LIZE BARCLAY: Greener, smarter and safer tourism for a better future for all

Tuesday, September 27 is World Tourism Day, with the theme "Rethinking Tourism". The pandemic and global uncertainties placed severe constraints on tourism from 2020 to early 2022. No cruise ships sailed, hotels were empty and heritage sites were filled only with haunting reminders of their past glories.

Slowly tourism is rebooting throughout the world as people exercise their freedom to travel. This reboot provides an opportunity for a move towards responsible green tourism.

The tourism industry has a commendable history of embracing responsibilities toward people and the planet in the form of responsible tourism and ecotourism. Unfortunately, there are also still tourist practices that have become increasingly questionable, but on which many communities depend for a livelihood. 

An ethical dilemma

On the environmental front, tourist practices such as hunting, shark cage diving, walking with elephants and desert 4x4 tours are increasingly seen as unsustainable, unethical and harmful. Taking hunting for example, a 2018 study has shown that trophy and "biltong" hunting in the 2016/2017 season have contributed an estimated R13bn to the SA economy.

However, sentiments against hunting have been growing worldwide and after the social media frenzy of the "Cecil the Lion" debacle of 2015, about 45 airlines are no longer prepared to transport hunting trophies. From a wider environmental perspective, responsible hunting has shown that it preserves land and also the very species that are part of the hunting economy.

In areas where hunting has been banned, we have seen that vulnerable communities have been left destitute, leading to increased joblessness and urbanisation, as well as subsistence farming or turning land into housing estates. This has led to species extinction and ecosystem damage.

In the case of banning fox hunting and the culling of elephants, we have seen their numbers exploding, leading to the animals spilling out of wildlife preserves, damaging agriculture and even killing people.

This leads to the ethical dilemma over the rights and responsibilities of the communities that are dependent on the hunting industry versus animal rights. There is no easy and fast solution, as it is an extremely complex systemic issue. Alternatives such as the possibilities provided by virtual reality and cloning could be explored, as well as alternatives to the dependence on harmful tourism practices itself for ensuring the livelihood of the communities.

Worldwide there is a tendency to turn towards tourism to pay for environmental initiatives and preserves. As a society, we will have to explore these complexities and therefore rethink tourism from a circular design to a more ethical and responsible perspective for an ethical, sustainable and green future.

Increasingly cultural tourism is seen to invade the spaces and sanctities of unique peoples, and has been labelled "Human zoo tourism". During the Covid-19 lockdown periods, people living in often-visited places such as Venice and Paris rejoiced in the fact that they had their cities to themselves. During this time, several tourist attractions, towns and places have reconsidered their role as attractions and have imposed changes to the policies that govern their use for tourism.

Quite often the communities, especially vulnerable communities, that are part of a cultural tourism experience do not benefit from the tourist visits and spending. People in the Bo Kaap of Cape Town, for example, as well as several areas visited by so-called township tours, have lobbied government to impose changes to these practices so that they can at least benefit from tourist visits and spending, other than being the exhibited attraction.

Time for a rethink

Rethinking tourism is extremely important in this instance as well, to ensure a balance between giving tourists the privilege of experiencing novel cultures and guaranteeing the rights of these communities.

Heritage tourism can be damaging — sometimes unintentionally through the necessary act of breathing — to the very sites the tourism industry depends upon. Quite often tourism is again the only way to get sufficient income to pay for the upkeep and protection of these sites, such as monuments, historic places and archaeological artefacts.

Again, technology could be explored to come to the aid by ensuring the preservation of these heritage sites while enabling tourists to enjoy and explore the spaces and artefacts of bygone eras.

Tourism is a tremendously complex industry, and unlike the petro-chemical and technology businesses, there is no clear group of leading companies. The tourism industry is an industry composed of millions of individual entrepreneurs that sell curios and run small-scale accommodation facilities and restaurants. It is an industry with global organisations, governments and non-profit organisations and volunteers as role-players. It is an industry with global businesses running hotels, casinos, tour agencies and spas.

Due to the fragmented nature of tourism, the responsibility should lie with the organisations and businesses with the most power to act as custodians in protecting the rights of the people and places with the least power and who are exploited.

Although tourism was a leading industry in acknowledging the need for social and environmental responsibility and sensitivity, there are still many complex issues to be solved through compassion, creativity and innovation as we #rethinktourism

• Dr Barclay is a senior lecturer in futures studies & systems thinking at Stellenbosch University Business School.