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How Do I Act Sustainably? - Example:
Sustainable Tourism
Since 1998 international tourism has become the largest export industry in the world with an income of over 500 billion US dollars. In actual fact the sector turns over a lot more than that, because the 2.3 billion tourists who spend their holidays at home need to be added to the 700 million trips abroad.
The World Organisation for Tourism (WTO, which is not to be mistaken for the World Trade Organisation and is known under the same abbreviation, estimates total revenue at 1.7 trillion US dollars a year.
This growth sector plays an important role on the road to a sustainable world society for this reason. And, in actual fact, the large tourism groups have been advertising with slogans such as "eco tourism" and "gentle tourism" for several years now.
According to Norbert Suchanek, this should be allowed to mask the fact that "three trends in tourism dangerous to the environment and the social and economic situation in the developing countries" are growing, namely the trend towards an ever-increasing number of long-distance trips, all-inclusive trips and cruises."
[Source: Norbert Suchanek, "Die dunklen Seiten des globalisierten Tourismus" (The Dark Side of Globalised Tourism). On the ecological, economic and social risks of international tourism; in: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 47/2001, p. 3,
Online Version] |
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"A passenger on an average civil airliner causes just as much greenhouse gas emissions during every flight hour as an average person in a year causes in total due to the various activities he undertakes."
[Manfred Treber from Germanwatch;
http://www.germanwatch.org/rio/c7-aviad.htm, 11.05.05] |
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An Ever-Increasing Number of Long Distance Trips
An growing number of tourists are flying longer distances with aeroplanes today. Intercontinental long-distance tourism increased by 73 percent between 1985 and 1996. The World Tourism Organisation assumes that soon nearly every third holiday trip will be made by aeroplane.
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) calculated an annual increase in exhaust from air flights of three percent in their book "Aviation and the Global Atmosphere" which appeared in 1999. This means double the amount every 23 years!
Subsequent Problems
Besides the increase in noise from aeroplanes, this development leads to the following problems amongst others:
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The carbon dioxide emissions from aeroplanes are particularly damaging, since the greenhouse gas is emitted at a very great height (see Basic Course 4 on Climate Protection). |
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Aircraft construction uses energy-intensive raw materials like aluminium. |
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The consumption of land increases due to the construction of new airports and the enlargement of existing ones. |
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The limits have frequently been reached for long-distance travel destinations. "The loss of beaches due to erosion and floods, the oversalting of fresh water springs, the increased environmental burden placed on the coastal eco-system, damage to the infrastructure by tropical storms and a massive loss of natural beauty in the landscape threaten the ability to survive of the tourism industry on many small islands."
[IPCC, Special Report. The Regional Impacts of Climate Change: Summary, 1997; Quoted from: Norbert Suchanek, "Die dunklen Seiten des globalisierten Tourismus" (The Dark Side of Globalised Tourism); in: "Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte" 47/2001, p. 3,
Online Version] |
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An ever-increasing number of all-inclusive trips
Besides air travel - and often in combination - all-inclusive trips count as one of the most problematic trends of the tourism sector. Its market share is increasingly strongly, because tour operators are promising higher profit margins, but a variety of problems are also exposed at the same time, as the following text excerpt from Norbert Suchanek demonstrates.
"Nearly all travel groups are focussing on fenced-in holiday ghettos, in which holidaymakers can eat and drink as much as they like. (...). Only short trips with air conditioned coaches or a brief visit to a bordello take place outside of the holiday village. The native population are mostly excluded from the profits of tourism, since the food consumed is frequently imported from the industrial nations. The local population is occasionally needed as background scenery and nothing more and as a supplier of cheap prostitutes."
[Source: Norbert Suchanek, "Die dunklen Seiten des globalisierten Tourismus" (The Dark Side of Globalised Tourism). On the ecological, economic and social risks of international tourism; in: "Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte" 47/2001, p. 3,
Online Version]
An Ever-Increasing Number of Cruise Trips
"The principle of targeting the largest profit as possible already practised in all-inclusive tourism is taken to the extreme with cruises. The only thing that remains left over for the shores and dream islands headed for are 'alms' and the rubbish dumped into the sea by the dream liners.
Transport, accommodation and meals make up the lion's share of the expenses for each tourist. In the case of cruises, 100% and nothing less of this part of the holiday budget lands in the pockets of the international tourist operators. Their ships mostly dock in the ports early in the morning and leave again at night (...).
The economy of the dream islands and coastal regions of the Caribbean, Mediterranean, South Seas and the Indian Ocean can also earn money from business with short trips, snacks, travel mementoes and prostitution. But the cruise lines... do not even allow the developing countries to benefit from these few crumbs. On board the holidaymakers would long have been able to comfortably deck themselves with holiday mementoes from the countries they have 'visited'.
The only significant source of income for the countries and islands headed for is the entry fee or harbour or "head tax" for cruise holidaymakers. To the advantage of the cruise industry, the holiday destinations headed for have failed to find a uniform rule for this until now. The cruise lines have been able to play off the individual states against each other in this way: islands that demand no fees are given preference (...).
In between times, it has nearly reached the point where several cruise companies no longer need to head for islands belonging to other countries. They use islands belonging to their own company or 'dream islands' they have leased. The private island Salt Cay, off the coast of the Bahamas, enjoys great favour amongst the cruise liner companies in this manner. Three cruise line companies share the island between at the same time on different days of the week, with them each lending the island a different name. Dolphin Cruise Lines call it 'Dolphin Cove' or 'Blue Lagoon', Majesty Cruise Lines have christened it 'Royale Isle' while Supreme Cruise Lines have settled for the name 'Salt Cay'."
[Source: Norbert Suchanek, "Die dunklen Seiten des globalisierten Tourismus" (The Dark Side of Globalised Tourism). On the ecological, economic and social risks of international tourism; in: From "Politik und Zeitgeschichte" 47/2001, p. 34,
Online-Version]
Sustainable Tourism?
The example shows that the growth sector tourism is developing in exactly the opposite direction to sustainability. As a part of this, problematic forms of tourism such as golf or sex tourism are not even addressed. Norbert Suchanek makes the following balance:
"Can nature or eco-tourism... act as an alternative to the current forms of environmentally damaging and socially dubious tourism? The simple answer is: 'no, not under the present structures and power relationships.' 'Ecotourism' is merely viewed as an additional field of business in the boardrooms of the large concerns presently (...). Here real 'eco and fair trade tourism' provided by the native population could have a real chance of protecting the biodiversity. But only when the existing forms of tourism are
replaced and not supplemented as until now."
[Source: Norbert Suchanek, "Die dunklen Seiten des globalisierten Tourismus" (The Dark Side of Globalised Tourism). On the ecological, economic and social risks of international tourism; In: "Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte" 47/2001, p. 36-37,
Online Version]
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More information and links on the topic of "ethical tourism" can be found on the website of the British organisation Tourism Concern and from other sources:
http://www.tourismconcern.org.uk
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[Author: Ragnar Müller]
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