Most conservationists view tourism with distinctly mixed feelings. It can contribute to rural livelihoods and, through ecotourism, can generate valuable funds to conservation projects while at the same time educating tourists and local people about the value of wildlife and conservation. Conversely, it is often responsible for driving uncontrolled development, increased pollution, the introduction of invasive species and a whole host of associated social ills.
Tourism's Jekyll and Hyde character is also apparent when viewed through the lens of climate change. Huge numbers of Europeans and North Americans fleeing to sunnier climes are clearly a major contributor to greenhouse gases, yet many of the resorts where they end up are heavily reliant on the income that tourism brings. Ironically, many of the tropical ‘paradises’ that are most dependent on tourism income (such as the Maldives and the Seychelles) are also predicted to suffer the most significant consequences of anthropogenic climate change, such as sea level rise and an increase in the frequency and intensity of tropical storms.
The first three chapters of this timely and thoughtful book explore these issues in a very concise and accessible manner, giving the reader a clear conceptual framework within which to understand the multifaceted relationship between climate change and tourism. Becken and Hay's identification of ‘climate-tourism hotspots’ (parts of the world that are economically dependent on tourism and which are forecast to have both high tourist arrivals and significant changes in climate in the near future) is particularly useful and a clear step forward in bring about appropriate global tourism planning and prioritizing it. Considerable depth is added to these conceptual bones through the careful use of case studies from alpine Europe and small island states. The following seven chapters expand upon this conceptual framework, discussing in detail the causes of global climate change, the principles of climate change accounting, mitigation measures, adaptation strategies and finally, climate change practices and policy for tourism.
Although the abundant tables and bullet points make the book sometimes read a little like a consultancy report it should be very well received by policy-makers and tourism professionals who are, perhaps, more used this style than academics. That said, I fully expect this book to become required reading for tourism and ecotourism courses in universities around the world. As an up-to-date summary of a rapidly expanding area of tourism research it deserves a wide readership and, unusually for an academic book, will be genuinely useful to practitioners and planners.
From the perspective of conservation, Becken and Hays acknowledge that the interaction between tourism, climate change and ecosystems is complex. Climate change will certainly result in rapid and dramatic biogeographical and ecological changes and these will undoubtedly influence the desirability of some tourism destinations. However, the precision of our ecological forecasts are still poor, let alone the potential knock-on effects of ecosystem change on tourism.
Action on all fronts is clearly required, and with over 800 million international tourists travelling every year time is of the essence. Given that it is hugely unlikely that the global flow of tourism will be turned off in the near future, it seems there are few choices but to mitigate, adapt and try to assess the risks ever more accurately.
