The tourism industry response
A substantial lobby has emerged amongst environmental groups to question the seemingly unstoppable march of tourism as a consumer of environmental resources. The hotel industry has responded with environmental initiatives such as the International Hotels Environment Initiative, which promotes recycling, codes of conduct, best practice among members, accreditation schemes Tourism and the environment and improved standards of energy efficiency. In some hotels, waste minimization strategies have resulted from environmental audits of the tourism and hospitality operations to reduce costs. They may include purchasing more eco-friendly products, waste reduction (i.e. not laundering guests ’ towels every day), reusing resources and packaging and adopting a green policy towards operational issues. In the Balearic islands, the development of an ecotax in 2002 has been introduced to fund environmental improvements to address decades of tourist development. Yet this has had a negative impact on one market – the Germany package holiday market. In Germany the ecotax has been called ‘limonadenstener ’, a lemonade tax, because hotel owners have been giving guests drink vouchers in lieu of the tax. It has also been dubbed a ‘Kurtax’ (a cure tax) that has raised ecological issues among visitors. This approach to attempting to remedy the impacts of mass tourism development is at least beginning to move the sector towards a greater understanding of its effect on the environment. So how does the tourism industry manage the impacts of visitors?
VISITOR MANAGEMENT
The tourism sector, even if it seeks to be socially inclusive and permit access to different resources, has to address an ongoing problem: it needs to permit access to sites and yet needs to protect the resource base upon which tourism is based. This requires a wide range of management tools to balance the needs of the visitor, the place (i.e. the resource base), the host community and other tourism stakeholders (e.g. the industry) in providing a quality tourism experience. As a result the area known as ‘visitor management ’ has emerged in a tourism context. Visitor management develops and adapts many of the principles and practices used in the outdoor recreation and leisure areas. There are two types of measures which are usually used – ‘hard measures ’, which are place extensive and place permanent restrictions on visitor activity, and ‘soft measures’, which involve improving marketing, interpretation, planning and visitor coordination. These are summarized in Table 12.4 .
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An example of a country taking hard measures is the kingdom of Bhutan in the eastern Himalayas, which places major restrictions on tourism. It only allows a limited number of visitors to enter on organized packages as independent travellers and backpackers are discouraged. Visitors have to spend US$200 a day during their visit to Bhutan. The majority of the population (Drukpa) follow an ancient Bhuddist culture which has been conserved by the king, and a policy of limited modernization has been followed since the 1970s (radio broadcasting was introduced in 1973 and internet provision was permitted in 1999). Tourism has been developed as a means of deriving foreign revenue for the country. Bhutan’s ecological diversity has made it a major nature tourism destination and it also has a rich heritage and culture among the population combined with a traditional lifestyle (including the wearing of traditional dress). Bhutan has a population of 870 000 and visitor numbers have grown from 287 in 1974 to 2850 in 1992, 7000 in 1999 and 6261 in 2003, rising by 30 per cent to 9249 in 2004. The government’s ninth Five-Year Plan set a target of around 15 000 tourist arrivals in 2007 which were forecast to rise to 20 000 arrivals in 2012. In 2004 the market was largely dominated by high-spending tourists from the USA (35 per cent), Japan (11.8 per cent), UK (10.3 per cent) and Germany (7.3 per cent). This model of the strict control of tourism has been accompanied by examples of community-based tourism development, where those who benefit from tourism are local people. One good example is the Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park which has a trekking trail and opportunities for local people to benefit from provision of services (e.g. portering, providing refreshments and cultural activities, and guiding). However, current concerns about managing tourism are associated with the effect of external influences upon Bhutanese culture and the possible change to cultural values that increased numbers of visitors and increased modernization measures may have on the population.
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In a heritage tourism context, Hall and McArthur (1998: 123) review the value of these management tools to achieve the twin goals of conserving the resource and contributing to improving the quality of the visitor experience. Table 12.5is a qualitative assessment of each approach they identified, and suggests that hard measures to regulate visitor activity are the dominant mode of control. The table also illustrates the need for managers and planners to consider ways of integrating these approaches to manage tourism. One approach is to develop visitor management models that seek to assess the capacity of a site or location and the types of management needed to ensure a maximum visitor experience without affecting the sustainable use of the resource and its long-term appeal. A number of technical models have been developed and applied in visitor management contexts across the world, as Table 12.6shows. Each approach is reviewed in terms of its key characteristics and its ability to meet the varying needs of different stakeholders and be applied in practical contexts. As Table 12.7suggests, these models (widely used and understood in the recreation and tourism management literature – see Pigram and Jenkins, 1999, for more detail) adopt different management approaches which are useful in illustrating the diversity of tools available to managers. The case study of Venice is examined in Box 12.2and illustrates the practical problems that visitor management poses.
With the global spread of tourism, the growth in the demand for domestic and international travel is creating an insatiable demand for leisure spending in the new millennium. As new outbound markets such as China and India develop, there will be a huge increase in the rate of tourism growth in certain regions such as Asia-Pacific. The consequences of such growth if it is allowed to develop in an unplanned, unconstrained and unmanaged manner is clear: the continued impact on the environment, people and ecosystems that will be irreversibly damaged by tourism consumption.
BOX 12.2: CASE STUDY: MANAGING THE TOURIST IMPACT IN VENICE (BY STEPHEN J. PAGE AND C. MICHAEL HALL )
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Venice is acknowledged as one of the world’s leading cultural and art cities with its acclaimed fifteenth-century Renaissance art. It is a magical place for many visitors, with its elegant architecture, ambience and artistic qualities ( Figures 12.9 and 12.10 ). Many of its buildings have iconic qualities, not least due to their association with poetry, writing and the work of different artists (e.g. Canaletto). Indeed Canaletto popularized many images of Venice as a place to visit in his picturesque, almost idealized, cityscapes that have contributed to the pursuit of cultural and heritage consumption by visitors. Venice is located on a series of islands in a lagoon with 117 islets, and is the capital of the Veneto region of Italy. The impact of tourism has resulted in continued population loss from the historic city of Venice. The resident population dropped from 175 000 in 1951 to 78 000 in 1992 and 65 000 in 2001; the city receives 47 000 commuters daily. The age and condition of many of Venice’s buildings are under constant threat. The environment in Venice is suffering from:
● a sinking ground level
● a rising sea level
● pollution of the lagoon in which it is located
● atmospheric pollution
● congestion on the main canals from motorized traffic
● over-saturation at key locations for tourists
● increased flooding: in the 1970s and 1980s there were 50 high tides a year; in 1996 there were 101, and in 2000 some 80. This illustrates the range and extent of environmental concerns amidst a booming visitor industry.
Visitor arrivals have developed greatly. In 1952 50 000 tourists spent 1.2 million bednights in the historic city of Venice. By 1987 these figures had risen to 1.13 million tourist arrivals and 2.49 million bednights; by 1992, to 1.21 million arrivals and 2.68 million bednights. The average length of stay was 2.21 nights in 1992. These visitor numbers are swelled by a large day visitor market from other parts of Italy, especially the Adriatic beach resorts and Alpine areas. In 1992, the day tripper market was estimated to be six million visitors, providing a total market in excess of seven million visitors a year. In 2007, 5.4 million Italian visitors stayed 25 million nights in the Venice region and 8.72 million international visitors spent 36 million nights in the region. The majority of international visitors were from Germany, Austria, the UK and other mainland European countries. Whilst these statistics are not actual arrivals in Venice per se , they are a good proxy for the scale and volume of visitation which the city experiences.
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Russo’s (2002) study of tourism in Venice highlighted tourists ’ motivations for visiting cultural attractions and described Venice as being in the latter stage of the resort life cycle – nearing stagnation and decline. Montanari and Muscara (1995) recognized that Venice was saturated at key times in the year (e.g. Easter) and that the police have had to close the Ponde del Liberta when the optimum flow of 21 000 tourists a day has been exceeded (60 000 at Easter and 100 000 in the summer). There is increased competition between residents and visitors in the use of space within the historic city. Up to 34 per cent of the public space in the historic square is used by visitors and 49 per cent by residents. During special events, the use by visitors increases to 56 per cent and this adds to congestion in the city, competition for facilities and a declining visitor and resident experience.
Since 1987, on selected spring weekends, the land route from the mainland to Venice has been closed to visitors as an extreme form of crisis management. Montanari and Muscara (1995) developed a ninefold classification of tourists based on differences in their spatial behaviour (i.e. where and what they visit in the city), perception and spending power, which can be summarized thus:
● the first-time visitor on an organized tour
● the rich tourist
● the lover of Venice
● the backpacker camper
● the worldly wise tourist
● the return tourist
● the resident artist
● the beach tourist
● the visitor with a purpose.
This large number of different categories reflects Venice’s unique tourism environment and the diversity of motivations for visiting the city.
Yet Russo (2002) argues that the city does not manage visits prudently. The time tourists spend on queuing at well-known attractions leads to lost opportunities to see lesser-known cultural attractions, heightened by poor marketing and communication with the visitor. This is complicated by the existence of ten agencies responsible for museums in the city. Venice is dominated by excursionists (83.1 per cent) in comparison to tourists (16.9 per cent), with a very even pattern of distribution throughout the year: January–March 14 per cent of visitors arrive; 30 per cent come in April – June; 32 per cent in July –September and 24 per cent October –December. Russo (2002) noted that the average duration of a visit was eight hours, with many tour operators promoting day trips rather than overnight stays. The destination’s accessibility has also been increased with the recent advent of low-cost airlines in Europe. Venice’s tourist market is comprised of 26.3 per cent of arrivals from within Italy, 36 per cent from the rest of Europe, 17.7 per cent from the USA, 11.1 per cent from Japan and 8.8 per cent from other countries/regions.
The social impact of the existing patterns of demand led van der Borg, Costa and Gotti (1996) to calculate the visitor to resident (host) ratios for Venice and a number of other European heritage cities. In Venice’s historical centre, a ratio of 89.4:1 existed while for the wider Venice municipality this dropped to 27.6:1. This level of visitor pressure reflects the scale of the problem facing Venice. Incoming visitors have also purchased holiday properties which have driven up prices and excluded the local population at a time when this has dropped to fewer than 70 000 Venetians.
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