Europe remains in the host country? It is a very limited share, depending of who owns/operates the international transportation means, the hotels, the leisure facilities, which goods have to be imported to satisfy the needs of the tourists, etc…This share can be as low as 10% when for example tourists fly with foreign charter companies, stay in hotels belonging to international hotel chains, use the services of incoming agencies which are subsidiaries of the tour operators which sold the package to he tourists. There have been scientific approaches to measure the amount of foreign currency remaining in the country, taking into consideration all receipts and expenses (direct and indirect) linked to international tourism. But there is no single country which knows exactly the net financial benefit derived from international tourism. The Tourism Satellite Account measures only what the tourists spend in a given country, but it does not evaluate the corresponding expenses incurred to acquire the income.

Job creation

What about the other argument put forward: job creation. Tourism indeed generates jobs. According to WTTC, 200 millions people work worldwide in this industry.

In developing countries tourism uses mainly unqualified labor. It is easier to earn a few dollars with tourism than in other branches of the economy. The local population abandons its traditional occupations. Aboard the cruise ships sailing from Cuba, for example, the service personnel are highly educated persons (teachers, researchers, engineers, translators), but they have never studied tourism. In Djerba, agricultural production decreased to such an extent that today the island produces only 10% of its food supply. Djerba was self-sufficient ten years ago. The local population is almost exclusively involved in the tourism business instead of cultivating their fields. Tourism offers easy money and affects adversely the traditional socio-cultural structure.

Cultural choc

Tourism frequently generates a cultural choc to the locals. Again, the impact of tourism on culture can be positive and/or negative. A tourist visiting a country wants to experience its culture, but he never thinks that his habits/clothes/behaviour are different from that of the host country. He has paid for his holidays and, therefore, he believes he has the right to see, visit… everything, thus offending the local population.

From this confrontation of different behaviours derive many cultural and social problems.

On the other hand, one must admit that without tourism, certain traditions, customs, monuments, etc.. would have been lost forever.

Environmental Issues

The environmental deterioration and saturation of tourism sites are a threat for the tourism industry. A change is inevitable. We have to remember that what the tourism industry markets is a perishable product : the countryside, the environment, the culture, the hospitality….. Therefore the quality of the environment both natural and man-made remains essential to tourism.

If the present situation continues, we might ask if there will still be a tourism in 20 – 30 years and of what quality? We have seen previously that the number of international tourists will be multiplied by about 3 between 2000 and 2020. How can this be managed without putting in danger our environment?

Can we limit the negative impact of tourism and reverse the situation at present? The magic word, in all the mouths, is sustainable development.. It is believed as the solution and all the organizations/companies/persons involved in tourism are firmly advised to take their responsibilities and to apply the principles of sustainable development.

Again, we forget something. Thanks to technological advances, we are able to reduce energy consumption, recycle goods, diminish pollution, and we are proud of the progress achieved. This apparent success is misleading, as the maximum load remains constant and the areas’ natural capital is ultimately limited to the initial ceiling. What we do, in fact, is to give space to further growth in the number of tourists.

Can we really reverse the trend and change the contents of the tourist consumption from the commercial one to a more holistic one?

In my opinion, this can be possible, but not on a global level. We could compare this with organic and non-organic food. Everybody knows since many years the dangers on human health of fertilizers, pesticides, industrial production of animals, but how big is at present the organic food consumption in the world?

And here we come to globalisation. Take the case of a small town where the people would really want to integrate tourism in their local development while applying the principles of sustainable development. Unfortunately, their touristic product needs to be offered on the world markets to make it economically feasible. Foreign tour operators will exercise a pressure to adapt the product to the needs of their international customers or else the world market would not be interested. At best, a consensus could be found and at the worst, the town would have either to bow to the pressure or to abandon the project.

Ecotourism not always a solution for sustainable development

ecotourism is not always a synonym of nature’s respect. Here again, many tourists believe that they paid for a specific adventure and cannot admit that there are restrictions to their explorations. For instance, each trekking tourist in Nepal consumes 6 kilos of wood and thus increases the already existing erosion, not to mention all the trash left behind along the trekking passes, this in spite of the legislation put into force.

The Mount Fuji is full of empty cans and plastic bottles; a disgusting view when climbing up this holy mountain. The same sorry situation can be viewed in many European mountains and country sides.

Certain governments levy specific taxes to protect the environment and to limit the number of tourists visiting protected areas. This elitist measure divide the society between those who can afford the additional expense and those who cannot.

Golf can breed ecological disaster

Golf has sometimes been promoted as ‘green tourism’ and ‘ecotourism’. It was said that it would not only preserve the natural environment, but even create it when needed. In fact, only few golf courses around the world can be considered as ecologically sustainable and not harming the environment. We are witnessing since ten years the creation of golf courses in countries with no golf tradition at all. This has led to ecological disasters: to keep the golf courses green, enormous quantities of fertilizer, pesticide, weed killers and water are necessary, polluting and raxing precious water ressources. Last but not least, the creation of golf courses is frequently linked to speculative, in come cases criminal, real estate entreprises which are worlds apart from ecotourism.

An end of the mass tourism?

Sustainable development strives for quality and not for quantity. It is not the quantity of tourists but the quality of tourists which is important. Would this mean that in the future, tourism will be intended for well-to-do people and that the less affluent parts of the populations will have no longer have access to tourism…. An end of the mass tourism….?

From a global point of view, the critical comments addressed to the tourism industry go as far as to point out that their traditional and conventional strategies are both ecologically and morally questionable. Most of the tourism activities are associated with the more affluent people (those who can afford holidays). How can then the tourism industry favour a sustainable society, an equitable sharing of resources.

Conditions for success

There is no common solution for sustainable development of tourism. A multitude of solutions can apply for a specific case. All depends which negative effects are being minimized and which positive effects are to be maximized and the level of independence in the decision-making process.

Can sustainable development be a target and can this target be reached?

Some key elements or conditions do exist which could make tourism become a part of sustainable development :
- an in-depth knowledge of all the parameters influencing tourism and sustainable development: this means that tourism experts, economists, ecologist, experts in socio-cultural preservation have to be called upon. Tourism demonstrates here very well its particularity: multidisciplinary sciences are involved.

Let me conclude with the following quote: "We have not inherited the natural capital of Earth, we have only borrowed it from our children".

©Christine Richter

(The author is an economist and specialist in the legal aspects of tourism. She is Secretary General a.i. of the World Federation of Travel Writers and Journalists.)

Résumé en français

A qui profite le tourisme? Bilan plutôt négatif pour les populations locales.

L’Organisation Mondiale du Tourisme prévoit 1.6 milliards de touristes internationaux dans le monde en 2020. Ils sont 700 millions à l’heure actuelle. Peut-on sérieusement gérer cette croissance du tourisme et appliquer les principes d’un développement durable? A défaut, comment notre société peut-elle réduire les méfaits du tourisme alors que la consommation touristique s'accroît dans la plupart des régions du monde ?

Dans les années ‘70, la Banque Mondiale voyait dans le tourisme un générateur de devises. Aujourd’hui, l'idée magique est le développement durable censé produire des effets positifs en minimisant en particulier les effets négatifs du tourisme actuel.

Lee tourisme peut certes apporter des devises, créer des emplois, aider au développement régional, combattre la pauvreté. etc., mais il s'agit ici d'une facette parmi d'autres et on peut se demander à qui profite le tourisme et combien coûte l’infrastructure nécessaire au développement du tourisme mais sans qu'on se soucie de la population locale pour laquelle les priorités sont tout autres? Qui nous parle par exemple de la consommation en eaux des touristes qui fragilise la nappe phréatique ?

Le bilan réel est moins rose qu’on veuille bien nous le montrer. Il n’y a pas de solution miracle. Il existe une multitude de solutions et chaque cas est différent. Cependant, il y a des conditions à respecter pour que le tourisme devienne une partie intégrante d’un développement durable, que cela soit à l'échelon national ou régional.

Il serait temps de se souvenir que nous n’avons pas hérité notre Terre, mais l'avons simplement empruntée aux générations futures.

L'auteur, Christine Richter, est Dr en Economie et Droit du Tourisme. Elle est Secrétaire générale a.i. de la FIJET - Fédération internationale des journalistes et écrivains du tourisme)