You don’t become an ecotourist operator by just having nature as your destination…what do you do with waste? What do you do with hazardous chemicals? How do you transport? Do you buy locally?…Are you encouraging wildlife? What are you doing with your sewage? It is these kind of nitty gritty things that will make the difference between eco-tourism being a force for the environment or simply being another threat.[1]
Sustainable tourism is tourism development that avoids damage to the environment, economy and cultures of the locations where it takes place. The aim of sustainable tourism is to ensure that development is a positive experience for local people; tourism companies; and tourists themselves.
But how can sustainable tourism be achieved? Evidence suggests that it requires co-operation between concerned companies and the managers of destinations. It does not, however, require a marked interest from consumers. Some companies have suggested that they will only take steps to achieve sustainable tourism if they recognize a clear 'market demand' for holidays that are overtly 'green' or 'environmentally friendly'.[2]
Data from WTTC (World Tourism and Travel Center)[3] however, has indicated that few tourists want holidays that are 'green' within the mass tourism market; and that holidays that are 'green' may repeat the pitfalls of ecotourism. It may not be profitable or sustainable to encourage market demand for 'green' tourism as this demand may not occur, and also may not lead to sustainable tourism.
Instead, evidence has suggested that sustainable tourism does not have to be advertised as environmentally or culturally sensitive in order to succeed. Research has indicated that profits may be increased simply by adopting some general environmental principles, such as recycling waste, planning for long-term sustainability, and seeking local partnerships for resort management. If these actions result in cleaner, less crowded, holiday resorts, then they are in effect sustainable tourism without being labelled so.
Why Thailand?
Thailand amounts to more than just beaches and sandy seaside resorts. It boasts lush jungles and forests in which distinctive hill tribes still live.
But how can companies and resort managers achieve this kind of success? This question is more controversial. One proposal has been to increase the vertical integration of tourism companies, so that individual companies have greater control over the marketing of holidays, transportation of tourists, and then management of resorts. Such integration may help avoid the disappointment and despoliation of resorts that occurs when tourists interested in conventional mass tourism are sent to sites perhaps better suited to bird watchers or hill walkers, as has occurred in Corfu[4]. But this suggestion, however, is occasionally opposed as it may imply that smaller tourism companies cannot enter the market[5]. Furthermore, reducing competition from smaller companies may result in reducing the pressure for lower prices of holidays.
Do you think the distinction between sustainable tourism and ecotourism is useful? Why?
In Thailand these days, tourists don't have to travel far to see the exotic 'hill tribes.' Photographs of these ethnic minorities can be seen on expensive packages of food on sale in Bangkok's 5-star hotels. The smiling faces on parcels of 'Hill Tribe Gourmet Coffee', flowers and fruit brighten up Bangkok shops, and allow tourists the chance to buy goods actually produced by hill farmers. Few shoppers realise, however, that products like these are part of a wider programme to reduce opium cultivation in northern Thailand, and to bring development to the 'hill tribes.' Fewer still appreciate that tourism's impacts on agriculture may be far greater than commonly thought[6].
'Tourism and agriculture' are usually far from people's minds when they go on their holidays. Yet the relationships between tourism and agriculture can be important and far-reaching for local communities. The impacts can be greatest in locations where tourism is growing rapidly, and where tourism offers an alternative source of income to traditional cultivation. Indeed, some people suggest the indirect effects of tourism on agriculture and its implications for society may be more significant and threatening than many direct visual impacts such as footpath erosion or hotel construction.
Divided between those who believe that tourism impacts positively on local development, and those who believe it does not, optimists argue that tourism assists development by reducing the pressures of farming on local environments by providing farmers with an alternative source of income, and by educating farmers in the non-agricultural economy. Pessimists, however, suggest that tourism only exacerbates social divisions and may even increase environmental degradation by disrupting traditional land management[7]. Pessimists also suggest that introducing tourism into farming areas will lead inevitably to the construction of resorts and hotels that will bring new destructive forms of mass tourism.
Evidence for either viewpoint is mixed. In the Khumbu region of Nepal near Mount Everest, for example[8], research has shown that agricultural production has fallen since the introduction of tourism in the 1950s, and that tourism employed at least one individual from each household for up to 10 months a year. These figures suggest that tourism has reduced agricultural pressure on the local environment, and also contributed to local development.
Critics, however, suggest that tourism in Khumbu only succeeded because of the adventurous, entrepreneurial spirit of the local Sherpa people. Tourism may therefore have been successful because it came at the right time and place. Other ethnic groups in different locations may not fare so well. In western Nepal, for example, the establishment of the Lake Rara National Park resulted in the forcible expulsion of several hundred Chhetri people from their traditional highlands onto the lowlands. The Chhetri found this transition difficult because they received less land than they previously owned, and they were seen as unwelcome newcomers by other ethnic groups. As a result of such examples, the German anthropologist Christoph Fürer-Haimendorf suggested ethnic groups may be divided into 'adventurous traders' (such as the Sherpa) who can benefit well from new commercial opportunities like tourism, and 'cautious cultivators' (such as the Chhetri) who prefer traditional agriculture[9].
Tourism may also impact on the type of agriculture, or the production of specific foodstuffs. In Bali, for example, the practice of taking tourists night fishing may have increased the frequency of fishing trips. Similarly, in southern China, tourists are paying to see the ancient tradition of using cormorant birds to catch fish. The cormorants' feet are tied by a long rope to a bamboo raft, and then are plunged into rivers in order to catch fish. On returning to the surface, the fishermen forcibly remove the fish from the birds' throats. Both fishing practices may have been replaced by more modern techniques if not for tourism.
Such links between tourism and the nature of agricultural production are more difficult to prove at a larger or national scale. Tourism is just one of many economic trends that influence agricultural production, and tourism marketing may be able to transform expectations rather than actually produce change. In northern Thailand, for example, many tourists fear that trekking tours offering tourists the opportunity to smoke opium may increase the production of opium in Thailand. In fact the demand from tourism is generally small, and can be easily supplied by trade flows from Burma and Laos. Similarly, on other 'jungle treks', tourists are often promised 'snake soup' or other local delicacies to give the impression of authenticity. But sometimes the guides have to improvise when they can't catch any snakes[10].
Tourism And The Mien
The most accurate impacts of tourism on agriculture can only be identified by studying the responses of specific villages. One study of tourism in northern Thailand focused on the Mien (or 'Yao') ethnic group[11]. The Mien migrated to Thailand from Laos about 60 years ago, and are generally considered to be 'adventurous traders' because of their historic ability to trade opium and silverware[12]. The Mien are characterized by the dark blue turbans and tunics worn by women, and their bright red woollen collars. Today, the Mien no longer cultivate opium, but instead grow traditional crops like rice and maize with new cash crops such as soyabeans. In one prominent Mien village in Thailand, near the 'Golden Triangle' where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet, tourism is now an important supplement to agriculture.
During the tourism season, tourists arrive every day in air conditioned buses to look at the village and buy souvenirs. Women villagers have set up bamboo stalls near the village entrance, where they sell embroideries, wooden ornaments, and cheap silverware bought at local markets in Northen Thailand. The men of the village drive trucks to transport tourists to the village and other attractions nearby. The village is a good example of a village where tourism has grown rapidly, yet the tourism is not always appreciated by the tourists.
Despite the hubbub surrounding tourism, an economic survey revealed that only 15 percent of the 120 households in the village made more than half of their total income from tourism. Most income came from driving trucks to transport tourists and other travellers. For all households, tourism contributed an average of only 25 percent of total income. The most important source of income in the village came from agriculture, and particularly from cash crops such as soyabeans. Yet, one third of village households did not--or were not able to--earn money from tourism.
Villagers explained why some households adopted tourism and others did not. Households only adopted tourism when they had the spare time to attend stalls, and when they had the cash to buy souvenirs from markets. Many villagers did not have spare time and money because they were too busy growing crops and cultivating land. Usually, the people who looked after the stalls were elderly women too old to work in the fields, or young mothers who were busy with their children. Before the arrival of tourism, many of these women stayed at home all day looking after children and embroidering clothes. Tourism has given these women the ability to continue these activities, yet also have the chance of earning money at the same time.
The impacts on environment were also less than optimists had hoped. Families who profited from tourism used the money to hire agricultural labour from other villages, and therefore increase the production of crops on land that they might otherwise have left fallow. Meanwhile, farmers who did not have the ability to enter the tourism market continued to use land extremely frequently in order to increase their income. The findings suggest that tourism has helped individuals in the village to become richer, but that agricultural activity has actually increased as a result. In addition, it suggests that the term 'adventurous traders' may not be applied uniformly to all members of an ethnic group, and that instead each group may include both entrepreneurs and 'cautious cultivators'[13].
But perhaps most importantly, the study suggested that tourism's impact depends largely on the nature of tourism. The rapid growth of tourism in the Golden Triangle has encouraged some investors to build bungalows and flower gardens aimed at weekend travellers from Bangkok, or a more luxurious form of tourism than the current travellers[14]. Villagers earn large lump sums if they sell their agricultural land to investors. But the money may in fact be below market prices and also remove their ability to produce food. Village elders appreciate the problem. 'We don't want people to sell land because it will mean they can only earn money by working in factories or cities. We must have land, or else we can't eat', said one village leader.
Tourism therefore has a variety of impacts on agriculture and these differ between local cultures and according to the type of tourism. The most serious impacts occur when tourism prevents local communities from conducting agriculture. But in less extreme forms of tourism, there are still winners and losers in the process of development.
Often the changes occurring to agricultural economies are too large scale and complex to attribute purely to tourism. But this should not prevent us from being vigilant or aware of the potential impacts of tourism on particular groups or from specific projects. In Thailand, the government uses pictures of smiling faces as a way to increase the sale of agricultural produce to tourists. But behind these smiling faces are a complex series of social and economic changes which impact on poor farming communities, and which ultimately may do little to assist them.
[1] (Figgis, P., 1993. Ecotourism: A Range of Views, in Down to Earth Planning for an Out-Of-The-Ordinary Industry, Paper presented at the South Australian Eco-tourism Forum, August 19-20, Adelaide) downloaded with www.proxy.com
[2] Sources: FOC, 2002, WTO, 2000 & 2002, UNWTO, 2007, www.risingtide.co.uk , 2004, UN, 2003, Gov't of Canada, 2005, Science Musuem, 2006)
[7] Tourism and agricultural development in Thailand, paper found on Annals of Tourism Research, Volume 22, Number 4, 1995 , pp. 877-900(24) downloaded by
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/01607383/1995/00000022/00000004/art00019
[9] Paper found on http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:1igaMpF_bcUJ:www.akha.org/content/tourismecotourism/ethnictourism.pdf+thailand+Tourism+and+the+Mien&cd=7&hl=id&ct=clnk&gl=id&client=firefox-a
[10] WTO (2002), Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Sustainable Development in Ecotourism, Male, Maldives, 11-13 Feb. 2002, Final Report, World Tourism Organization,paper on http://www.uneptie.org/PC/tourism/ecotourism/home.htm#whatisecotour
[11] Paper found on http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:1igaMpF_bcUJ:www.akha.org/content/tourismecotourism/ethnictourism.pdf+thailand+Tourism+and+the+Mien&cd=7&hl=id&ct=clnk&gl=id&client=firefox-a
[13] : Tourism and agricultural development in Thailand., Forsyth, T. J. Found on http://www.cababstractsplus.org/abstracts/Abstract.aspx?AcNo=19961806094.thaitourismjournal
[14] we-should-shift-focus-to-agriculture-and-tourism article found on http://thaicrisis.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/
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