Impacts on Food and Beverage
6. Trends in Tourism and Hospitality - Environmental Aspect
6.1 Tourism Sector
6.1.1 Climate Change
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In 2011 the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) reported that the airline industry flew 737.4 million passengers in 2011 with an anticipated increase of 2.8 percent annually over the next twenty years to a projected 1.3 billion annual fliers by 2031.
(Source: See FAA Press Release - Forecast Predicts Air Travel to Double in Two Decades, available at http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=12439 )
Tourism operations other than airlines have a direct impact on the environment. They are resource intensive: large consumers of water and energy, and generate significant volumes of waste, and emissions of ozone depleting substances. In particularly, emissions from refrigeration, air conditioning, fire-fighting equipment, foam insulation, solvents and aerosol propellants all contain ozone depleting substances (ODSs) and they are widely used in the hotel and tourism industry.
Trend of mitigation of CO2 emissions
In the tourism industry where air passenger traffic is expected to grow, and the potential for continued climate change due to aircraft emissions is frightening. To mitigate the CO2
emissions effect, it is expected there will be a growing trend in the airline industry towards
“green aircraft” (ICAO: Action Plan of Norway, 2012):
Aircrafts with fuel efficient engines, and lighter aircraft’s body frame to achieve fuel efficiency.
More non-stop direct long-haul flights - Minimize the number of stopovers of long-haul flights between point of origin and point of destination in lowering the total amount of CO2 emissions.
Alternatives fuels - Sustainable alternatives fuels for aviation will be developed to minimize the dependences of fossil fuels such as liquefied hydrogen, synthetic biofuels produced from biomass. Biomass resources are timbers, plants, forestry and agricultural waste.
Apart from the development trend of the future “green aircraft”, government’s policy could be considered to lower CO2 emissions by aircrafts, including:
Higher passenger tax can be used to lower the number of short-haul traffic, passengers may replace air travel with other means of transportation.
Public awareness programs to raise the ethical concerns over the environmental cost of flying. It is likely there will be more people choosing environmentally-friendly airlines in their air travels.
(ii) Victim:
According to Davos Declaration, climate is a key resource for tourism and the sector is
highly sensitive to the impacts of climate change (Davos Declaration, 2007). Destinations are threatened by climate change impacts, extreme weather, water scarcity, unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss, disease and growing poverty. In view of the impacts, tourism is a victim insofar as changes in temperature, sea levels, snowfields and land use will radically change tourism capabilities and hence trade and development patterns of states and communities. This is relevant for all states but particularly so for developing countries generally.
Environmental conditions - Tourism not only contributes to climate change, but is affected by it as well. Climate change is likely to increase the severity and frequency of catastrophes like floods, earthquakes, wildfires, volcanoes, avalanches, drought and diseases can have a serious effect on inbound and domestic tourism and thus on local tourism industries. (Source: GDRC)
Environmental resources - Climate is an essential resource for tourism, and especially for the beach, nature and winter sport tourism segments. Climate change will likely affect tourism and recreational activities:
Winter activities: A warming climate and changes in precipitation patterns will likely decrease the number of days when recreational snow activities such as skiing and snowmobiling can take place.
Nature activities: In countries where forests and country parks are dominant, an increasing number of wildfires could affect hiking and recreation in the wilderness and parks.
Summer activities: Beaches could suffer erosion due to sea level rise and storm surge.
Tourism operations –Tourism destinations and tourism operators are affected by climate change in a number of ways (UNWTO: From Davos to Copenhagen, 2009):
Communities and tourism businesses that support themselves through the above tourism and recreational activities would feel economic impacts when tourism patterns begin to change.
Visitors may be deterred from visiting if the quality of the attractions decreases markedly. According to UNWTO report, mountain, island, and coastal destinations are considered particularly sensitive to climate induced environmental change, as are nature-based tourism market segments.
(UNWTO Davos: 2009).
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Table 6.1: Tourism Destinations and Tourism Operators are Affected by Climate Change in a Number of Ways
Vector of Climate Change Victim of Climate Change Rising temperature and
less snowfall
At ski resorts, meaning a shorter skiing season in the alpine regions.
Rising temperature and less rainfall
In already hot areas like Asia and the Mediterranean, tourists will stay away because of immense heat, and out of fear of diseases and water shortages. This has an direct impact to the hotel industry such as low room occupancy rate.
Harm to vulnerable ecosystems such as rainforests and coral reefs:
- A major risk to coral reefs is bleaching, occurs when coral is stressed by temperature increases, high or low levels of salinity, lower water quality, and an increase in suspended sediments.
Rising sea levels, the result of melting glaciers and polar ice
Higher sea levels will threaten coastal and marine areas with widespread floods in low-lying countries and island states, increasing the loss of coastal land.
Beaches and islands that are major tourism attractions may be the first areas to be affected. Part or all of the beaches or islands could be submerged in the water.
Increased events of extreme weather, such as tornadoes, hurricanes and typhoons
These are already becoming more prevalent in the tourist destinations close to the open sea. Hurricanes have devastating destructive effects on the East Coast of North and Central America. Katrina in 2005 (US East coast) affected the tourism industry in the Caribbean Islands and New Orleans.
Super typhoons in Asia also demonstrated their destructive power to the tourism industry. Philippines and its islands are often experienced the destructive forces of typhoons.
In addition, wind damage, storm waves, heavy rains and flooding caused major damages to the tourism sector.
For more information on tourism affected by climate change, refer to “Top 10 Places Already Affected by Climate Change” available at Scientific American:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow/top-10-places-already-affected-by-climat e-change/
Source: GDRC