Is tourism sustainable?

Having just got back from a few days away in Cornwall, it got me thinking about the whole issue of tourism and whether or not it can ever be sustainable?

Sustainabletourism.net says that;

“Sustainable tourism development requires the informed participation of all relevant stakeholders, as well as strong political leadership to ensure wide participation and consensus building. Achieving sustainable tourism is a continuous process and it requires constant monitoring of impacts, introducing the necessary preventive and/or corrective measures whenever necessary.

Sustainable tourism should also maintain a high level of tourist satisfaction and ensure a meaningful experience to the tourists, raising their awareness about sustainability issues and promoting sustainable tourism practices amongst them.”

The conundrum for me is all around getting the balance right. At its heart, sustainability relies on the balance between the three core principles of environment, social aspects and finance; and tourism is a great topic area to highlight the potential issues with getting it right.

Many people overlook the financial aspect of sustainability. Whether you look at this as an individual, an organisation or a region or country - if you do not make yourselves financially viable, then the rest of the stuff is irrelevant!

So tourism is a great way to generate income, especially if you have a saleable tourist commodity - in Cornwall's case, there is landscape, ocean and history in abundance to draw people in. Cornwall is around 3,500km2 in size, with a population a little over half a million, and tourism accounts for around 24% of its income (2011 figures of £1.85bn).

This relates to tourism numbers of around 4.5 million visitors a year, yet successful marketing campaigns and an extra warm summer in 2018, saw those numbers jump by 20%. Is that kind of surge in numbers sustainable - especially in such a relatively small space (for American readers, Cornwall is around 500km2 smaller than Rhode Island, which is the smallest state in the US)? Well last year's rise in numbers seems to have caused an increase in safety and travel issues.

So we come back to the balance question. Bringing in more tourists, brings in more money, so that is the sustainable finance box ticked. But what about the potential impacts on the environment?

• Water: tourism can impact on local water resources - hotel pools, golf courses etc.
• Sewage: increased numbers can often put a strain on local sewage and water treatment facilities.
• Pollution: more tourism often leads to more traffic etc. which means more noise and air pollution.
• Littering: more people unfortunately generally leads to more litter.
• Aesthetics: the impacts of more people in an area, new buildings constructed to meet their needs, and the building sites themselves.
• Physical degradation impacts on coasts, forests, reefs and so on, both from trampling of tourist feet and being removed to make way for tourist facilities.

So there are big questions around whether the environmental sustainability boxes get ticked. This area will provide big headaches to local governments, businesses and organisations (like the National Trust) to get right. Ultimately, if the environment gets too degraded, then it become a less 'saleable' asset, so it should be in everyone's interest to keep it looking as nice as possible.

What about the social sustainability aspect? Well. going back to the Cornish example, despite all of this tourist revenue, and despite an unemployment rate of around 3.6% (below the national average of 4.5%), Cornwall is still considered one of the poorer counties in the UK, with a low average household income and a GDP only at 64% (2011) of the EU average. Things like expensive second homes have really made a negative impact here.

Another general social impact of tourism is the sheer disruption that it can cause - the clogged streets, overcrowded cafes and shops, and so on, can have a very detrimental affect on local people - and despite the financial benefits, it is often they who put the pressure on governments and businesses to address these issues. How often I have been to a beautiful place and thought, 'I could really live here', and then reconsidered when I have thought about whether I want a thousand extra people walking past my doorstep every day for over half the year......

Solutions?

Solutions are needed to get to this balance (especially on environmental impacts) and can be varied in scale and severity. Limiting the number of cruise ships docking, time limits on apartment rentals and charges (or increased charges) for attractions have all been used, or are being considered, in various places. And in parts of Asia, whole islands have been closed to allow for recovery (e.g. Borocay in the Philippines), and Iceland have banned construction permits for new hotels in Reykjavik. The traveller is also obviously part of the solution too - being considerate wherever you go, and where possible, trying to live a bit more of the local lifestyle, rather than just staying in the tourist bubble of hotel, pool, beach (getting a little off the tourist trail will also often help get money more directly into the pockets of local people).

Research:

https://sustainabletourism.net/sustainable-tourism/definitions/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornwall

https://www.gdrc.org/uem/eco-tour/envi/one.html

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/unemployment-levels-cornwall-increase-even-2006015
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/features/overtourism-how-to-make-global-tourism-sustainable/