Defined by tourists in search of immersive, unique and meaningful experiences and more eco conscious travellers influenced by an increasing understanding of climate change and its drivers, under-tourism is the opportunity to adjust the way you travel to seek out more immersive, but sustainable experience options that offer meaningful relationships with destinations. Options that simply to do what everyone else is doing in a more sustainable and meaningful way.
Globally, tourism is a key driver for socio-economic progress and in many destination countries, the business volume of tourism equals or even surpasses that of oil exports, food products or automobiles. Tourism has become one of the major players in international commerce, and in many developing countries is also the main income source. Global tourism arrivals hit 1.3 billion in 2017, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (via Skift), and tourism arrivals have grown for seven straight years since the official end of the 2008 to 2009 global financial crisis. Fuelled by competition among transporters and accommodation options making travel increasingly cheap and accessible, the numbers are putting a lot of pressure on popular destinations and they are now suffering from over-tourism. The problem is that the potential consequence of over-tourism is the end of tourism and that really isn't a useful option.
The many issues developing from over-tourism have been extensively reported in the past 3 years. The effect of crowds flocking the world’s beauty spots, especially some of the more fragile places, eg those made popular by movies and television has been dire in many cases. The harmful implications for environments of too many tourists visiting natural spots is very far and wide reaching. Wildlife is displaced and fragile environments become irreversibly degraded. The growth of the cruise industry has made even incredibly remote areas such as the Galapagos Islands and Antarctica consider moves to stem over-tourism.Tourism is also a substantial generator of greenhouse gas emission with associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions estimated to be around 5% of global emissions in 2005, with transport generating 75% of the overall emissions according to the World Tourism Organisation. Residents are a big part of collateral damage from over-tourism and the impact of over-tourism’s effect on residents came to the world’s attention in 2017, with public protests against tourists in the streets of Venice and Barcelona. The increased utilisation of urban spaces fuelled by the desire for short breaks and a greater supply of routes provided by low-cost airlines, has generated huge pressure on areas traditionally occupied by residents. The appropriation of these spaces for tourism purposes has generated residents’ dissatisfaction because they feel that their space has been invaded and that they can hardly afford the prices to stay there. Spain saw tourism increase from 75 million tourists in 2016 to 83 million in 2017.Other destinations experiencing extreme over-tourism, such as Amsterdam, Barcelona, Venice and Kyoto, are tackling the problem head on, while other popular destinations have turned their heads to future-proofing against unsustainable tourist traffic.
News, media, and trends company Skift says under-tourism is a megatrend defining travel in 2019. under-tourism is the process of destinations reframing themselves as peaceful, yet exciting alternatives to the packed streets of others, and mitigating excessive footfall numbers through clever and insightful planning.Cities are promoting attractions and experiences away from the centre of towns and governments like Japan are promoting tourism away from the gateway cities like Tokyo, to the regional areas and using phone tech tracking to adjust the opening hours of tourist destinations.The cruise capital of the world, Puerto Rico is promoting itself as an island resort destination - a quiet alternative to the Caribbean, instead of simply being a step off from a cruise ship; thereby supporting more local communities and businesses.
The problem with tourism is while it is critical to many economies, sometimes residents don’t like tourists, and often with good reason. Japan has been rapidly increasing its tourism capacity, at a staggering rate of 20% per annum, in the hope of attracting 40 million arrivals by 2020 for the Tokyo Olympics. It's economically attractive, but when surveyed, only 18.2 percent of local residents said they were satisfied with aspects of tourism happening around them. The problem with completely unregulated tourists in your neighbourhood of course is that is not how traditional neighbourhoods exist. Tourists act like they are on holidays and as such, are creating a number of basic issues beyond lack of affordability, as many of them suffer health issues, a workforce struggling from lack of sleep, and are experiencing complete displacement from their own inner city neighbourhoods, such as Barrio in Barcelona.Other unintended consequences like the successful diversion of tourists away from Tokyo to places like Kyoto angered residents with traffic and congestion.
One of the greatest challenges of tourism boards is to reframe of the visitor experience - much of which is out of the board's control, but which invariably contribute big systemic positives to many countries, alongside the massive social and environmental negatives. under-tourism promotes the eeking out of offbeat destinations, immersive experiences that build relationships and regard with people, places, culture and community - using a multidimensional approach to enable the subtle shift for unenlightened tourists to reimagine themselves as mindful travellers, who give more than they take. Sustainable tourism is respectful to a country’s residents, not just its natural and historic treasures. The less public persona of over-tourism is the impact on the living standards of a destination’s residents. It’s the displacement and disruption of people in their own home country which denies them the opportunity to live their own lives. Tourists disrupt lives, nudge residents out of their neighbourhoods, making them travel further to their work places, or disrupt their ability to walk to services, or to live within their community networks. It’s a very insidious process, and one any conscious traveller need to be aware of as we traverse the planet. Our pursuit of pleasure should never be at the detriment of others and their pursuit to live sustainable lives.