As there are traditionally few efforts to assess potential social effects, these effects are generally poorly incorporated into the planning process. Yet, a better knowledge of the social geography of the community under consideration can be used by both the public and the private sector to maximize the social benefits of tourism and to minimize the costs. This can contribute to general public policy decisions that protect local people and their rights, such as landownership and access to public lands, resources, or sites. It might involve destination policy decisions that seek to manage both the numbers of tourists and the circumstances in which interaction between visitors and locals takes place. Likewise, the destination might seek to establish policies that will control tourists’ behavior (e.g., dress codes, codes of conduct, etc.) to fit within the cultural norms of the resident population.
Education can go a long way in preventing the negative outcomes of tourist-local interactions at a destination. One of the most common complaints levied against tourists is ignorance of the place, its people, and their customs, which contributes to the process of culture clash. At the same time, this ignorance can be one of the key contributors to culture shock. Tourists are almost always encouraged to learn about a place before they visit. This helps ensure that the tourists are able to make an informed decision that their chosen destination will meet their expectations. Moreover, it helps the tourists understand what is expected of them so that they do not generate undue hostility toward themselves or cause offense to people in the local community. In addition, they should be willing to learn about the place through their experience of it. Although the situation is a bit more complicated for local people, education about tourists can help reduce misperceptions that also have the potential to contribute to culture clash.
Conclusion
Although the tourism literature has increasingly recognized the sociocultural impacts of tourism, there has been relatively little interface between social geography and the geography of tourism. While there may be some exceptions of tourism in extremely remote wilderness areas with little to no population, tourism will impact the local community in a multitude of minor and major ways. As is often the case, the worst examples of tourism—ignorant tourists, hostile locals, poorly planned developments—and their negative consequences typically get the most attention. Yet, these consequences are not necessarily unavoidable. Concerted efforts can be made by both tourists and tourism stakeholders to ensure that the negative social effects of tourism are minimized.
Key Terms
acculturation
commodification
demonstration effect
lingua franca
social geography
Notes
1. Susan Horner and John Swarbrooke, International Cases in Tourism Management (Burlington, MA: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004), 22.
2. Stephen Williams, Tourism Geography (London: Routledge, 1998), 156.
3. Michael C. Hall and Alan Lew, Understanding and Managing Tourism Impacts: An Integrated Approach (New York: Routledge, 2009), 58.
Sources
Del Casino, Vincent J. Social Geography: A Critical Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009.
Hall, Michael C., and Alan Lew. Understanding and Managing Tourism Impacts: An Integrated Approach. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Pain, Rachel, Michael Barke, Duncan Fuller, Jamie Gough, Robert MacFarlane, and Graham Mowl. Introducing Social Geographies. London: Arnold, 2001.
Chapter 10
The Environmental Geography of Tourism
Tourism frequently gets linked to much-discussed environmental issues in the mass media. It is cited as an economic alternative to logging in the Amazon rain forest. It is used to argue against drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It is considered to be the best chance for protecting rare and endangered wildlife species in sub-Saharan Africa. This connection between tourism and environmental issues brings together some of the topics that we’ve already discussed. In particular, it recognizes that the physical resources of a place can constitute very powerful attractions for tourism. It also recognizes that tourism is a viable economic activity that can be as profitable as or, in fact, more profitable in the long term than other, less environmentally sustainable economic activities.
The environmental geography of tourism allows us to explore this connection. Like tourism geography, environmental geography is a topical branch of geography that can be difficult to place within the field. Some scholars consider environmental geography to provide the geographic perspective on environmental science and therefore approach the topic as a “hard” science. Yet, this approach neglects a crucial component of environmental geography: people. Environmental geography is distinguished from other branches of physical geography in the recognition of and focus on the earth as the human environment. In other words, it considers the ways in which the environment affects people and people affect the environment. As such, environmental geography lies at the intersection of human and physical geography. Human-environment interactions is one of the long-standing traditions in geography and one of the key themes identified in chapter 1. Environmental geography provides the means of exploring this theme. While some geographers may approach the topic from a physical geography background (e.g., the science of human-induced climate change), others will do so from a human geography background (e.g., the human response to climate change).
Environmental geography has an important part to play in the geography of tourism. Natural attractions based on physical resources have long provided the basis for different tourism products in destinations around the globe. In the modern world, where millions of people live in highly developed urban areas, tourism provides a distinct opportunity for people to interact with the environment. To some extent, the relationship between tourism and the environment may be described as symbiotic: because tourism benefits from being located in high-quality environments, those same environments ought to benefit from measures of protection aimed at maintaining their value as tourism attractions. However, the incredible growth of the tourism industry has made it difficult to sustain this symbiosis. While tourism does indeed have the potential for enhancement and protection of the environment, it has also, in many cases, become a major source of environmental problems that have threatened to destroy those resources on which tourism depends.
This chapter continues our discussion of the geographic effects of tourism. Specifically, this chapter utilizes the tools and concepts from environmental geography to consider the possibility for tourism to positively contribute to the maintenance of high-quality environments, as well as the potential negative environmental consequences of tourism. It also discusses the factors that shape the nature of these effects and the need for education to maximize the positive effects while minimizing the negative effects.
Environmental Benefits of Tourism
The actions of tourists in a place are unlikely to result in any direct benefits for the environment. Essentially, when we undertake any type of activity—including tourism—in an environment, we cannot help but impact it in some way. Instead, it is tourism planning and development that is often seen as holding the potential to improve the environmental quality of the destination, maintain environmental standards, and/or preserve the environmental resources of that destination.
Improvement
Tourism can provide a distinct impetus for cleaning up the environment of a place. Obviously the environment must be safe enough to allow tourist visits. Thus, the destination must ensure an appropriate level of environmental quality. When an existing destination has experienced damage or contamination as a result of, say, a natural disaster or an industrial accident, the affected sites must be cleaned up and/or restored before tourists can return. For example, in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the affected destinations had to manage the disposal of debris and other solid wastes and to purify water sources that were contaminated by damaged septic tanks and sewage treatment infrast
ructure. Yet, sometimes even recovery efforts aren’t enough. In 1984, a toxic chemical leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, poisoned an estimated half a million people in what has been regarded as one of the worst industrial disasters in the world. Bhopal once had a reputation as a tourism destination based on its history, culture, and natural landscape. Although toxins are no longer in the environment, the perception of the city as “poisoned” persists.
A potential destination must restore the environmental quality of a brownfield site (land previously used for industrial purposes that may have been contaminated by low levels of toxins or pollutants) before tourism can be developed. Mines, factories, warehouses, and other industrial facilities may be abandoned after their operations have been shut down. While these places are often considered a form of visual or aesthetic pollution, there may also be a correlation between such derelict facilities and physical pollution or contamination. The land itself may have been damaged by industrial uses; hazardous chemicals may have leached into the soil or water sources; or the decaying infrastructure, such as buried or rusted pipes, may continue to contribute to environmental degradation. As long as the quality of the environment has not been irreparably damaged, these abandoned facilities may be reclaimed and redeveloped for tourism and recreation in a number of forms.
In some cases, the infrastructure may be preserved, essentially in its original state with some modifications to accommodate visitation, as a tourism attraction to highlight the heritage of the industry in that place. For example, the Idrija Mercury Mine in Slovenia operated for five hundred years before it was shut down in response to a growing awareness of the toxicity of mercury as well as new regulations about its use. Now it is a “tourist mine” and proposed UNESCO World Heritage Site, and guided tours offer visitors the chance to experience the mine and learn about its history (figure 10.1).
Figure 10.1. This guide is providing a tour of the Anthony Mine Shaft in Idrija, Slovenia. Once the second-largest mercury mine in the world, it has now been converted to a tourist mine to highlight the historic importance of the mine. (Source: Velvet Nelson)
In other cases, some of the infrastructure may be maintained but adapted for new purposes. Baltimore’s Inner Harbor revitalization project is cited as a prime example of transforming derelict waterfront warehouses into an attractive shopping and entertainment district that, to some extent, maintains the industrial character of the area. Visit Baltimore, the official destination development and marketing organization for Greater Baltimore, considers the Inner Harbor to be “the crown jewel of the city’s active tourism industry, it is an attraction all by itself.”1
Finally, landscapes may also be cleared, leveled, contoured, and replanted to reestablish native flora, recreate habitat for native fauna, and develop an appropriate landscape for recreation, such as multiuse paths. Although landscape reclamation can be a costly process, it is increasingly required by law in many parts of the world for environmental protection. In addition, grants and other resources may be made available for local communities to convert these areas for tourism as an alternative means of development once resources have been exploited by other economic activities. The Wilds provides an example of a tourist attraction on nearly ten thousand acres of reclaimed mine land in Ohio. A nonprofit organization initially received the land as a donation from the Central Ohio Coal Company in 1986 and has since redeveloped it as a conservation center and open-range habitat for rare and endangered species from all over the world. Visitors to The Wilds can take a “safari,” an interactive wildlife tour, stay at the lodge, or participate in outdoor recreation activities like mountain biking or fly fishing.2
The environment must also be attractive enough to encourage and sustain tourist visits. This may be as simple as cleaning up litter on a beach or along a nature trail. However, it may also be as involved as improving wastewater treatment systems to prevent untreated discharge from reaching the ocean. This is fundamental in improving the quality of water at beaches that might be used for recreation. Otherwise, these areas would, at best, be perceived by tourists as dirty; at worst, visitors would be at risk for contracting waterborne diseases like gastroenteritis, hepatitis, dysentery, and typhoid. In either case, tourists would be dissatisfied with their experience of the destination. As they express this dissatisfaction during the post-trip stage—either personally to family and friends or publicly on blogs and travel-rating sites—the destination will obtain a negative reputation that can be extremely difficult to overcome.
Maintenance
Tourism can provide the means of maintaining the environmental quality of a place. Tourism is often accompanied by infrastructure development. For example, the development of hotels and resorts, as well as the corresponding influx of tourists that temporarily increases the size of the population at a destination, can overwhelm environmental quality systems, such as wastewater treatment facilities. As a result, the developer may be required by the applicable government agency to either construct or contribute to the construction of these facilities. This may be a new facility that did not previously exist at the destination or an expanded facility better equipped to handle increased usage. This may also be an improved facility to ensure that the quality provided meets the standards of foreign tourists. Although tourism is the explicit reason for these changes, local residents may benefit from them as well.
Tourism revenues may also be reinvested in an environment. As tourism activities will likely have an impact on the environment in which they take place, a portion of the income from these activities may be allocated for measures to minimize impacts or repair damage from tourism. For example, nature trails need to be adequately planned and subsequently maintained to limit the extent of erosion, especially in areas expected to receive large quantities of visitors. Such practices include stabilizing slopes, using natural vegetation to form buffers, and maintaining erosion control measures. These measures need not be expensive or high-tech: in the case of Grenada, the Caribbean island uses nutmeg shells—one of their primary agricultural products—as an organic means of mulching paths that are prone to get muddy and slippery with high traffic.
Preservation
Tourism can also provide a clear rationale for preserving the environmental resources of a place. Environmental preservation has been one of the most significant arguments for tourism development. Many places around the world would be lost to industrial, commercial, or residential development if they were not set aside for the purpose of tourism. Tourism constitutes a viable economic alternative to these other, often more damaging forms of development. As a result, the land can be made economically productive while it is kept, more or less, in its original state. Trees are a resource that can be exploited by removing them from the land and selling them to paper and pulp mills, furniture manufacturers, the construction industry, and so on. However, the forest as a whole may be seen as a resource to be enjoyed by hikers, birdwatchers, and other nature enthusiasts. If tourism and recreation in a place is thought to be as valuable—or perhaps even more valuable in the long term—then the argument for preservation has greater weight, and the landscape can be maintained as a whole.
In some cases, private tourism stakeholders will recognize the potential for protecting the natural features of a place, and they will invest in nature tourism with the intention of ultimately generating a profit. The private sector has an important part to play in tourism. Particularly in less developed countries where local and/or national governments may have few resources to devote to preservation efforts, private individuals and companies may be better able to achieve these goals. For example, the Makasutu Culture Forest in the West African country of The Gambia is a project that began in 1992, when two individuals initially purchased four acres of land to build a small backpackers’ lodge. When the surrounding forest became the target of deforestation, they realized the need for preservation of a much wider area. Today, the forest is a thousand-acre private reserve and the site of n
ature-based tourism activities.3
Box 10.1. Case Study: A Proposed Oil Refinery on the “Nature Island” of Dominica
Dominica is a volcanic island in the eastern Caribbean, characterized by rugged mountains and lush tropical rain forest vegetation. Despite these restrictions in physical geography, the island was developed for export-oriented agriculture as early as the late eighteenth century and remained dependent on these industries for nearly two hundred years. However, agriculture fell into decline in the second half of the twentieth century with political independence and the end of preferential access to the United Kingdom market for bananas. As with the other islands in the region at that time, Dominica looked to tourism as a potential economic alternative. Unlike many of these islands, though, Dominica lacked the white sand beaches upon which mass 3S tourism is based. Thus, the national tourism organization sought to utilize the island’s stunning natural landscape to develop small-scale nature-based tourism products. As such, they created a new identity for themselves as the “nature island,” which was used to promote these tourism products.
Yet, Dominica’s development policies have not always been consistent with this identity and vision. For example, in an effort to increase visitation rates, the government made significant investment in its cruise terminal facilities to allow more—and bigger—ships. However, mass cruise tourism is a less sustainable form of tourism, which brings large quantities of tourists to a destination for a short time. These tourists overwhelm the environment and may provide little economic benefit for the destination.
Then, in 2007, the government of Venezuela proposed the construction of an oil refinery on Dominica. The government of Dominica forged a temporary agreement with Venezuela, contingent upon additional information, including an environmental impact assessment. While some local stakeholders argued for the economic benefits the refinery would bring to the island, others argued that any economic benefits would be negated by the loss of tourism. Organizations such as the island’s Waitukubuli Ecological Foundation and the Dominica Hotel and Tourism Association perceived the proposed project as a dual threat: the threat of actual environmental degradation that would destroy the quality and aesthetic appearance of the nature island and the threat that the idea of an oil refinery would have on the concept of Dominica as the “nature island.”
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