Tourism sustainability: concepts and practices

Tourism Industry

Tourism is a burgeoning industry in this world right now, and the growth being driven by a number of different factors. Rising incomes, increased exposure to and interest in travel, and massive infrastructure investment by companies and countries hoping to win tourist dollars all encourage a higher level of travel than has ever been seen before in this world.

Tourist industry that is based on unsustainable natural resource should be banned, because it is harmful for local environment. There are many countries that have few industrial assets, but have leveraged their climates and scenery to develop tourism businesses -- many Caribbean islands, the Maldives, Fiji, Costa Rica and others have a high level of dependence on tourism for their income, even though the expense of it is their ecosystems. Furthermore, competition among both cruise providers and airlines has resulted in an increase in capacity, even though both of these industries are horribly destructive in terms of their environmental impact. This paper will examine whether tourism industries in general are sustainable, give the amount of resources they consume and the limited benefits they convey. It will be argued that they are not.

Heinberg outlines five axioms of sustainability, by which the tourism industry can be evaluated. For example, any society that continues to use critical resources unsustainability will collapse, the population growth or consumption growth cannot be sustained; the use of renewable resources must proceed at a rate which is less than or equal to the rate of natural replenishment; the use of nonrenewable resources must proceed at a rate which is declining and the rate of decline must be greater than or equal to the rate of depletion, and that sustainability requires substances introduced into the environment from human activities to be minimized.

The first of these axioms is perhaps tenuous, society will not necessarily collapse but it will need to change form with dramatic environmental changes. The third, fourth and fifth axioms are critical to evaluating the sustainability of the tourism industry. Heinberg's argument is only based on the use of resources in tourism, and does not take into account the merits of the activity or the alternatives, which I feel are key factors in the sustainability of an industry. Tourism at its heart is leisure and relax. And while humans benefit from having some leisure time, it is not necessary that this leisure time occur far from home. Inherently, when travel is involved, and the consumption is indulgent, this consumption is not sustainable. It uses resources, and creates nothing, violating the fourth axiom in particular.

Most tourism violates the fourth axiom. A rise in tourism is contributing to increased usage on non-renewable carbon resources, whether for automobiles, airplanes, cruise ships or trains. There might not be marginal cost for the use of trains, if the trains are already shipping goods. For example, sailing the South Pacific is a more or less sustainable form of tourism. But most tourism relies on transportation using fossil fuels, in order not to violate the fourth axiom such tourism should decline. In many cases, environmental degradation is also in violation of the fourth axiom - destroyed coral reefs do not replenish, and neither do mangroves that are cut down to build hotels. This inherently destructive behavior ruins ecosystems to fulfill the indulgences of the world's privileged, most assuredly in violation of the fourth axiom.

Further, the third and fifth axioms are typically also violated. Tourism tends to create waste and that waste is not handled well in many places. Even renewable resources are wasted in many parts of the world. Furthermore, tourism creates demand for hotels, resorts, and other interesting destinations, and these take up a footprint. The footprint of mankind with tourism is larger than the footprint of mankind without tourism. Humans damage ecosystems with their activities, especially constructing tourism infrastructure, violating the fifth axiom.

Therefore, tourism is not sustainable as an industry. While in theory it could be, it almost never is. The industry wants to define sustainability as wasting less, but that is a soft definition that does not reflect true sustainability. Heinberg's understanding of sustainability is more in line with reality. While washing towels less often is admirable, it does not make a hotel sustainable. If the hotel relies on people flying in from another city or country, the hotel cannot be sustainable because of that factor alone. Sustainability implies significant decline in human activity, and strict limits on the scope on the activity, the two things that tourism cannot say for itself.

The contrary view to this argument holds that sustainability is not something that can be taken on aggregate. People are free to make their own choices. Thus, a tourism operator can still operate sustainably, even if it is within the context of an unsustainable industry. Industry in particular makes this case. For example, a hotel on a tropical island can be sustainable if it uses renewable energy sources, takes less water than the replenishment rate, serves locally source food made with sustainable farming practices, and facilitates sustainable interesting activities for its guests, like horseback riding or snorkeling. This line of argument is common in business, but makes no sense. If the entire industry is unsustainable, then it is impossible to operate a sustainable business within that industry, because the business is a subset of the industry. The most sustainable resort in the world, after all, still markets frivolous consumption, and requires transportation that wastes resources. This counterargument still fails to meet the very first axiom of sustainability, despite its attempts to conceal that fact.

Moreover, most tourism industries are outright destructive. Many cause pollution and waste of water resources. In a number of cases, tourism operators are allowed to conduct their business with only limited government controls, and this results in destructive practices. Animals are disrupted, native tribes corrupted, quaint European villages overrun, leading to their degradation, and pristine environments damaged forever by influx of tourists. Such outright destruction should result in those operators being banned, as they are clearly violating several axioms of sustainability.

It is hard to argue that the tourism industry is sustainable, because on aggregate it simply isn't, not in its current form. That does not mean that individual tourism operators should be held accountable for the unsustainable practices of others. There is room for sustainable tourism in this world. People probably will shift their tourism when the economic incentives change over time. If overseas travel is too expensive, people will make different choices, and may well ride their bikes to the local lake. For right now, the focus should not be on vilifying the entire industry, and especially not on passing legislation. The government can encourage the development of tourism that has been designed with maximum sustainability in mind.