Bearfoot
Tourism: the victim and the vector
of climate change and poverty
By Don Elzer
This past month the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) of which Canada is a member, joined the climate change forces at the ITB international tourism fair in Berlin, Germany. They become the latest international body to commit to convincing the tourism industry to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
The UNWTO took it a step farther though.
They mixed their commitment to what they refer to as the "twin challenge"….poverty.
The UNWTO is a specialized agency of the United Nations has actually been advocating solutions for both these problems for a while now, but recently they’ve been getting more attention from the global tourism industry, which happens quite often when a body can say "I told you so".
What’s interesting about the UNWTO’s presentation in Germany is the statistical data they unearthed to describe why tourism should be part of the solution to both climate change and poverty.
"World tourism has entered into a historically new phase of growth, which began three years ago. In 2005, it broke through the barrier of 800 million international arrivals. Last year, it reached 842 million. This new phase is characterized by a more solid and more responsible type of growth", UNWTO Secretary-General, Francesco Frangialli, said during his key note speech on the opening of the ITB international tourism fair.
According to UNWTO figures, this increase represents over 20% growth in the span of three years, equivalent to 150 million additional visitors. Africa registered the strongest growth as it had also done in 2005. Asia-Pacific and Latin America also posted outstanding results and the Middle East proved remarkably resilient in spite of the upheavals being experienced by the region.
Tourism trade volumes exceeding that of oil, food or car exports
The strong and sustained rise of tourism over the past fifty years is one of the most remarkable phenomena of our time. In spite of the various recent crises, some of which have obviously affected tourist movements, this major industry continues to grow steadily:
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The number of international tourist arrivals has risen from 25 million in 1950 to 842 million in 2006; this rise is equivalent to an average annual growth of about 7% over a long period.
•The revenues generated by these arrivals--not including airline ticket sales and revenues from domestic tourism--have risen by 11% a year (adjusted for inflation) over the same span of time; this outstrips that growth rate of the world economy as a whole.
•International tourism receipts reached US$ 680 billion in 2005, making it one of the largest categories of international trade.
•Depending on the year, this trade volume equals or exceeds that of oil exports, that of food products, or even that of cars and transport equipment.
•Tourism, taken in the narrow sense, represents one quarter of all exports of services – 40% if we include air transport.
•Its share of direct foreign investment flows, though still limited, has increased spectacularly between 1990 and 2005.
Is tourism the economic answer for developing countries?
Tourism has shown to be a strong contributor to the balance of payments, as well as a highly labour-intensive activity that opens up opportunities for the small businesses that provide products and services to the tourism industry. In developing countries, its impact is particularly strong in the local farming and fishing industries, handicrafts and even the construction industry.
In these countries, tourism creates many direct and indirect jobs. It represents fertile ground for private initiative. It serves as a foothold for the development of a market economy where small and medium-sized enterprises can expand and flourish. In poor rural areas, it often constitutes the only alternative to declining subsistence farming.
The geographical expansion and labour intensive nature of the Tourism sector provide a spread of employment, which is particularly relevant in remote and rural areas where many of the poor live. Poverty alleviation has become an essential condition for peace, environmental conservation and sustainable development, besides being an ethical obligation in an affluent world, where the divide between poor & rich nations seems to have increased in recent years.
International tourism receipts for developing countries (low income, lower and upper middle income countries) will soon pass more than US$ 250 billion.
Tourism is one of the major export sectors of poor countries and a leading source of foreign exchange in 46 of the 49 Least Developed Countries. Through its ST-EP programme (Sustainable Tourism – Eliminating Poverty), UNWTO has put in place a framework for poverty alleviation, linking its longstanding pursuit of sustainable tourism with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and its own Global Code of Ethics. Special project funding involves nearly 20 developing countries is designed specifically to address issues of poverty.
Tourism as a cause and a vector for climate change issues?
Favourable climatic conditions at destinations are key attractions for tourists, especially in beach destinations, which are still the dominating form of tourism.
Mountain tourism or winter sports are also highly dependent on specific climate and weather conditions. In general, for all forms of tourism activities taking place outdoors, accurate climate and weather information is key for the planning and carrying out of trips and programmes. Climate can impact on a wide range of other basic resources of tourism, such as availability and quality of freshwater supply.
Inadequate climatic conditions can seriously harm tourism operations and host communities that depend on them. Directly, climate variability and changing weather patterns can affect the planning of tourism programmes and seriously affect the tourists’ comfort, their travel decisions, and eventually the tourists’ flow. Indirectly, climate change can have a significant impact on tourism activities by altering the natural environment that represents both a key attraction and a basic resource for tourism.
At the same time, transport, which is at the heart of travel and tourism is an evident challenge – not only the high profile air transport with its direct interrelationship to greenhouse gases, but also road and rail transport which are major factors in intraregional and domestic tourism, but also ocean cruises which are one of the fastest growing areas of the sector.
In the context of air travel the UNWTO is working particularly closely with the International Civil Aviation Organization to ensure that a true tourism dimension is reflected in their work in this area.
But climate change also brings some opportunities, and it can induce the re-structuring of both, tourism demand and supply patterns. For example, extremely hot temperatures in the main season of seaside tourism destinations might reduce the tourists’ motivation to travel, but it can increase visitations in shoulder seasons, or in warmer winter periods; it can also divert tourists to more in-land and higher altitude coastal areas with cooler temperatures. Summer seasons in mountain regions, meanwhile, could lengthen, and generate increased demand, although this could bring further negative environmental consequences.
Whatever the environmental outcome, tourism cannot be seen in isolation. Major changes in the pattern of demand will lead to wider impacts on many areas of economic and social policy - such as, for example, in employment and labour demand and in regional policy issues such as housing, transport and social infrastructure. Knock-on effects could influence other sectors, such as agriculture supplying tourism demand, handicraft industries, local small business networks and so on.
So the UNWTO is dedicated to further develop awareness and improve the understanding of this complex relationship between the industry and the issues of climate change and poverty, and Canadians should take note.
After all we are major contributors to global tourism. We have a tourism industry ourselves, but our country has a tourism trade deficit, that means more Canadians travel outbound away from their country than there are visitors who arrive and travel in our country.
So when Mr. Frangialli and the UNWTO refers to the massive growth in tourism, he’s really talking about "us" travelling more and spending more abroad. Our behaviour as consumers is at the core of tourism and poverty in the developing world as well as climate change.
The core issue still remains, how we conduct our consumer habits at home, is how we will conduct ourselves abroad.
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