Environmental policy instruments in the context of tourism
Tourism, like other economic activities, is a consumer of substantial quantities of materials and energy and a generator of wastes. For example, burnt aircraft fuel has a significant polluting effect on the stratosphere. Tourism activity also tend to be concentrated in specific areas, often over-exploiting scarce resources such as water and creating waste disposal problems and pollution. Accordingly, many tourism activities should be subject to the same environmental policies and instruments that are applied to productive industries. Yet, tourism possesses characteristics which mark it off as different and therefore potentially requiring a different means of dealing with environmental problems.
- First, the generally fragmented nature of tourism supply results in the identification of the source of its environmental effects being more difficult, while periodicity and seasonality give rise to an uneven temporal impact with consequently more intense physical effects (Sutcliffe and Sinclair, 1980)
- Second, that impact tends to be physical in terms of sheer numbers of people (therefore exceeding the capacity of transport modes and tourism resources): a visually intrusive built environment and evidence of tourist (such as car parked in scenic areas); over-use of natural environments leading to degradation; disturbance to wildlife and reduced biodiversity; waste generation.
- Third, perhaps reflecting an implied criticism of mainstream environmental economic, tourism, in common with a number of other activities, has the potential to generate considerable benefits. This aspect tends to be submerged in the economic analysis of policy instruments, which dwells almost exclusively on the social costs of pollution and the direct costs of its mitigation.
With respect to combating detrimental environmental effect concerning tourism’s use of materials and energy, the instruments examined are clearly relevant insofar as the sector consumer substantial quantities of natural resources-based inputs. Current policies are virtually specific to manufacturing, where there are tangible products and consequent chemical effluents or emissions are generated, so that the blanket imposition of emission and product charge, permit and quotas would, prima facie, not appear to be applicable to tourism. This would suggest that taxes and subsidies, deposits and refund and regulation seem to be the most appropriate instruments for dealing with the environmental problems generated by tourism, reflecting its specific characteristic. However, as already suggested earlier, the use of permit and quotas is indeed relevant to the sector. Emission by cruise ships and jet aircraft, referred to in chapter 8 as the currently advocated instruments, as there is no international tourism in 2008, as a result of inflationary rises in fuel prices and a global recession, the long term increase in air travel will continue, particularly in the long-haul market segment, which includes a significant proportion of the growth in ecotourism. Thus the contribution of tourism to global environmental problems may be increasing in relation to that by manufacturing industries, some of which have a wider choice in adopting innovation and less polluting technologies. It is extremely difficult to combat this problem of emission into the atmosphere while there is a reluctance to raise the supply cost to consumers by imposing taxes on aviation and shipping fuel, or more draconian measure such as the imposition of permit or quotas limiting the number of flight or cruise ships. In the short run it is unlikely that the number of flights and cruises would be drastically reduced; aircraft and ship would possibly continue to operate with lower payloads, which is both technically and economically inefficient. The pollution is more likely to be a very long term restructuring of the two sectors by taking aircraft and cruise ships out of commission altogether, as has occurred in the fishing industry. Similarly, the reduction of emission is depend on technological developments, which involve the use of less polluting fuels, for example biological ones, or even a completely new means of propulsion.
Tourism concentration in certain locations suggest that instruments designed to deal with local problems, such as waste. Litter, noise, degradation of physical resources, visual intrusion and cultural and social deterioration are particularly suitable. In a sense the hospitality activity involved in tourism are much the same as those of households but on a larger scale, with some spatial concentration, such as in seaside or skiing resort or certain districts in historic urban areas. In this context, the issue is largely one of material and energy use and waste disposal, requiring instrument aimed at encouraging reduction in the use of package materials or energy saving. User charges to meet the full cost of waste disposal, combined with product charge levied on manufacturers of product used, perhaps related to the amount of packaging, would provide an incentive to cut consumption. Similarly, deposit and refund schemes would encourage recycling, where feasible. Reductions in energy use can be stimulated by capital grants to use more efficient heating and lighting system and to improve insulation. Materials and energy use and waste generation are the aspects of environment issues which have been targeted by firm themselves, as shown by initiatives for which reference were given in chapter 9 in the section on the use of non-renewable and renewable resources. In the longer term, the potential commercial pay-offs, in terms of enhanced competitiveness, were identified in chapter 8 examining the Porter hypothesis, concerning the adoption of new technologies and management systems that confer savings in materials and energy use. The impetus for buttressing such market actions with publicly applied instruments is often local, suggesting the need for administration at the local government level.
It is, However, the physical impact of tourism which is more crucial and intractable. The provision of the needs of tourist threatens to destroy the resource base, particularly where natural and fragile environments are involved.
This pressure is aggravate in certain location, which are subject to the temporal characteristic of their tourism. Some, for instance, possess environments that are often at their most vulnerable in bird and animal breeding seasons, when visitor number are at their highest. In other cases, attempts to reduce number of tourists at weekends or in the high season by encouraging off-peak and off-season tourism are not efficacious; sustained use over the year can be worse for some resources; for instance, hiking can erode paths more severely in wet and/or winter periods.
The problem of concentrations of large numbers of tourists suggests that controls are required in some destination (Wanhill, 1980). One obvious approach to the problem, in addition to the use of the price mechanism, is to use regulatory instrument on both the demand and supply side to restrict visits. Some reference has already been made in chapter 9 to means of restricting access in earlier discussion of problem concerning renewable resources.
With respect to the supply side of tourism, transport operators and hoteliers could receive severance payment to leave in the industry, or they could be compensate to reduce their capacity. The land-use planning system can act on the supply side by restricting the accommodation, facilities and services made available. This, however, would be very difficult to implement for existing destinations since it might involve demolishing a proportion of the built environment.
Although there are some moves in tourism destination that possess much sought after but fragile environments to restrict entry into them (Buckley, 2003a), the use of permits and quotas has not been widely adopted to exercise control over business within them. Example of areas in the world whose environments might benefit from their imposition are Central America, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines and Antarctica.
In developed countries in Europe, there are acute pressures in coastal resort in the Mediterranean and winter sports locations in Switzerland and Austria. In the UK, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, the idea of permits and quotas has been mooted for access to the countryside, especially to environmentally sensitive areas subject to congestion at peak periods. The use of permits which restrict entry into the national park in North America and the ‘take’ in hunting or fishing is a case in point. The example of Bermuda is slightly different in that by controlling the amount of hotel accommodation available it restricts the numbers of tourists entering the island. This has had the effect of raising its holiday prices and curtailing demand by lower income tourists and thus making it exclusively the preserve of the wealthier tourist. While the restriction of the numbers of tourists has had a beneficial impact on the island’s human-made and natural environments, it may have had detrimental effects, for instance residents who have been displaced or suffered more limited economic opportunities.
Whether these licence or permits would be tradable might depend on the circumstances. A more firmly market –based method would be to levy taxes on suppliers who exceed set limits, or entry taxes, perhaps at a punitive rate, to control numbers of tourists. Charge and taxes, such as the fairy widespread imposition of departure and entry taxes at airports, are already in operation but not at a level that is likely to deter entry. This form of tax is used as a revenue-raising device but is unlikely to be applied to mitigate the environmental impact of tourism travel by air. There are exceptions; for instance, in Vancouver the exit tax on ai