Tourism Enterprises and the Sustainability Agenda across Europe

David Leslie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781409422570
• eBook ISBN: 9781317009481
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Hostelería, viajes y turismo

With the emphasis on small enterprises, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of what is happening across Europe in terms of sustainable development objectives and sustainability in the context of tourism supply. Each contribution in this edited collection addresses specific aspects of tourism enterprise activity within the overall context of policy and practice aimed at improving environmental performance. A series of broader issues are examined such as EU environmental policy and initiatives as they relate to tourism, social issues such as equity and employment, and transport, followed by detailed examples of specific case studies. Well-informed and based on current research this book is informative and invaluable to any one studying tourism and hospitality today, particularly those involved directly or indirectly in the fields of policy, planning and development.

Chapter 1
Tourism, Tourists and Sustainability

David Leslie

Introduction

An obvious but all too often missing dimension in studies of tourism and related impacts are the very people who catalyse tourism development – be it indirectly or directly – the consumers, the tourists. Unlike most other popular consumer products in the marketplace, produced and/or designed to meet actual or perceived needs of potential customers – the “tourism product” is ill-defined. Is it a destination – a package holiday – a trip created through self choice by one’s own hand interfacing with the internet or just an activity undertaken somewhere else? What we can identify is that it is in the main a package – a potential complexity of services brought together for a trip away from home for a relatively short period of time. Therefore what tourism is not is an industry – there is no industrial process replicating production across the globe nor is there a singular product. Yet this small detail appears to be lost in many a discourse on tourism and sustainability (Leslie, 2009).

In effect, it is demand which leads – demand driven by consumers for the want of something different – to get away – to escape briefly the usual daily activity or even seasonal weather patterns. This is by no means a trend of the 20th and 21st centuries being manifest in earlier times – witness the Romans and their “Companon Littorals” – a way of escaping the city during oppressive summer months – to enjoy fresh air driven by coastal breezes; or later, for example, high society escaping the confines of capital cities to their country houses during the height of summer. Thus, in today’s terms, tourism developments have taken place for well over two millennia but it is only relatively recently that concerns have arisen over such development in terms of impacts on their locational environment. In the 19th century our attention is drawn to ‘new’ seaside resorts – “turned inside out” but little as to other environmental impacts such as the loss of oyster beds off the north-west coast of Lancashire in the UK as the major resorts of Blackpool and Morecambe developed. Indeed, in today’s view, these popular seaside resorts of England and the many other cold-water resorts which developed across northern Europe in the 19th century – were ‘blots on the seascape’ – not that dissimilar to the developing resorts along the northern Mediterranean coast of Spain in the 1960s and the Balearic Islands. To suggest that the development of these resorts was in some way resource based – as if the existent community sought to develop and market their environmental resources would be fallacious indeed. Invariably there were leading players, for example dominant landowners or railway entrepreneurs, who recognised the potential demand and developed these cold-water resorts of northern Europe. Their success in the 19th century and in many cases for much of the 20th century bears witness to the perceived desire of people to ‘get away’ for a short period. However, such retrospective critiques of the changing physical environments where such resorts developed have little to offer, but what is not so easy to dismiss is that in many cases they subsequently became major urban communities with socio-economic problems, which can be traced back to their primary development and the emergence of mass tourism.

However, with the growing affluence of the 1960s, and the comparative degree of stability across Europe during this period, questioning of the impacts of people, of industry and industrial processes started to gain substantive attention. The ‘green’ movement gathered momentum, notably in attention to agriculture and the use of pesticides. The United Nations Environment Programme gains momentum, heralded by the Stockholm Conference of 1972 through to the Brundtland Report and the concept of ‘sustainable development’. More importantly to this context, commentators and organisations start to question the environmental impact of tourist and tourism developments during this period leading to the emergence of ‘green tourism’ and related terminology, for example, alternative, soft, hard; in effect, calling for the ‘greening’ of tourism. However, the initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s predominantly focused on the destinations and physical impacts – thereby conveniently ignoring consumption, that is, demand. It is demand itself which defines if a product is sustainable but it is by reference to the sustainability of its production and consumption which decides if it is/or is not a pattern of unsustainable consumption which in essence means can tourism be sustained on the basis of not reducing capital resources? Evidently not but, and as with so many other facets of westernised consumption, demand appears to be insatiable; constrained only by the availability of leisure time, disposable income and transportation.

Since the 1980s, it is argued that both tourists and tourism organisations and enterprises have become more aware of the potential impact of tourism activities on the environment (Andereck, 2009; see Bennett, 2006). This awareness lead to many initiatives from international organisations by the public sector (for example, the World Tourism Organisation [WTO]; United Nations Environment Programme [UNEP]) and private sectors (such as the World Tourism and Travel Council). Reference to UNEP brings into focus the Earth Summit of 1992. This gave impetus in attention to tourism, arising from Agenda 21, and in terms of local planning and community involvement, most specifically through Local Agenda 21 (Chapter 28; see Leslie and Hughes, 1997). However, what gained all too little attention was the Rio Declaration, a rarely cited outcome of the Earth Summit, which is a listing of principles to aid progress towards SD. One of these Principles is that unsustainable patterns of western consumption should be discouraged. The key point here is the explicit attention to consumption and thus implicitly consumers. Tourism is the most conspicuous form of consumption and one which is sustained on non-renewable resources. There is no sign of any decrease in demand, which itself is built on unsustainable consumption patterns of affluent societies (or the comparatively affluent within society) thus for tourism to be more in tune with sustainability – the product and indeed the tourist needs to develop in environmentally friendly ways. An agenda promulgated by the EU, which is committed to boost awareness of the necessity for such a shift in behaviour on the part of tourism enterprises and indeed tourists/consumers in the quest for sustainability. Witness the objective of promoting ‘… harmonious, balanced and sustainable development of economic activities’ and ‘A high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment’ (Connelly and Smith, 2003: 261) and manifest in a raft of recent Directives and initiatives (see Leslie, 2010).

Thus, first this chapter briefly focuses on initiatives on the supply designed in response to this greening of tourism, which are extensive though their effects are undoubtedly less so. The aim is to provide a range of insights into such developments rather than any detailed discussion. For such commentary one need go no further than the other chapters herein. We then turn our attention to tourists and, in particular, the outcomes of surveys into their attitudes and behavioural patterns in relation to demand for ‘greener’ tourism products and services. Following on from this we bring into discussion consumers – the tourists precursors.

Greening Supply

Media coverage on a weekly basis on climate change has shifted the focus away from sustainable development to predominantly polluting emissions; in other words green house gases (GHG) (Leslie, 2009a). Rightly or wrongly, travel – transportation – gains much attention for being a major contributor to such emissions. Furthermore, the use of transport be it by air, road or rail is increasing in demand: ‘Forecasts by the IEA (2006) indicate that 20 per cent of the growth in energy demand between now and 2030 is due to increasing demand for transportation worldwide’ (Becken and Hay, 2007: 697) Thus it is to transportation that our attention briefly turns first before highlighting responses by tour operators and subsequently accommodation operations.

The main transport element for the majority of international tourist arrivals is the air flight, which is the primary mode of transport for tourists travelling any distance across Europe is air travel (see Chapter 2). In spite of GHG, air travel is itself incompatible with the principles of sustainable development, that is, use of non-renewable resources; for example, a trip to Fiji from London can generate approximately 4.5 tonnes of CO₂, which equals the total annual energy use in the average home in the UK (Bennett, 2006). These emissions and other pollutants arising from flying have been recognised for some time, though addressing and responding to such problems is comparatively recent. The manufacturers of airplanes seek to build ‘cleaner, greener’ aircraft and airlines have and continue to seek to reduce fuel consumption. Organisations such as Green Aviation support this progress and suggest that carbon free flights will be in operation by 2028 (Green Aviation, 2011). The likelihood of such an achievement is doubtful and appears to be dependent on carbon offsetting schemes and the potential of bio-fuel. There are over forty carbon offsetting schemes available to tourists (Baobab, 2011); tourists could purchase “carbon credits” through programmes such as CO₂ Balance and Target Neutral and Climate; the revenues gained funding environment projects (Dunn, 2006) but to what extent such revenue is actually committed to sustainability related projects is a matter of concern (see Kirkup, 2008). Even so, their potential success is further constrained by awareness and interest; as Defra’s (2009) survey found, the majority of people surveyed had no knowledge of such schemes or had never heard of it at all, and less than three per cent of those surveyed said that they had personally paid into a carbon offsetting scheme; also a reason found for not supporting a carbon tax are perceptions that it will make no difference (Brouwer et al., 2008). Despite the benefits voiced by champions of carbon offsetting schemes, Mintel’s (2008) study suggests that such schemes at best will account for but a small reduction in emissions. This study also stated that even then assessing their effectiveness is problematic, as such these schemes are seen as little more than a facade in terms of carbon emission reducing behaviour for political and commercial agendas. A view which is supported by the little attention given in the travel/holiday press to CO₂ emissions (Johns and Leslie, 2008). An alternative is to increase charges for airport duty and introduce green taxes. In effect, a tax on users when what could be more effective in influencing choice of transportation is to introduce a reward system for non-users thus creating a reverse green tax (Hanlon, 2006; Darling, 2008). More basically: ‘Emissions could be reduced the old-fashioned way by flying less, turning off the air-conditioning or buying a more fuel-efficient car. But that would probably require some sacrifice and perhaps even a change in lifestyle. Instead, carbon-offset programs allow individuals to skip the sacrifice and simply pay for the right to pollute’ (DePalma, 2006: 1).

The potential for alternative fuels such as liquid bio-fuel is limited at best whilst its production raises many issues (for example, see Grewock, 2010). A more realistic target, for example, is that of the Sustainable Aviation Group, (includes major airlines such as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic), which aims to reduce the CO₂ emissions of new aircraft by 50 per cent per kilometre by 2020 (WTO, 2006). Airlines also seek to promote tourists’ awareness of their impacts; for example Flybe have introduced passenger information on the impact of their journeys in terms of carbon emissions (Flybe, 2011) whilst First Choice (UK and Ireland) has introduced an in-flight video on its flights to the Gambia with Air 2000, to raise awareness of the needs of the people of the Gambia (TOI, 2005). How much of this is greenwashing is debatable; perhaps little more than good PR implying that the Company is more responsible in its actions/operations than its competitors?

There are many other initiatives and indeed alternatives, for example as well captured in the concept of ‘slow travel’ (Dickinson and Lumsden, 2010; see Holland and Holland, Chapter 10). Promoting alternative travel (to air) appears a positive step towards progress but how effective is it? To encourage longer journey times and perceptions that such are to be enjoyed is directly opposite to the pattern of demand over the last century which is ‘to get there quicker’. Miller et al.’s (2007) research also holds a note of caution in that they found that whilst tourists may indicate a willingness to change from plane to train they noted the following caveats: when considered practical and lower fares; an outcome which is similar to that of Defra’s (2009) study, which found that a third of the persons surveyed rejected the idea of reducing their air travel. This brings into question demand and within that context how many people in the market actually have a choice in terms of what is available/desirable to them in the marketplace. The options are limited both intrinsically, given established behavioural patterns, and extrinsically, in many instances, because of time, cost and geographic accessibility – in other words they may have little real choice. Many people select their holiday destination on the basis of the product offering – the packages – of tour operators (TOs). Thus, what actions have they been taking? This is well illustrated by the Tour Operators Initiative for Sustainable Tourism Development (TOI), established in 2000, with the aim of promoting sustainable tourism development and to encourage tour operators to make a corporate commitment to sustainable development (Tepelus, 2005). But to what real effect? Certainly there has been the introduction of various awards promoting destinations/packages considered to meet best practice in specific fields. Whilst these products undoubtedly are attractive they are few, invariably expensive and usually, from a European based perspective, involve a long-haul air flight. Another major initiative is the establishment of the Travel Foundation, a partnership including major international companies such as MyTravel, Thomson, Thomas Cook and First Choice, which promotes sustainable tourism initiatives. But are tourists interested or even aware of this and if so, do/would they consider it is more tokenism than anything more substantive (see responsibletravel.com).

At a national level, for example, there is the UK Federation of Tour Operators, which launched its Supplier Sustainability Code in 2006 (ITP, 2006). This might be considered unnecessary given the earlier introduction of guidance and so forth by the TOI on how to develop sustainability supply chains. However, this serves well to illustrate the unnecessary proliferation of more ‘localised’ initiatives, as if every organisation/enterprise grouping must put their own spin on what is otherwise generic guidance. Whilst such international and national organisations are not to be decried for trying it does rather raise the question over the effectiveness of not only current and recent initiatives but also those of longer standing, such as the Manilla Declaration or the agreement of the International Union of Overseas Tour Operators of the early 1970s, both of which basically addressed many similar issues and aimed to promote better practices, more in tune with what today we term sustainability. A perception which is further affirmed by Mosselaer et al. (see Chapter 4). However, whilst TOs collectively provide a diverse range of products/packages – some of which may be termed eco-friendly in one way or another, they evidently are in many cases promoting a ‘greener’ marketing message the value of which is supported by Mintel’s (2007) study, which found that consumers are more likely to buy from organisations which are socially responsible (see also Choat, 2004). Indeed, 80 per cent of respondents indicated that they would be more likely to purchase a holiday from operators with a sustainable tourism policy. For example, Studiosus, a German tour operator specialising in educational holidays, aims to reduce energy use by three per cent per customer through such measures as reducing the time coaches spend idling, using more rail and non-stop flights (TOI, 2005 and Chapter 3). But does the prospective purchaser ask? To what degree the potential tourist is interested in such aspects or indeed aware of such is open to conjecture particularly when there are indications that potential customers think they may be rather superficial (Choat, 2004). Do they notice such messages and if they do what is their understanding given that their interpretation of concepts such as sustainable tourism or responsible tourism is probably limited (Miller et al., 2010).

Even so, there are on the market various brands of eco-tour, nature tours and so forth, promoted with green messages, but the reality of such, as noted above, is that these products are comparatively expensive and the evidence suggests demand is very limited. They do not provide the economy of scale and thus profit that the major operators seek and are therefore far more likely to be supplied by small, well focused operators working in niche markets. Operators who also recognise that such opportunities should be offered as a package thereby providing choice and opportunity for those potential tourists (the majority) who would not seek out the necessary information to make up a trip themselves (Mintel, 2005). But their future may be limited, given the view that the role of the environmentally concerned tour operator could be declining and the responsibility shifting to the individual travellers and airlines instead given ‘… the rise of ‘free, independent travellers’ due to the availability of cheap, internet-booked flights’ (TOI, 2011b). Certainly, some will do this but how successful they will be is a mute point. Further, whilst research suggests that tourists will seek out information on environmentally sustainable practices for their holidays (Bergin-Seers and Mair, 2009) what is not well established is to what effect? Apart from any other considerations is it because they perceive that enterprises which are ‘ecolabelle...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Sustainability, the European Union and Tourism
• 1 Tourism, Tourists and Sustainability
• 2 Air Transport in Europe and the Environmental Challenges to the Tourist Market
• 3 Non-Aviation-based Tourism: A UK-based Perspective
• 4 Corporate Social Responsibility in the Tour Operating Industry: The Case of Dutch Outbound Tour Operators
• 5 CSR-inspired Environmental Initiatives in Top Hotel Chains
• 6 Environmental Management and Accommodation Facilities in Slovakia
• 7 From Eco-ignorance to Eco-certificates: Environmental Management in Slovene Hotels
• 8 Entrepreneurship and Local Resources
• 9 Sustainable Tourism Development: A Viable Development Option for Polish Rural Areas?
• 10 Tourism Workers and the Equity Dimension of Sustainability
• Conclusion
• Index