SUSTAINABLE TOURISM SERIES
Resetting Sustainable Tourism
Rethinking Radical Innovations for Future Tourism
by Jarkko Saarinen, University of Oulu
Tourism for Development?
Since the 1990s, sustainability has been a critical framework for developing tourism. In principle, the need for sustainability guides the contemporary development politics of tourism. This need for sustainability is integrated into tourism destination planning and management models.
The emphasis on sustainability is a balancing act. The basic idea is to maximize the benefits while minimizing the costs of tourism development in destinations. This search for balance has not only been limiting for the industry, but has also boosted the industry.
Indeed, because of the clear sustainability connection, many international development agencies promote tourism as a tool for development. This potential has been noted in relation to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They specifically mentioned tourism in the detailed targets of three SDGs:
SDG 8: Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all;
SDG 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
SDG 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development.
Besides, commentators have suggested that the industry could have the potential to contribute to a wider spectrum of SDGs. Related to this, Reginal Scheyvens (2018, p. 341) has called for tourism researchers “to consider how we might utilise the SDGs to analyse the linkages between tourism
and sustainable development in a wide range of contexts and at different scales.”
The World Tourism Organization has also indicated that the tourism industry could further contribute to sustainable development by continuing its dynamic growth. This growth path has become the subject of intensified criticism among tourism scholars.
Tourism and Climate Crisis
There is an increasing agreement that the emphasis on growth in tourism conflicts with the mitigation targets of global climate change (SDG13). As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted, there is an urgent need for significant changes in human mobilities and consumption.
To reach the IPCC #39's target for limiting global warming to 1.5°C by 2100, we should reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions around 2050, almost halve the emissions by 2030, and peak the emissions by 2025. Indeed, as noted by David Harvey (2005, p. 198): “There is a reality out there and it is catching up with us fast.”
Tourism can support sustainable development in its destinations. In the past, this capacity has been largely grounded on the growth of international tourism. Based on the estimated future growth of global tourism, however, aviation emissions may triple by 2050. This trend will not be acceptable in the future.
For Bramwell and Lane (2011) sustainability was a significant innovation for the tourism industry in the 1990s. The industry has created many beneficial technologies and processes for tourism. These include energy efficiency and recycling on a tourism destination scale. These incremental
innovations are vital for sustainability management, especially during the current energy crisis.
Yet, we are now facing an urgent need for radical innovations in sustainable tourism that would not blindside the systemic scale of tourism impacts. In the context of the climate crisis, the immediate priority is mobility: the journey from home to destinations and back. It is the element of the global tourism system that creates a majority of the carbon emissions.
Need for Resetting and Rethinking Sustainable Tourism
Nevertheless, climate politics will create serious challenges for future tourism. This is the case, especially in the Global South. There, a major flow of visitors benefiting the tourism industry and tourism-dependent communities have arrived from overseas by flying. Thus, there is a need for more localized and regional tourism systems, which will be more challenging to achieve in the Global South than North.
Still, we should acknowledge that mobility and growth are imperative for achieving SDGs in the Global South — unless we want to leave some parts of the world behind in development. At the same time, however, the tourism industry in the Global North needs to aim toward carbon-negative operations in the future.
The problematic relation between fossil fuel-based tourism mobilities and climate change mitigation calls for a reset in the ways the industry and policy-makers frame and practice sustainable tourism. This calls for disruptive thinking and radical policy changes. These could lead the way toward better global governance in the tourism economy. This will be very difficult to plan and implement.
Furthermore, the sustainability evaluation of the industry should not be based on individual SDGs as silos. The SDGs are an interwoven system. Focusing them separately has a great potential to create conflicts between them.
There is a need to rethink tourism and its relation to sustainable development beyond destinations. Hopefully, this will foster radical innovations enabling the industry to benefit the SDGs without
contributing negatively to global climate change.
In this respect, the theme of World Tourism Day 2022 — Rethinking tourism — was highly timely!
Jarkko Saarinen is a Professor of Human Geography (Tourism Studies). His research interests include sustainable development, political ecology, tourism and development, responsibility in tourism, tourism-community relations, tourism and climate change adaptation, community-based natural resource management and wilderness studies. He has been working extensively in the peripheral areas of the Arctic and southern African regions.
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