[Fwd: Island Tourism: from INSULA Magazine]

Bruce at Island Resources wrote:
>
> [Thought members of these groups would be interested in this short
> article printed in the September 2001 issue of of INSULA magazine,
> and presented by Dr. McElroy at the Port-Cros Planning Meeting in
> Paris last year. bp]
>
> Island Tourism: A Development Strategy for Biodiversity
>
> By Jerome L. McElroy(1)
>
> Increasing world affluence and rising visitor preferences for
> authenticity fueled by global shifts in information and transport
> technology are accelerating pressures on dwindling pristine natural
> and cultural assets. These demands threaten sustainability defined in
> both the medium term (asset and guest experience maintenance and
> improved host life quality) and in the long run (a legacy of
> heritage, wilderness and well being).
>
> Conflict is most evident in small, ecologically fragile islands that
> have restructured their colonial export staple economies towards
> tourism by establishing transformational infrastructure and
> large-scale resort complexes along delicate coastlines. This
> alteration of the fragile terrestrial-marine interface has produced a
> decline in traditional renewable resource uses, and loss of habitat,
> species diversity, cultural sites/artifacts, scenic amenities and
> island pace of life. Littorals are scarred across the Caribbean,
> Western Mediterranean, and Northern Pacific.
>
> A generation of postwar experience suggests a structural
> incompatibility between the small, closed island environment and the
> large-scale, open, consumption-biased throughput tourist economy. The
> scale and incentive discrepancy is so vast that resources rapidly
> migrate to the tourist sector, and the fragile ecology becomes unable
> to absorb unaltered the construction intrusions, wastes, and seasonal
> crowding associated with the growth imperatives of heavily
> capitalized air, cruise, tour, and resort interests.
>
> This disequilibrium suggests strong intervention is warranted to
> contain free-market forces within the optimum scale of tourism
> consistent with insular sustainability. The nature of this
> intervention, the focus of the symposium, can be derived inductively
> through an examination of island case studies to identify common
> policies and institutions that point toward success or failure. This
> paper briefly contrasts two Caribbean cases: Bermuda and Antigua.
>
> Bermuda
>
> Between the late 1800s and WWII, wealthy New Yorkers visited Bermuda
> by monthly steamship to enjoy a visually beautiful, quaintly English
> vacation paradise for the affluent. With the postwar addition of five
> new steamship lines and a modem airport, mass tourism took off as
> visitors increased 11-fold between 1949 and 1980. By the mid-1980s,
> however, growth stagnated, tourists complained about high costs, and
> residents increasingly sensed visitor saturation.
>
> This generalized dissatisfaction produced a long-term reassessment of
> policy, public discussion of the issues and a citizen survey
> concerning resident attitudes towards the tourism-environment
> trade-off. Residents overwhelmingly expressed the desire to preserve
> special natural areas, open spaces, and areas rich in species
> diversity and historical memory---not only for sustainable tourism
> but also for their own quality of life. They also favored growth
> controls even if this meant a decline in their standard of living.
>
> The outcome of the community engagement was a set of policies to curb
> growth and retain Bermudas assets and upscale image. Ceilings were
> placed on the number of vehicles, bed capacity, and new hotel
> development. Specific ordinances were enacted to protect special
> assets and to control the design, construction and landscaping of
> facilities. Hotels received tax relief for refurbishing, and creative
> marketing packages were promoted to expand length of stay, such as
> multiple cruiseship porting.
>
> In the 1990s, these new initiatives stabilized visitation, employment
> and spending 5-10 percent below 1980 1evels. Offshore finance
> (banking, insurance, ship registry) replaced tourism as the
> territory's largest economic sector while traditional amenities like
> beautiful vistas, pink sand beaches, historical architecture,
> orderliness and safety have remained intact. Some ingredients of
> Bermuda's success include: a long tourism tradition, a strong local
> sense of upscale destination identity, widespread community awareness
> and involvement, and a commitment to the long term.
>
> Antigua and Barbuda
>
> Centuries of deforestation, sugar, erosion and watershed damage
> presaged the post 1960s growth of mass tourism in Antigua. Total
> visitors doubled between 1975-1980 and again between 1980-1990. With
> the rapid colonization of coast-lines, more mangrove swamps and
> offshore reefs were damaged or killed than in all previous island
> history. Resources migrated quickly from fanning and fishing as
> hotel, transport and construction employment came to dominate the
> landscape.
>
> The nonsustainability of Antigua's untrammeled growth is well
> documented. Many of the best beaches have been destabilized by
> shoreline de-vegetation, mangrove destruction, and erosion from
> illegal sand mining. Resort construction and dredge dumping have
> damaged salt ponds, endangered native species crowded into the
> coastal zone by upland deforestation and erosion, and disturbed
> archeological sites and historical artifacts. Harbors and reefs have
> been degraded by malfunctioning sewage systems. Since the early
> 1990s, these asset
> losses, along with periodic hurricanes, may have negatively affected
> visitor growth. 1997 data indicate bed capacity, over-night tourists,
> and expenditures are down while cruise traffic is up.
>
> Antigua's failure has been caused by a confluence of unfavorable factors:
> 1. a legacy of resource neglect,
> 2. mounting external debt service past off-island infrastructure
> financing,
> 3. the poor performance of alternative diversification efforts
> in manufacturing and domestic agriculture,
> 4. and a persistence preference (despite NGO resistance and
> protective legislation) by a dominant Prime Minister and Cabinet for
> short-term economic gain over the conservation policies of government
> agencies responsible for natural resource planning and management.
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> (1) Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. Paper prepared
> for the Port-Cros Planning Meeting, SCOPE, Paris, 21 to 23 March 2000.
>
> (2) K. deAlbuquerque and J. McElroy. "Tourism Development in Small
> Islands: St. Maarten and Bermuda." Pp. 70-89 in D. Barker and D.
> McGregor (eds), Environment and Development in the Caribbean.
> Kingston: UWI, 1995.
>
> (3) J. McElroy and K. deAlbuquerque, "Community and NGO initiatives
> in Coastal Conservation; Lessons from Antigua and Barbuda," Caribbean
> Geography 8(1)(1997): 19-31.
Received on Wed Dec 5 20:40:50 2001