Hooked On Asia

I received a comment here last week that made me think again about what Sustainable Tourism means to me.

It is the case that once you have attached a label to a thing or a concept you treat it as if it were an absolute truth. It is therefore healthy to stop and see it from a different perspective occasionally.

Much has been written about sustainable tourism and you can find references all over the web but at its heart is the concept of sustainable development “which implies meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development).

It is quite easy to see tourism as the antithesis of sustainability as we jet around the world, discarding our waste, depleting water resources and polluting cultures as we go; but then just about everything about our modern lifestyle is detrimental to the planet and unsustainable.

Travel is part of the human psyche with the freedom to travel a human right and I think the world would be a much poorer (spiritually as well as economically) place were we all to stop travelling.

With that right, of course, comes responsibility. Inevitably places will change once the tourists arrive. For example over the course of some 20 years I have seen Chaweng Beach on Ko Samui, Thailand, change from an almost deserted stretch of coast into a bustling collection of hotels, restaurants, bars and shops.

The problem is that, more often than not, resorts like that (and there are of course many thousands more examples) are not planned with sustainability in mind. Over time they will put an untenable drain on resources and eventually destroy the very reason the destination attracted visitors in the first place.

That is the type of change we must guard against if we are to meet the “needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”

Perhentian Beach, East Coast Malaysia. Credit: Tourism Malaysia

Naturally that is where the concept of sustainable tourism comes in and aims to engage all stakeholders in the planning and execution of tourist developments. The idea of a win-win-win for the local environment (social and physical), the consumer and the industry is especially important for me as it appeals to my sense of fairness.

The problem I have found with the concept of sustainable tourism is that, once you start researching it, you are soon faced with even more concepts: responsible travel, eco-tourism, green travel, nature-based tourism, carbon-offsetting, community-based tourism, cultural tourism, poverty tourism etc. All of a sudden you have a glossary of terms some of which are vague, some contentious and others, according to Justin Francis, MD, responsibletravel.com, simply distracting.

I wonder how many eco-lodges have been built on land cleared of plants, trees and people especially for the purpose of a nature-based experience! I am sure such things can happen through ignorance but equally they can happen as a deliberate ploy to use the “eco” badge as no more than a marketing device. It all becomes buzzwords and noise.

Block out the noise, get back to basics and it’s about promoting and developing tourist experiences that “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

In 2005 the World Tourism Organization called upon the United Nations General Assembly and others to “fully recognize tourism, when sustainably developed and managed, as an effective tool to realize the Millennium Development Goals” and especially poverty alleviation. Sustainable tourism for me then is about being custodians of the land for future generations while at the same time taking care of those in the present. It’s about finding the balance between environmental integrity, social justice and economic development.

A tall order? Definitely. Worthwhile? Absolutely.