Six
reasons why mass tourism is unsustainable
Global
tourism is destroying the environment and cultural identities - and
doesn't make good business sense, argues Anna Pollock
Anna Pollock in
Samoa
Wednesday 21 August
2013 19.23 BST
"You never
change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something,
build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." --
Buckminster Fuller
Despite the slow but
steady increase in the number of enterprises claiming to be
responsible or green, the fact remains that the current system of
mass international tourism is utterly unsustainable.
Thanks to the
application of the same industrial model developed for cars, houses
and consumer goods, international tourism has exploded in size since
the 1950s and swept into virtually every nook and cranny of the
planet, washing up cash, jobs, golf courses, airports and enormous
amounts of real estate.
Claimed by the UN
World Tourism Organisation as a stimulant of economic recovery,
tourism is, undoubtedly, a force to be reckoned with. It generates
more than $2.1tn in annual revenues. In many countries and regions of
the world, tourism is now the primary source of foreign exchange,
employment and cash.
The to 1.8 billion
travelers within the next 17 years, yet many remain in denial that
the industry is based on a finite and limited supply of attractions,
or accessible places rich in scenic beauty or culture.
The industry
resembles a high-speed train, crammed with passengers with cheap
tickets, racing toward a cliff edge. So it's worth asking why this
challenge generates so little debate in the press and in general
business literature.
Ending the
unsustainable travel addiction
Clearly the media
makes a lot of money from advertising holiday locations around the
world, but on a broader level, perhaps providers, customers and
regulators have each become so addicted to the promise and pleasures
of cheap and frequent travel that the prospect of going without is
simply too much to contemplate. Perhaps a form of "willful
blindness" has infected us all.
The challenge turns
out to be far more complex than just the prospect of run-away volume
growth on a finite planet. Many sectors are running themselves into
the ground financially as margins dwindle to razor thin. Meanwhile,
thanks to congestion or overuse of scarce water and land resources,
many destinations are destroying the landscapes and attractions, both
natural and cultural, on which they depend.
I have come up with
six key reasons why the current tourism model is way past its prime
and why more of us need to focus on creating alternatives:
1. Mass industrial
tourism is based on the assembly, distribution and consumption of
packaged products and, as a consequence, one product is substitutable
for another. The commodification of what should be revered as unique
is further aggravated by the application of industrial cost cutting
strategies of homogenisation, standardisation and automation that
further strip out any remaining vestiges of difference, let alone
mystique. Tourists "do" places and rarely get the chance to
stand in awe and wonder.
2. In most youthful
destinations, low barriers of entry and zero regulation encourage
rapid growth and speculation. Both local politicians and often
not-so-local developers benefit enormously from this growth, but
rarely stay put long enough to have to cope with the crises caused by
overcapacity and volatile demand.
3. The product is
perishable - it's a time-based service - and can't be stocked. So
when capacity goes up and demand declines, price discounting is the
adaptive tactic of choice.
4. Technological
connectivity and price comparison engines have shifted purchasing
power to consumers, who have been convinced, by repeated discounting,
that cheap travel is now a right - not a privilege. This accelerates
the downward pressure on prices and yields.
5. Residents of
tourism hotspots, who may have welcomed the first influx of visitors,
soon find that cheap travel doesn't reduce their costs. Visitors
cause land, food, water, housing and infrastructure prices to
increase at a rate closely correlated with the decline in tourism
operators' margins. Sadly, more tourism often means less benefit to
the host communities.
6. Having fought so
hard to be recognised as an industry, the tourism community fragments
back into its specific sectors when issues of waste, carbon, water
scarcity and other "externalities" are raised. Airlines
don't pay taxes on aviation fuel and have fought carbon-related
charges for decades.
What's to be done
We need to develop
the idea of conscious travel and start to imagine a better
alternative. Unfortunately, there is no magic wand or silver bullet;
change will need to occur at the grassroots level, one destination at
a time.
It will first and
foremost require hosts to wake up and see their world differently -
not as a resource to be exploited, but as a sacred place to be
protected and celebrated for its uniqueness.
Second, it is
important they start to view their customers not as mere units of
consumption, but as guests seeking to be healed and transformed. Our
conscious or mindful alternative is about less volume, congestion,
hassle, destruction and harm and about more meaning, purpose, value,
peace and fulfillment. In short, not more but better.
Tomorrow, on
Guardian Sustainable Business, I will explore how we can start to
move in this direction.
Anna Pollock has 40
years experience working as a strategist, analyst and change agent
for travel destinations around the world. She is the founder of
Conscious Travel.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário