In other cases, projected changes will most likely have negative impacts for tourism destinations. Rising sea levels are likely to have an adverse effect on coastal resources through coral bleaching, beach erosion, or loss of beachfront properties. Shifting climate regions may accelerate the loss of biodiversity. Some areas are projected to experience drier conditions or longer droughts. This has the potential to create new, or exacerbate existing, problems of water shortages as well as increase the risk of wildfires. Conversely, other areas are projected to experience wetter conditions. This may bring an increase in pests, such as mosquitoes, as well as epidemics of malaria. These areas are also projected to see more frequent and intense storms.
These changes in the physical resource base will affect tourism in many ways. For destinations, revenues from tourism may become more unreliable, while operating costs are likely to increase. Depending on the type of changes experienced, a destination may have to rely more heavily on cooling systems for a longer period of the year, use snowmaking equipment more often, use irrigation and watering systems, and/or pay higher hazard insurance premiums. If these costs are passed on to tourists, travelers will have to reevaluate their decisions, not only about where they go but whether they go. Those tourists who are able to continue to travel may be forced to choose different destinations for their desired activities or to participate at different times of the year. Essentially, all tourism stakeholders will be affected, and all need to adapt.
In particular, climate change adaptation refers to the technological, economic, and sociocultural changes intended to minimize the risks and capitalize on the opportunities created by climate change. Tourists generally have the greatest ability to adapt because, at least in theory, they have the ability to choose when and where they travel. Destination stakeholders, however, must work within the constraints of their resource base. Research indicates that both tourism officials and operators currently have a low level of concern for the implications of climate change and overestimate their ability to adapt in the future. Nonetheless, some destinations may require physical solutions to reduce their vulnerability to the effects of changing environmental conditions, while most should begin to consider policies and educational strategies to manage effects. For example, in light of recent disasters at tourism destinations, it is clear that destinations around the world should work to increase awareness and preparedness for hazards and establish disaster contingency plans. As such, there is a distinct need for greater research and communication between the scientific community and tourism stakeholders.
Many places around the world are already being affected by environmental changes. This has been widely documented and publicized in the media. As a result, concerns that these places might be fundamentally changed or destroyed altogether have, in a sense, created a new opportunity in tourism. Playing upon these concerns, tourism stakeholders have begun to encourage tourists—at least those who have the means—to see such places before they are gone. This is sometimes referred to as disappearing tourism, doom tourism, or last chance tourism.14 Last chance tourism provides individuals with the opportunity to see a particular place, geographic feature, or species in its natural habitat while they still can. It also allows them to witness the changes that are taking place and, ultimately the end, firsthand. For some tourists, last chance tourism is a manifestation of their genuine interest in the specific resource and concern for its impending demise. Destinations may choose to promote their vulnerability as a means of generating attention and aid in efforts to protect their vanishing resources. In fact, there are positive examples in which tourism has contributed to the recovery of environments or species. Yet, for other tourists, this is considered to be an expression of egocentrism. Destinations may capitalize on these tourists’ desire for exclusivity, and their willingness to pay for the privilege of rarity.
Nearly all of the types of resources discussed in the sections above have become the focus of last chance tourism in various parts of the world. Although tourists have long visited the UNESCO World Heritage Sites identified earlier, there is a new imperative to scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef while it is still one of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems and to hike in Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park while there are still glaciers. Tourists are interested in skiing historic resorts under natural conditions and seeing endangered wildlife in their natural habitat, whether it is polar bears in Canada or mountain gorillas in Rwanda. They are increasingly visiting the Arctic and Antarctic regions for the experience of sea ice before it melts and possibly even to witness the drama of a calving glacier. They want to have the opportunity to sit on the beaches of small island destinations like Tuvalu or the Maldives before they are submerged. That such tourists might ultimately be contributing to the demise of these destinations will be discussed in chapter 10.
Conclusion
As a place-based phenomenon, tourism is shaped by and to some extent dependent on the earth’s physical features and processes. These things can be either a resource that allows for tourism to take place or a barrier that prevents it. The factors that determine whether something is a resource or a barrier vary between places, societies, and even periods of time depending on the particular circumstances, perceptions, and perhaps level of technology. The topical branches of physical geography provide the means of examining the earth’s physical systems across the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. The knowledge generated by meteorology, climatology, hydrology, oceanography, geomorphology, and biogeography can be used to better understand how elements in the physical system affect patterns of tourism. This knowledge will become even more important in the future in light of global environmental change.
Key Terms
biogeography
climate change adaptation
climatology
geomorphology
hydrology
last chance tourism
meteorology
tourism resource
tourism resource audit
Notes
1. Kerry Godfrey and Jackie Clarke, The Tourism Development Handbook: A Practical Approach to Planning and Marketing (London: Cassell, 2000), 66.
2. Godfrey and Clarke, The Tourism Development Handbook, 72.
3. Tom McKnight and Darrel Hess, Physical Geography: A Landscape Appreciation (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), 67.
4. C. R. De Freitas, “Tourism Climatology: Evaluating Environmental Information for Decision Making and Business Planning in the Recreation and Tourism Sector,” International Journal of Biometeorology 48 (2003): 45.
5. María Belén Gómez Martín, “Weather, Climate, and Tourism: A Geographical Perspective,” Annals of Tourism Research 32, no. 3 (2005): 587.
6. Gómez Martín, “Weather, Climate, and Tourism,” 576.
7. Visit Scotland, “All about Scotland,” accessed October 20, 2011, http://www.visitscotland.com/guide/scotland-factfile/.
8. Visit Scotland, “Scottish Climate,” accessed October 20, 2011, http://www.visitscotland.com/guide/scotland-factfile/geography/climate/.
9. Steve Kershaw, Oceanography: An Earth Science Perspective (Cheltenham, UK: Stanley Thornes, 2000), 5, 17.
10. Robert W. Christopherson, Geosystems: An Introduction to Physical Geography, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009), 516.
11. Andrew Holden, Environment and Tourism, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2008), 222.
12. “Arenal Volcano Costa Rica,” accessed October 29, 2011, http://www.arenal.net/.
13. Central West Virginia Regional Airport Authority, “Yeager Airport History,” accessed October 29, 2011, http://yeagerairport.com/about.html.
14. Raynald Harvey Lemelin, Emma Stewart, and Jackie Dawson, “An Introduction to Last Chance Tourism,” in Last Chance Tourism: Adapting Tourism Opportunities in a Changing World, ed. Raynald Harvey Lemelin, Jackie Dawson, and Emma J. Stewart (London, Routledge, 2012).
Sources
Christo
pherson, Robert W. Geosystems: An Introduction to Physical Geography. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009.
Davie, Tim. Fundamentals of Hydrology. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2002.
De Freitas, C. R. “Tourism Climatology: Evaluating Environmental Information for Decision Making and Business Planning in the Recreation and Tourism Sector.” International Journal of Biometeorology 48 (2003): 45–54.
Godfrey, Kerry, and Jackie Clarke. The Tourism Development Handbook: A Practical Approach to Planning and Marketing. London: Cassell, 2000.
Goh, Carey. “Exploring Impact of Climate on Tourism Demand.” Annals of Tourism Research 39, no. 4 (2012): 1859–1883.
Gómez Martín, María Belén. “Weather, Climate, and Tourism: A Geographical Perspective.” Annals of Tourism Research 32, no. 3 (2005): 571–91.
Gregory, Derek, Ron Johnston, and Geraldine Pratt. Dictionary of Human Geography. 5th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
Hall, Michael C., and Alan Lew. Understanding and Managing Tourism Impacts: An Integrated Approach. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Lemelin, Raynald Harvey, Emma Stewart, and Jackie Dawson. “An Introduction to Last Chance Tourism.” In Last Chance Tourism: Adapting Tourism Opportunities in a Changing World, edited by Raynald Harvey Lemelin, Jackie Dawson, and Emma J. Stewart, 3–9. London: Routledge, 2012.
Priskin, Julianna. “Assessment of Natural Resources for Nature-Based Tourism: The Case of the Central Coast Region of Western Australia.” Tourism Management 22, no. 6 (2001): 637–48.
Scott, Daniel, Bas Amelung, Suzanne Becken, Jean-Paul Ceron, Ghislan Dubois, Stefan Gössling, Paul Peeters, and Murray C. Simpson. Climate Change and Tourism: Responding to Global Challenges, Summary. Madrid: World Tourism Organization and United Nations Environment Programme, 2007. Accessed February 22, 2011. http://www.unwto.org/climate/support/en/pdf/summary_davos_e.pdf.
Chapter 7
The Human Geography of Tourism: Resources and Barriers
When we consider potential vacation destinations, our assessment of the human geography of those places is probably more instinctual and less analytical than that of the physical geography. If we dislike the cultural characteristics of a particular group of people, we will simply avoid those destinations where we’re most likely to encounter them. If we find big, crowded cities overwhelming and stressful to navigate or if we find the rural countryside boring and uneventful, we won’t consider such places in our destination search. If a country is going through a bloody civil war, it would never even enter our thought processes to consider it a vacation spot. From the demand perspective, clearly the human characteristics of a place play an important role in shaping what we want or expect from the destinations we visit. From the supply perspective, these characteristics are also important in determining, first, if tourism will occur in a place, and second, how it will occur.
As we established in the previous chapter, tourism resources are those components of both the physical and human environment of a destination that have the potential to facilitate tourism or provide the basis for tourism attractions. While that chapter focused on the physical components of the environment, we turn our attention to the human components in this chapter. In particular, we introduce several new topical branches in geography—including cultural, urban, rural, and political geographies—for the purpose of identifying and examining the human resources that provide the basis for tourism as well as the human factors that present a barrier to tourism. These topical branches are clearly interrelated. Many of the resources and barriers discussed through each of the branches below could easily be approached from a different perspective through the framework of another.
Cultural Geography and Tourism
The subject of cultural geography and issue of cultural tourism are both widely discussed and the focus of entire books. Most, quite naturally, begin with a discussion of culture. The concept of culture is considered problematic, hard to define, and open to multiple interpretations. Culture is global and local, historic and contemporary, material and symbolic. It can be considered high (oriented toward a select audience educated to appreciate it), or it may be defined as mass, popular, or low and consumed by a wide audience. It is dynamic and ever changing. Thus, we can think of culture as encompassing the way of life for a group of people, with its roots in the past but evolving with present circumstances. Everything, from their artistic expressions to their daily activities, contributes to this way of life and helps create and re-create the meanings and associations they have, as well as their values and identity.
In geography, culture has long been an important topic as we try to understand the world. Cultural geography is a dynamic topical branch that has often been influential in shaping trends in wider geographic research. Today, it is one of the most widely recognized topical branches; in fact, it is sometimes considered synonymous with human geography as a whole. To some extent, this is a reflection of the wide-ranging approaches to and issues in cultural geography. For example, cultural geography may be considered the study of how cultures make sense of space, how they give meanings to places, how they create landscapes, how they spread over space, how their identities form, how they are different from others, or how institutions shape culture.
Culture has also long been an important tourism resource, whether in ancient times or today. Because the concept of culture is so ambiguous, there has been much debate about the definition of cultural tourism and/or cultural tourists. Some favor a narrow, idealized view: “To be a cultural tourist is to attempt, I would suggest, to go beyond idle leisure and to return enriched with knowledge of other places and people. . . . In this way cultural tourism is clearly demarcated as a distinct form of tourism.”1 Others argue that, under a broad definition of culture, almost all of tourism today could be considered cultural tourism. We can, perhaps, consider a point somewhere in between. Certainly the cultural resources for tourism are extraordinarily important for much of tourism, and there may be significant overlap between cultural tourism and other products. However, it may be simply a matter of emphasis.
Given the vast scope of cultural geography, there has been considerable interconnection between it and the geography of tourism. Within the context of this discussion, we can use the framework of cultural geography to help us identify cultural resources for tourism and analyze potential barriers that exist between cultures. Cultural geography also has a part to play in helping us understand the effects of tourism on societies (part III) and factors that shape interactions between tourists and places (part IV).
The cultural resources for tourism are virtually limitless. Remnants and symbols of a place’s cultural heritage have been some of the most significant resources for tourism throughout history. For example, ancient Roman tourists and modern international tourists alike have been fascinated by the Pyramids of Giza, both for the spectacle of the archaeological site and for its mythology. Cultural heritage resources can be specific sites within a place (e.g., Stari Most or Old Bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a UNESCO World Heritage Site based on its symbolic importance in connecting and reconnecting the ethnically divided city) or encompass entire cities (e.g., Valparaíso, Chile, a UNESCO World Heritage Site based on its history as a cultural melting pot and its unique, colorful character). Religious sites, which are often tied to cultural heritage, can also be resources for tourism. Cathedrals, mosques, and temples all over the world are recognized within their respective belief systems for their religious importance. However, they are also more widely appreciated for their history and their aesthetic design. Thus, well-known sites like the Barcelona Cathedral, Hagia Sophia, or Potala Palace and Jokhang Temple Monastery (figure 7.1) have become significant tourism attractions visited by adherents and other international tourists.
Figure 7.1. The iconic Potala Palace, former winter palace of the Dalai Lama, and the Jokhang Temple Monastery, is a significant Buddhist religious complex in Lhasa, Tibet. Recognized as a UNESCO World Heri
tage Site, this complex is highly desired by international tourists of all belief systems. (Source: Velvet Nelson)
Not all elements of cultural heritage need to have a long history or be significant in the greater scope of world affairs to be considered a potential resource. For example, Abbey Road’s place in England’s cultural heritage dates back to 1969 with the release of the Beatles’ final studio LP recorded at Abbey Road Studios and given the same title. The album cover, showing the band members crossing the street, has become iconic, even among younger generations. Even Harry Potter has become an integral part of England’s cultural heritage today, and any place that has a part to play in his story—or which served as the inspiration for a place in the story—becomes a resource. These places, such as Gloucester Cathedral, the Glenfinnan Viaduct, or Leadenhall Market, would have otherwise remained unknown to potential tourists around the world.
Various aspects of the arts, whether based on traditional or modern culture, can serve as a resource as well. While these resources may not be the primary attraction that draws tourists to a place, they constitute a part of the experience and something that tourists may see or do during their visit. Visual arts are often used as a basis for a destination’s attraction: famous museums (e.g., the Louvre in Paris or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City), city-level art districts (e.g., the Short North in Columbus, Ohio), and open-air sculpture parks (e.g., Vigeland Park in Oslo, Norway). Likewise, the production of arts and crafts—and these items themselves—can be a resource for tourism. For example, tourists may visit a traditional “factory” in Tunisia to watch the skilled crafts workers make carpets and potentially purchase one to take home with them. The same applies to the performing arts. Tourists may try to see a play or musical (for some, any play or musical will do) in a famous theater district, such as New York City’s Broadway or London’s West End. In other cases, tourists may wish to see the performances that are specific to the place visited. For example, tourists to Chengdu, China, may attend a Sichuan opera, the highlight of which is typically bian lian, or face-changing. In this unique and highly protected art form, performers rapidly change a succession of brightly colored masks.
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