Sustainable tourism is important for both environmental and business reasons. Unchecked tourism can damage the natural environments and communities that tourists visit. Three key points about making tourism more sustainable are: 1) Limiting tourist numbers to avoid overwhelming natural systems and communities. 2) Improving transport like high-speed trains that are more environmentally friendly than planes or cars. 3) Consulting local communities and respecting their wishes regarding tourism impacts.

1. Sustainable Tourism:
We are the stakeholders.
• Richa
rd
Farr

2. Contents• Motivation
• The ‘Triple Bottom Line’
• The Greenhouse Effect
• Environmental impact – how many Earths?
• Four journeys... four problems
• How bad is my carbon footprint?
• How do we make tourism more
sustainable?
• Closing remarks

3. Motivation: we are not
“tree-huggers”• There are sound business reasons to be ‘green’.
• Being conscious of the impacts upon communities
and natural systems, we can learn to do things
better – and remain in business.

4. There are sound
business reasons for
sustainable tourism
what we’re doing, if they are to continue to
allow us access.
• Many local people work in the tourism
business at the destination, or will meet
with your tourists. You need them to be
happy about things.
• Visitors can spoil the things that they come
to experience – “killing the goose that lays
the golden eggs.”
• ‘Ethical spending’ is on the rise. In the UK it
has grown more than 300% in the last
decade. If you want to go after the “green
pound”, you need to be aware of the issues
affecting the industry.

5. The Triple Bottom Line
• “People, Planet, Profit”

6. Carbon Footprint
• One of the common ways to measure
our environmental impact is carbon
dioxide emissions: the “carbon footprint”
of an activity or product.
• Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.
• Greenhouse gases are so-called because
they make it warmer on the inside.
• The Greenhouse Effect is natural, and life
on Earth would probably be impossible
without it. The problem is that there is
now more greenhouse gases than before,
and much of the extra gas is a direct
consequence of modern industries.
Temperatures are rising so quickly that

7. What do Greenhouse
Gases do?

8. “Climate Change”, or
“Global Warming”?
• Scientists expect an average temperature
increase... but this doesn’t mean every
place gets warmer.
• Averages seldom convey a complete
picture.
• Expect warmer summers, and colder
winters.
• Expect more “extreme weather events”.

10. Our environmental
impact
• Things will continue to get worse, while we
exceed Earth’s biological capacity.
• How is it possible to use “more than one Earth”?

11. Mt. Everest
• Nepal

12. Trekking in the
Himalayas
• The Everest region sees over 30,000
visitors a year. Not a huge number,
but enough to have a major impact
on local villages.
• It’s difficult to clean up after the trekkers once
they are gone. A lack of local infrastructure
means waste such as food packaging is simply
dumped outside villages. Plastics, bottles and
cans will remain for centuries, and sewerage is
also a problem.
• Trekking companies are supposed to carry out
their waste with them, but many do not. The
cost to transport empty beer cans out by yak is
prohibitive... and even if they did, there is no
recycling industry in Nepal.

13. Angkor Wat
• Cambodia

14. Angkor Wat
Wat in the first quarter of 2012 – an
increase of 45% compared to the
previous year.
• “The main sites buzz with tour groups from
sunrise to sunset. Once, the main hazard at Ta
Prohm was falling over the roots of the trees
which have partially engulfed the temple. These
days a visitor is more likely to be swallowed up
by the crowds striking Lara Croft poses in
homage to Angelina Jolie's exploits in Tomb
Raider.”
–
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18363636
Would you get the tourism experience you were

15. Uluru
• Northern Territory, Australia

16. Uluru
• The local Aboriginal people, the
A angu, don’t climb Uluru becauseṉ
of its great spiritual significance.
They request that visitors do not
climb the rock either.
• From the visitors guide: “The climb is not
prohibited, but we prefer that, as a guest
on A angu land, you will choose to respectṉ
our law and culture by not climbing.”
• There are also good safety reasons for not
climbing Ayers Rock / Uluru: at least 35
people have died, making the climb – most
from heart failure.
• Some 100,000+ tourists climb the rock

17. Churchill
• Manitoba, Canada

18. Churchill, Manitoba
• Polar bears mainly hunt for food on sea ice:
they fast for half the year.
• Where the fresh water from the Churchill
River flows out into the Hudson Bay, the
sea freezes first, so for a few weeks from
late October every year, Churchill
becomes the polar bear capital of the
world. Thousands of tourists travel to see
them.
• My trip: Flight from London to Montreal,
and then on to Winnipeg. North by train
for two days to reach Churchill, and then
out onto the ice in a ‘tundra buggy’. Stayed
three nights.

19. Carbon footprints for
my journey to Churchill
• Short-haul flights: about 0.2897 kg CO2 per
mile, per passenger.
• Long-haul flights: about 0.1770 kg CO2 per
mile, per passenger.
• “Fly from London to Edinburgh for the
weekend and you produce 193kg of CO2,
eight times the 23.8kg you produce by taking
the train.”
–
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2006/jan/29/theai
• London to Montreal: 3248 miles each way
• Montreal to Winnipeg: 1133 miles each way

20. How do we make
tourism more
sustainable?
• Limit tourist numbers to a level that won’t disrupt
the natural systems or communities in an area.
• Improve transport links: modern high-speed trains
are much more “green” than driving, or flying.
• Consult communities and respect their wishes, in
regard to tourism and associated industries.
• Perhaps have an ‘off season’ when key
places are closed to visitors, allowing
animals to mate, hatch, etc. undisturbed
by the public.
• Base decisions on good science.
Understand modes of harm, levels of

21. Closing remarks
• We need to do much more to protect
sites that are of particular interest.
• We need to understand that there are
powerful arguments against tourism (and
many other activities). Our companies
need to be as “green” as possible, to avoid
getting a negative image.
• Perceptions are changing, and the industry
will need to change as well.
• Visitors are killing world tourist spots

22. Further articles
from Richard Farr at:
http://capacify.wordpress.com