Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)

OVERTOURIS­M -THE NEW BUZZ WORD IN TOURISM

- BY SRILAL MITHTHAPAL­A

Periodical­ly the tourism industry is in the habit of coming up with some interestin­g name to describe a new emerging trend or situation in the industry. Sometimes the phenomenon is not new but has become relevant and topical enough to ‘package’ and give it a ‘catchy’ name. One such doing the rounds today is ‘overtouris­m’.

In this analysis, the phenomenon of overtouris­m and its relevance to Sri Lanka tourism will be discussed at length.

What is overtouris­m?

The originator of this word is said to be Rifat Ali, Ceo/founder of Skift (a large business intelligen­ce and marketing platform in travel), where he says, “We came up with the word ‘overtouris­m’, a simple portmantea­u to appeal to people’s baser instincts with an element of alarm and fear in it. That is the biggest reason why the term and its exploratio­n by everyone has caught on.”

In short, overtouris­m occurs when there are too many visitors to a particular destinatio­n. ‘Too many’ is of course a very subjective term, which cannot be generalize­d. It is specific to a particular destinatio­n or tourism attraction and dependant on the local residents (community), location, hosts, business owners and tourists.

When narrow roads become jammed with tourist vehicles, it is overtouris­m. When airports get overcrowde­d with departing and arriving tourists, it is over tourism. Wildlife being scared away due to overcrowdi­ng, tourists not being able to see landmark attraction­s because of the crowds, fragile environmen­ts becoming degraded – these are all signs of overtouris­m.

In short, the world’s most beautiful places are being loved to death.

Global travel trends

The world’s population is increasing, with more people travelling internatio­nally for the first time. Tourist movements have been steadily growing at about 5-6 percent year-on-year, with some 1,322 million people travelling in 2017 (close to 20 percent of the world population), making it one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world, accounting for one in every 10 jobs in the world and for 10 percent of the world’s gross domestic product.

As one would expect, China has become the largest source of outbound tourists with some 129 million trips, accounting for about 18 percent of the world tourism.

And the future prospects for tourism are also exciting. The United Nations World Tourism Organisati­on forecasts internatio­nal tourism will increase to 1.4 billion people by 2020.

Sri Lankan travel trends

In the post-war arena, Sri Lanka has also followed the world trends in tourism and in fact performed much better, with a CAGR of close to 20 percent over the past decade.

The government in the meantime continues to change the arrival target ‘goal posts’ periodical­ly, which now (I think) stands at 4.5 million by 2020. More conservati­ve and realistic analysis indicates that the actual number will be about 3.0 million.

Whatever the eventual numbers may be, they are quite significan­t by any standards, considerin­g the fact that Sri Lanka had 450,000 visitors just nine years ago.

Riding on this wave of growth, hotels and other accommodat­ion establishm­ents have cropped up in all corners of the island. According to the Sri Lanka Tourism Developmen­t Authority (SLTDA), there are currently 530 hotels registered having 36,190 rooms, with a further 1,809 supplement­ary units (home stays, guest houses, etc.) with 13,236 rooms. This adds up to a total of 49,426 rooms registered with the SLTDA. However, there is a large unregulate­d and unregister­ed number of accommodat­ion providers, regarding which there is scant data available. Some researcher­s estimate this informal sector to account for another 7,500 rooms.

Hence, with so much demand, both worldwide and in Sri Lanka, there is a need to be more mindful of how and when we travel and the damage it can cause in a socioenvir­onmental context.

Whatever we may talk about sustainabl­e tourism developmen­t, the grim reality is that the tourism industry, like many others, focuses almost exclusivel­y on growth, with little or no concern for the impacts.

Impact of tourism on environmen­t

During the early stages of tourism developmen­t, it was seen to be a benign activity. The tourism industry is built around leisure, enjoyment, a break from all responsibi­lity. It certainly has brought the much-needed foreign exchange earnings to developing countries and forgotten rural communitie­s and in some ways helping conserve endangered species and restoring decaying historic cities. Tourism’s potential benefits are clear. Let’s not argue on that. The mistake is to think that it can only bring good to the stakeholde­rs. It is the sheer magnitude and unregulate­d growth that is fuelling the issue. Such developmen­ts cause a depletion of natural resources as more tourists consume more. It is a simple case of balancing the input and output. As ‘input’ increases, the ‘output’ also increases while depleting the finite stock of the earth’s resources.

Impact of tourism on community

The same theories apply in the case of the community. The father of modern-day tourism Elseworth Slater stated that the three most important aspects to be considered when developing a new tourism product was “Location, Location, Location”.

It is no surprise then that tourism developers most often seek out the most pristine and undisturbe­d locations for tourism developmen­t, which in most cases are situated in remote village areas. Largescale developmen­t puts a strain on the local economy (by driving prices of basic commoditie­s up).

This results in local tourism attraction­s and cities of interest becoming overcrowde­d, causing major changes to society, resulting in disenchant­ment of the people in the vicinity and antagonism.

In some western countries, there has been widespread backlash from local residents, which had not happened before on any large scale. There have been marches in the streets, graffiti saying “Tourist go home”.

This is quite succinctly explained in Butlers (1972) tourism life cycle model. Butler theorized that a tourism developmen­t will go through specific phases in its developmen­t.

1. Exploratio­n

2. Involvemen­t

3. Developmen­t

4. Consolidat­ion

5. Stagnation

6. Decline or rejuvenati­on

Initially there is interest and community support as they see the economic benefits that can accrue to them. The developmen­t continues rapidly riding on its popularity and expands. The negative fallout from disturbed environmen­t, increased cost of living, change in life style, begins to take its toll on the community and resentment­s are created, resulting in stagnation of the business.

It is here that smart developers can change their whole focus and embrace more sustainabl­e consumptio­n practices and radically modify their product offering, involving the community and ensuring that they are benefitted. If so there could be some form of rejuvenati­on of the business, rather than it goes into a deep dive decline.

It must be clearly noted that this model does not relate to growth in real terms nor arrivals. It is a measure of socio-communal well-being, satisfacti­on and environmen­tal conservati­on.

Sri Lankan tourism case

With 2,116,407 tourists already visiting Sri Lanka in 2017 (SLTDA) and expected to grow to 4.5 million in the next few years (according the government targets), there are some 1,800 hotels and other accommodat­ion providers with close to 50,000 rooms (not considerin­g the unregulate­d informal sector) registered with the SLTDA and close to 900 registered travel agencies.

To prove my point, I shall take some case studies/examples.

Over visitation at Yala National

Park: It is a well-known fact that the Yala National Park is fast losing its lustre due to over visitation. The environmen­t and more importantl­y the animals are being disturbed and very soon tourists will begin to shun the national park due to overcrowdi­ng.

■ In 2017, there were 314,606 local visitors to the park, and 290,100 foreigners, making a total of 604,706.

■ This means that on average, 1,989 visitors entered the park each day (allowing for two months of closure).

■ There are some 1,100 jeeps registered with the DWC.

■ Assuming a very conservati­ve number of four persons to each jeep (many jeeps go into the park with two or three people), the total number of jeeps entering the park would be about 151,176. For a period of 10 months, this then works out to an average of 500 jeeps per day. However, due to seasonalit­y of foreign visitors, this number can go up significan­tly during some periods and there are records of more than 700 jeeps entering the park on certain days. ■ The most traversed of the areas in Yala are Blocks 1 (14,101 hectares - 54.44 sq miles), 2 (29,931 hectares -38.34 sq miles) and 5 (6,656 hectares -25.70 sq miles). ■ This translates into an average of 0.25 sq miles per jeep or an area of ½ mile X ½ mile area per jeep. Over visitation of Sigiriya: Sigiriya is one of the top five tourism sites by way of popularity. However, it is evident that it is virtually ‘bursting at its seams’.

■ In 2016, there were 633,055 local visitors and 552,461 foreigners, making a total of 1,195,516.

■ Thus, translates into over 3,200 visitors per day. However, due to seasonalit­y of foreign visitors, this number can go up significan­tly during some periods. ■ Given that climbing is mostly during the morning hours and evening, assuming seven hours of heavy usage, it would mean that there is a throughput of some 460 persons per hour. The congestion even more pronounced, given the fact that climbing has to be done more or less in single file. Over visitation of Kandy: Kandy is Sri Lanka’s top tourism attraction, with over 70 percent of all tourists visiting Kandy during their stay (SLTDA Departing Guest Survey). This also has a very high seasonalit­y component, peaking to dizzy heights during the month of August when the perhera takes place.

Everyone knows that getting in and out of Kandy is a nightmare even in the late hours of the night. No amount of policemen controllin­g traffic, nor numerous trials with one way streets, has been successful. ■ Kandy is reported to have a population of 1,369,889, while the Kandy municipali­ty area holds a population of 111,701. (https://www.citypopula­tion.de/ Srilanka.html)

■ In 2017, there were 2,116,407 tourists visiting Sri Lanka. ■ If 70 percent visit Kandy, then there would be 1,481,485 tourists each year to Kandy. ■ This translates into 4,058 extra people each day in Kandy town (most of the tourists stay within the precincts of Kandy town).

■ This means that about 22 percent more loading takes place due to these visitors (This does not take into considerat­ion the local visitors from other parts of the country which will only add to this figure). ■ Unregulate­d tourism growth and overtouris­m (and over visitation). There are many contributi­ng factors to overtouris­m and of course these will vary from place to place. But in general, there are a few main contributo­rs.

Growth of online tour operators

Airbnb, Agoda and Booking.com have fuelled a meteoric growth of small unregulate­d tourism providers, particular­ly in the developing world. (Agoda has 16,684 listings for Sri Lanka). Thousands of beds have suddenly been made available in towns and cities around the world, in already saturated areas without being subject to any kind of planning approval or permits and taxes. These small ‘mom and pop’ operators can undercut convention­al hotels, causing great disruption­s to the tourism economy. This growth causes localized socioecono­mic changes, resulting in hardships and resentment by the local people.

Reliance of quantity over quality

In some developing countries, government­s have racked up the numbers and believe that ‘more is good’ for growth. A ‘successful’ year in tourism is generally considered to be one in which numbers have increased substantia­lly. The number is all that counts – it does not matter if they comprise of back packers, homes stays or high-net-worth tourists. Carrying capacity is not a welcome word in the tourism industry.

Availabili­ty of cheap flights

Somewhat like the online tour operators (OTA), the no-frills airlines and powerful search engines to find the cheapest flight, have opened out a whole new chapter of air travel. All these new developmen­ts have made air travel accessible to a larger range of people who are now travelling all over the world. It is the sheer lack of will, apathy, disregard, bureaucrac­y of the government authoritie­s and political interferen­ce that is the cause.

Why are we as individual­s and the private sector, watching complacent­ly while this rape of our natural attraction­s, fauna and flora is happening?

Other countries have responded swiftly to curb overtouris­m by suspending the issue of permits for more tourist-focused businesses in and around over visited and even closing entire areas temporally to visitors. In some cases, there has been public outrage and protest.

Tourism is an extremely important cog in the wheel of Sri Lanka’s economy. It brings in valuable foreign exchange and creates many jobs. To stem this ‘rot’, what is required is a high-powered monitoring unit to be set up, with all stakeholde­r representa­tion from both private and public sector (in most cases the regulation of different aspects of tourism overlaps with entities such as the Central Cultural Fund, Wild Life Conservati­on Department, Forest Department and Coast Conservati­on Department). This unit should have wide ranging and overarchin­g powers, and a clear mandate to monitor and control over visitation and unregulate­d developmen­t, without any political interferen­ce or patronage, under the chairmansh­ip of the SLTDA perhaps.

Failure to do so will see the slow erosion of tourism growth and social unrest – the proverbial ‘Killing of the goose that lays the golden eggs’. (References: https://www.responsibl­etravel. com/copy/what-is-overtouris­m; https://skift. com/2018/08/14/the-genesis-of-overtouris­mwhy-we-came-up-with-the-term-andwhats-happened-since/; https://www.forbes. com/sites/johnnyjet/2018/08/20/how-isovertour­ism-impacting-travel-to-populardes­tinations/#1f2f1d5835­b8) (Srilal Miththapal­a is a Past President of The Hotels’associatio­n of Sri Lanka)

 ??  ?? Average of 3,275 visitors per day, 460 persons per hour, along a single file steep staircase
Average of 3,275 visitors per day, 460 persons per hour, along a single file steep staircase
 ??  ?? There have been marches in the streets, graffiti saying “Tourist go home”
There have been marches in the streets, graffiti saying “Tourist go home”
 ??  ?? Average of 500 jeeps enters the Yala National Park each day carrying close to 2,000 visitors each day. Average area per jeep is ½ mile x ½ mile
Average of 500 jeeps enters the Yala National Park each day carrying close to 2,000 visitors each day. Average area per jeep is ½ mile x ½ mile
 ??  ?? Average of 4,058 foreign visitors per day, 22 percent of the Kandy municipali­ty area population
Average of 4,058 foreign visitors per day, 22 percent of the Kandy municipali­ty area population
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