SUSTAINABLE TOURISM

TOURISM TYPES

Winter Sports

• Winter sports have grown enormously in popularity since the 1970s, with installations now existing in many mountain areas of the world.Socially, this sector fulfils an important role in providing a livelihood for many mountain communities which would otherwise experience impoverishment as younger people drift out of the area to find work.

• Also, the opportunity to have a break during the long winter months is an important form of relaxation for many people in industrialised countries. However, the greater prosperity and leisure opportunities are balanced by environmental impacts. The principal ones are listed below:

• The process of installing the infrastructure needed for winter sports causes damage in terms of trampling vegetation and erosion through building roads and tracks.• Using the pistes for long periods compacts the snow and crushes the vegetation beneath.• Extending the season artificially through the use of snow-machines reduces the already short growing season for Alpine plants, meaning that many cannot flower and set seed as they should do. This has knock-on effects on insects and other animals within the Alpine ecosystem.

Piste = Ski Run

Pistes are usually maintained using tracked vehicles known as snowcats, "piste bashers", or "groomers", which compact the snow in order to improve the skiing conditions, remove moguls, and preserve the snow so the ski season can last longer. Pistes are often lined with artificial snow making machines so that snow can be created for skiing when the snowpack is low.

• • Producing artificial snow uses large amounts of water and energy. • Animals will avoid heavily used areas, thus reducing their available habitat. • Tours by snow-mobile use a lot of fuel and disturb wildlife.• The practice of heli-skiing uses a disproportionate amount of fuel.• Hotels in the Alps are usually heated to very warm temperatures.• The spread of chalets and hotels removes the habitat available for natural processes.

Good Practices

• The Dutch Alps Platform

The Dutch Alps Platform (NAP) is a partnership which groups the Dutch Tourist Association (ANWB), the Dutch Ski Association, the Dutch Mountain Sport Association and the Dutch Environment Group of the Alps. The NAP works to develop winter sport products that are both environment-friendly and attractive for tour operators.

Beach and marine tourism

• Eighty percent of all tourism takes place at coastal destinations, and there is a wide range of coastal, beach and marine-based activities.

Beaches and coasts• Intertidal zones such as mud-flats and mangroves are extremely important for biodiversity,

especially as feeding and breeding grounds for birds, fish, molluscs. Because of the intensive and extensive use of coasts for tourism development, all coastal habitats are a particular focus of concern.

• • Leaving food-waste or other litter on beaches attracts scavengers and can injure wildlife, as well as causing aesthetic pollution.• Using dune-buggies damages fragile dune ecosystems and the structure of the dunes, which are an important natural barrier against tidal forces.• Recreational use of beaches disrupts the behavioural patterns of ground-nesting birds.• Using beaches in tropical and sub-tropical zones can disrupt nesting by sea-turtles and disorientate baby turtles on hatching.• The wake of motorised craft can cause shoreline erosion.

Marine habitats

• • Diving and snorkelling by inexperienced or poorly supervised groups can cause damage by trampling or handling corals and stirring up sediment.• Over-use of a small area by divers and snorkellers can have the same effect. • Artificial feeding of fish can interrupt normal feeding patterns, favour some species over others, and create aggressive behaviour. For example, at Hanauma Bay in Hawaii, lifeguards treat 4-5 visitors a day for injuries resulting from fish bites. Divers feeding larger fish, such as barracudas, moray eels, groupers and sharks have had fingers, earlobes and even arms injured and sometimes bitten off.

• • Fish health may be affected by feeding with inappropriate or contaminated food. • Souvenir hunting of corals and marine organisms such as shell-fish depletes and damages coral reefs.• Spear-fishing causes particular damage because larger fish are targeted, which affects the ecological balance of reef communities. • Careless anchoring of dive-boats damages reefs.• Water-skiing, jet-skiing and windsurfing cause trampling in launch areas and, in the case of the former two, noise disturbance, which can disturb and displace shore-feeding birds.

• • Most recreational craft are painted with anti-fouling paints which are toxic to marine life. This affects not only marine organisms which try to attach to the craft, but the marine ecosystem more broadly through diffusion of the chemicals through the water. • Leaking fuel, emptying of oil tanks and chemical toilets, and dumping of garbage from boats pollutes water, undersea habitats and beaches.• Game-fishing for large, open-water species such as marlin and tuna can result in catches of the largest individuals, which then removes these from the breeding pool and has an impact on species populations.

Good Practices• Blue Flag (Europe) - Clean beaches

Tourist destinations around Europe, and more recently around the world, are adopting the Blue Flag as a standard of beach quality. There is high consumer awareness of this standard, which reflects the quality of beaches, swimming water and marinas.

Although few tourists choose a destination for having a Blue Flag accreditation, at least 25 percent of boat owners do so, according to the Dutch Hiswa. Despite low consumer demand, it is in the tour operators’ interest that their destinations have a Blue Flag as there are fewer chances of health problems.