Ministerial Conference on
Environment and Development
in Asia and the Pacific 2000
Kitakyushu, Japan 31 August - 5 September 2000
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Tourism Tourism is the fastest growing industries in the Pacific sub-region and, for most small countries, is the largest earner of foreign exchange. Of all the industries, tourism holds the most promise for accomplishing the sustainable goals of Agenda 21. The Pacific islands are wealthy when it comes to natural beauty. Tourism was included in the top eight priority sustainable development areas for the Pacific Island Countries. The smaller Pacific island nations have much less success in all sectors of tourism than Australia and New Zealand. Fiji, Guam, Saipan, New Caledonia and French Polynesia are the major tourist destinations in the Pacific islands but there are doubts as to the sustainability of the effort due to increased local pollution and availability of water supplies, un-scenic litter, periurban shanty towns, and high costs of feeding, housing, and transporting the tourists. Tourism will continue to play a significant role in the economies of Pacific island countries. From 1991-1996, total tourist arrivals to 13 member countries of the Tourism Council of the South Pacific increased by 17% from 693,500 to 811,395. Recent studies on global tourism trends predict visitor volumes to the Pacific region as a whole will double over this decade with corresponding benefits for Pacific island countries. In spite of the impact of the Asian economic crisis in 1997, TSCP recorded second quarterly increases(averaging 7.9%) in 1998 by half of the member countries (Fiji, French Polynesia, PNG, Samoa and Vanuatu). Money leakage is common in Pacific island tourism. Resorts and hotels are often self-contained microcosms. Governments provide attractive investment inducements, such as a waver of duty on construction and other hotel development materials and a waver of corporate taxes on profits for several years. Developers can therefore construct and run a resort from a Pacific island and export the profits. Some resorts include rooms, food, local transportation, and duty-free shopping as part of a holiday package that is paid for before the tourist ever arrives on the island. Very few of those dollars ever arrive on the island, making it difficult for the governments to provide quality infrastructure (roads, water, electricity, sewage treatment, education and training of tourism personnel, attractive parks and recreational areas). Cruise ships are the ultimate self-contained tourism activity. They arrive in a Pacific island destination and spend a single day there so the tourists (often more than 2,000) can experience the country. Unless the destination is well organised and adequately prepared, very few tourist dollars remain behind. Tourists place considerable stress on local ecosystems. In the Windward Islands, for example, there were 208,000 residents and 140,000 tourists in 1993 (Gabrie 1995). In Saipan, the population of tourists can be a quarter of the total population at any one time. Tourists are likely to use more water and demand larger amounts of high quality local and imported foods. Visitors to the Pacific islands consume large amounts of sea foods and thus increase fishing pressure, especially for unusual or luxury foods. In some countries – like New Caledonia - sport fishing boats now outnumber local fishing boats. Tourism also adds significantly to the solid and liquid waste stream. These problems must, however, be weighed against the advantages of tourism, which include a high cash value for proper waste disposal, clean fresh and sea water, luxurious coral reefs, forests rich in biodiversity, and a healthy environment. The continued expected growth in the tourism sector highlights the need for special attention to the relationship between environmental quality and the sustainability of tourism development - an issue that was identified by countries in the Barbados Plan of Action. On-going concerns include that of beach mining which has been particularly damaging in the low coralline islands which have a critical shortage of suitable construction grade sand and aggregate for infrastructure development. From the point of view of the future course of action, the following findings on the economic, social and environmental aspects of tourism in small island developing States are worthy of note: Economic aspects.
Social aspects.
Environmental aspects.
Source: Sustainable tourism development in small island developing States. Progress In The Implementation Of The Programme Of Action For The Sustainable Development Of Small Island Developing States Report of the Secretary-General, Addendum COMMISSION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Fourth session, 18 April-3 May 1996 Document E/CN.17/1996/20/Add.3 of 29 February 1996
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