Can we manage mass tourism for sustainable, equitable, and progressive outcomes?

If one assumes that mass tour­ism is unavoid­able without an author­it­ari­an crack­down on mobil­ity, what should be done about it?

Kev­in Phun sug­gests that in every chal­lenge lies an oppor­tun­ity, and pro­poses how we might man­age mass tour­ism for sus­tain­able, equit­able, and pro­gress­ive outcomes.

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. (You too can write a “GT” Insight.)

In less than two hours’ time (as I write this), I will lead a webin­ar for the Glob­al Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Coun­cil (GSTC) on almost exactly the same top­ic I am writ­ing about here: explor­ing innov­at­ive strategies for mass tour­ism; to over­come it, mit­ig­ate its most neg­at­ive effects, and even tap the oppor­tun­it­ies it presents. 

But are there opportunities?

Mass tourism: The phenomenon, the issue, and the challenge

Mass tour­ism is a phe­nomen­on, an issue, and a chal­lenge. It is caused by factors such as cheap flights, bet­ter con­nectiv­ity, great­er dis­pos­able income for many more people than ever before, tour­ism policies (or lack there­of), social media trends, and many others. 

Mass tour­ism has been a real­ity for many glob­al des­tin­a­tions since the late 1970s; much earli­er than that for domest­ic and region­al places. 

Mass tour­ism has been dis­cussed and debated count­less times over the dec­ades and is much cri­ti­cised for its con­tri­bu­tions to pol­lu­tion, biod­iversity loss, and oth­er envir­on­ment­al issues, as well as to the loss and/or com­modi­fic­a­tion of loc­al cul­tures and heritage. 

Of course mass tour­ism does gen­er­ate socioeco­nom­ic bene­fits. How­ever, some argue that those bene­fits fail to off­set the socioeco­nom­ic prob­lems it cre­ates, let alone the envir­on­ment­al and cul­tur­al ones. 

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” con­tent tagged ‘Car­ry­ing capa­city, mass tour­ism, and over­tour­ism’

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Inevitable mass tourism: Time for a rethink?

Short of ban­ning travel alto­geth­er, which very few com­ment­at­ors would argue for, it is evid­ent that mass tour­ism is not dis­ap­pear­ing any­time soon. Indeed many more, not few­er people will be trav­el­ling in the future, which means mass tourism’s destruct­ive power will only increase. What can we do about that? 

Per­haps it is time to rethink the issue. Rather than engage in a futile fight to end mass tour­ism, what if we changed our mind­set to view mass tour­ism as a “mass benefit”? 

To that end, what if we not only endeav­oured to mit­ig­ate mass tourism’s neg­at­ive effects, but also strived to enhance its poten­tial for pos­it­ive out­comes, recog­nising that in every dir­ec­tion there are inev­it­able trade-offs and oppor­tun­ity costs?

Rather than attempt­ing to tear down what is, what if we asked: How can we har­ness mass tour­ism for sus­tain­able, equit­able, and pro­gress­ive outcomes? 

Can mass tour­ism be seen as an oppor­tun­ity rather than a challenge? 

Can mass tour­ism be seen as a solu­tion rather than a problem?

Maybe a little innov­a­tion here and there could help.

Con­tents ^

Sustainable mass tourism: A contradiction in terms?

Can mass tour­ism help des­tin­a­tions achieve dif­fer­ent sus­tain­ab­il­ity goals? 

I would argue that mass tour­ism offers des­tin­a­tions the chance to identi­fy and tap niche mar­ket seg­ments with­in the broad­er vis­it­or base that can gen­er­ate sig­ni­fic­ant atten­tion and resources for spe­cif­ic priorities. 

For example, it is human nature to take famil­i­ar things for gran­ted. Loc­al people will often take for gran­ted what is fas­cin­at­ing to people from fur­ther afield who will pay good money for the exper­i­ence. The Viet­namese gov­ern­ment spear­headed a cam­paign to lever­age food tour­ism as a means to pre­serve and val­or­ise the culin­ary aspects of its cul­tur­al her­it­age. 

Ice­land, a des­tin­a­tion best known for its land­scapes and which has “suffered” from mass tour­ism, has star­ted tap­ping art and lit­er­at­ure enthu­si­asts among its vis­it­or base to boost its cre­at­ive indus­tries which oth­er­wise depend upon a tiny domest­ic market. 

Read more by Kev­in Phun

There are often areas in a des­tin­a­tion that are remote and/or resource-poor for which tour­ism would be of immense bene­fit; a fil­lip to loc­al eco­nom­ies that might oth­er­wise decline fur­ther as young people leave to pur­sue con­tem­por­ary life­styles elsewhere. 

Viet­nam recently star­ted think­ing about attract­ing vis­it­ors to inter­est­ing but remote vil­lages scattered across the coun­try; Scot­land redir­ects vis­it­ors to rur­al areas through its cyc­ling tour­ism niche; the Phil­ip­pines and Taiwan have been mar­ket­ing agri­t­our­ism, etc. 

Des­tin­a­tion man­agers could tar­get niches from the out­set, of course, but it is much easi­er to do if the des­tin­a­tion is already wildly pop­u­lar for oth­er reasons. 

So long as there are appro­pri­ate policies and infra­struc­ture in place to man­age large volumes of people in trans­port­a­tion hubs and at top attrac­tions then there is immense oppor­tun­ity for enter­pris­ing people, part­ner­ships, and places to innovate.

Con­tents ^

Manage mass tourism

To con­clude, I would assert that how we approach mass tour­ism does require a rethink. While exist­en­tial crises force us to look at new ways of doing old things, inev­it­able cir­cum­stances should also force us to be prag­mat­ic in our approach. 

So, how can your place, your organ­isa­tion, your people man­age mass mobil­ity and mass curi­os­ity for sus­tain­able, equit­able, and pro­gress­ive outcomes?

Con­tents ^

What do you think? 

Share your own thoughts in a com­ment below. Can we man­age mass tour­ism for sus­tain­able, equit­able, and pro­gress­ive out­comes? 

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About the author

Kev­in Phun

Kev­in Phun is a spe­cial­ist in respons­ible tour­ism who com­bines tour­ism and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment know­ledge and expert­ise. He is the founder of the Centre for Respons­ible Tour­ism Singa­pore (CRTS) and can be reached at kevin[at]crts.asia.

Featured image (top of post)

Can we man­age mass tour­ism for sus­tain­able, equit­able, pro­gress­ive out­comes? Image gen­er­ated by Copi­lot based on the head­line of this “Good Tour­ism” Insight.

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