Patrick T. Maher

Last-chance tourism: the boom, doom, and gloom of visiting vanishing destinations

Popular press and industry stakeholders are reporting a travel trend whereby tourists increasingly seek to experience the worlds most endangered sites before they vanish or are irrevocably transformed. Termed ‘last-chance’ or ‘doom’ tourism in the popular media, the desire for tourists to witness vanishing landscapes or seascapes and disappearing species may have important consequences for tourism management, yet the nature of these consequences is poorly understood by the academic community. This paper describes how last-chance tourism is promoted in various tourism marketing strategies, especially in the Arctic. The analysis is supported through a literature review of web-based information and an analysis of three different studies conducted in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada – the self-declared polar bear capital of the world. The authors also examine more closely the concepts of dark and last-chance tourism, and elaborate on the possible connections between the two. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this type of tourism and identifies potential risks and opportunities.

Ethical considerations of last chance tourism

Global environmental change is altering natural and built systems in many regions of the world and such changes play a significant role in an emerging travel trend that has been labelled ‘last chance tourism’ (LCT). In LCT, tourism demand is based on the desire to see these vulnerable places and features before they disappear or are essentially and irrevocably changed. The paradox in this new form of travel lies in the fact that the tourists often travel long distances and, thus, are disproportionately responsible per capita for increased greenhouse gas emissions and various other stressors that have the potential to alter further the very attractions being visited. The emergence of LCT requires careful ethical consideration and adds a new twist to the debate about ‘loving a destination to death’. In this case, the relationship is indirect and intangible, and is complicated by spatial and temporal lags, as well as the complex system of biophysical interactions at the heart of climate change. LCT presents a situation that is considerably more difficult to manage and mitigate than those where tourism involves only direct and local impacts. Through a praxis/reflective approach, we discuss this complexity and the various ethical issues associated with marketing and managing LCT. In order to provide context and clarification of the LCT concept, we use one of the most evocative symbols of climate change, the polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, as a source of empirical evidence and a foundation for exploring ethical considerations.

Setting the Scene: Human Activities, Environmental Impacts and Governance Arrangements in Antarctica

The scope and intensity of human activity in the Antarctic region has changed considerably over the past 100 years, resulting in significant modifications to the Antarctic environment and its ecosystems, and to the institutional arrangements governing human activities. Since the nineteenth century, Antarctica has seen periods of heavy resource exploitation followed more latterly by swells of governmental scientific research programmes which have, in turn, led to a plethora of international agreements. By the end of the twentieth century, commercial tourism was also firmly established. Development in human engagement with the Antarctic environment has been accompanied by changes in human values, technologies and ways of thinking. This chapter sets the scene for the entire volume by providing a historical background on human activities, their management and their implications, which other chapters build upon. The purpose of this chapter is not to explore the full breadth of human activities, environmental impacts and governance arrangements in Antarctica. Rather, it aims to provide a contextual framework that can be used to anchor together the diverse subjects treated in the subsequent chapters.

Arctic tourism: a complex system of visitors, communities, and environments

This issue of Polar Geography represents a collection of research papers compiled as a result of the 2006 Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG) Annual Meeting in Thunder Bay, Ontario (29 May to 3 June 2006). As 2007 /2009 is the International Polar Year (IPY), it seemed an appropriate time to examine polar tourism as the complex system of visitors, communities and environments it is. As the organiser of two sessions on polar tourism at the CAG meeting, I felt that it was particularly important to bring together and showcase some recent empirical tourism research conducted in the Polar Regions. Thus, the two special sessions presented at the CAG were somewhat in response to the distinct lack of tourism-related projects officially linked to the IPY (see www.ipy.org). This gap is surprising given the tremendous growth of tourism in the Polar Regions, particularly the Antarctic, and given the focus in previous IPYs on geographical exploration, which has to some degree become a precursor to tourism. Readers will notice that articles in this special issue only pertain to the Arctic. This is because my own presentation (Maher 2006) was the sole Antarctic contribution, but given that the theme of the CAG meeting was ‘Northern Complexities’, and as it was impossible to blind review my own work, I decided to exclude it from this issue. However, a similar presentation from another conference will be published shortly (Maher 2007), and examples of my other work in the Polar Regions can be seen in Maher et al. (2006), and Mullins and Maher (2007). To further explore the content of this special issue, what is Arctic tourism? One way to look at it is geographically; Arctic tourism is tourism that occurs in the Arctic. Then the follow-up question remains, how does one delineate the Arctic? While there are political boundaries to use (i.e. 608N, the southern limit of Canada’s three territories, or the Arctic Circle) there are also biophysical boundaries to account for (i.e. the tree line or the July 108C isotherm). As there is no real consensus amongst countries with territory in the region, it is difficult to come to a comprehensive and inclusive definition of the Arctic. Additionally, many authors and organisations use terms such as the North, the Circumpolar North or Arctic synonymously, which adds to the considerable debate. For example, Nuttall (1998) uses the term Circumpolar North to include both the Arctic and sub-Arctic areas. While there are obvious reasons not to use the relatively arbitrary political boundaries across the Arctic, they do provide administrative, and in some cases statistical ease, for definition. Defining the Arctic then leads to the adjacent areas

Nanuk of the Torngats: Human–Polar Bear Interactions in the Torngat Mountains National Park, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Visitors to Canadas newest national park, Torngat Mountains National Park (TMNP), currently consist of reporters, researchers, tourists, and local Inuit from both Nunatsiavut in northern Labrador and Nunavik in northern Quebec. The national park features spectacular scenery and several types of charismatic mega-fauna, including caribou, whales, and polar bears. Isolated and difficult to access, the parks current approach to managing human–bear interactions, the backbone of which is trained Inuit guides and bear-monitors, has been quite effective. However, as traditional activities by Inuit, and the number of visitors and types of tourists to the area increases, there may be a need by the park management to re-examine current polar bear management strategies.

Risk and a changing environment for Antarctic tourism

This research note explores the issues of perceptions of risk and a changing environment for Antarctic tourism. A pilot study was undertaken aboard an Antarctic cruise ship in February 2008 with the purpose of examining the views of passengers about risk and environmental change in light of the recent sinking of the Explorer and the growing awareness of climate change effects in polar regions.

Exploring post-course outcomes of an undergraduate tourism field trip to the Antarctic Peninsula

A small number of educational programmes for university students include field experience in Antarctica. These programmes contain a range of educational objectives, approaches and academic assessment related to the field component and the intended on-site learning for students. However, it is possible that the on-site experiences of students in these programmes have an influence on later decisions and behaviour beyond the course itself in the years following participation. This paper investigates the possibility of such influence for students who participated in ship-based tourism field trips to the Antarctic Peninsula and adjacent locations (South Georgia, the Falkland Islands, and South Shetland Islands) and explores whether students link their participation to particular post-course outcomes. It examines how participants report being affected by a trip to the Antarctic Peninsula, particularly in terms of later decisions regarding learning, professional lives, and environmental behaviour. Influences noted by respondents include effects on choices made in relation to academic pursuits and career paths, as well as development of their environmental values through increased awareness of tourism impacts, Antarctic region sustainability issues, and global issues such as climate change.

Fostering Innovation in Sustainable Tourism

Sustainable tourism development has been a topic of considerable research and policy reflection across Canada for the past two decades. Sustainability is especially important to people in rural areas, since tourism products often rely on sensitive natural and cultural resources. In order to encourage the adoption of sustainable tourism practices among operators, research was conducted by a collaboration of four tertiary institutions in the Fostering Innovation in Sustainable Tourism Project. The team conducted a study in the spring of 2009 to (a) determine attitudes of tourism operators toward sustainability; (b) assess the extent and type of sustainable tourism practices adopted by operators; (c) understand the influences on the adoption of sustainability practices, including motivators and barriers; and (d) determine ways to support the adoption of sustainability practices among tourism operators. An online survey was administered and interviews were conducted with rural operators throughout the Canadian province of British Columbia. Results showed an overall strong ?pro-sustainability? attitude among respondents. Dominant barriers identified were lack of available money to invest, lack of incentive programs, other business priorities, and limited access to suppliers of sustainable products, with the most common recommendation being the need for incentive programs to encourage businesses to become more sustainable. The results also indicate differences in adoption behaviour among three groups of operators: those who have fully committed, those who have piloted a few strategies, and those who have not. Understanding differences in adoption of sustainable practices using innovation theory may help to support the development of programs and policies that can be used as incentives to create behaviour change among tourism operators, thereby furthering collective efforts toward sustainable tourism development.

Conclusions: Multiple dimensions of human engagement with the Antarctic environment

The future scenarios developed by the contributors to this volume communicate a strong message. They concur that existing environmental management practices and the current system of governance are insufficient to meet the obligations set out under the Madrid Protocol to protect the Antarctic environment, let alone to address the challenges facing a warmer and busier Antarctic in the twenty-first century and beyond. However, not all is doom and gloom. A variety of environmental protection provisions have already been agreed. Reassertion and full compliance to their objectives, as well as wider use of existing environmental management tools (e.g. monitoring, information sharing, systematic designation of protected areas) can significantly increase the protection of the Antarctic environment. Notwithstanding, contentious and strategic issues need to be addressed urgently and proactively. Long-term and large-scale considerations need to permeate throughout all the steps of planning, decision making, implementation, enforcement, monitoring and compliance. Decisions should be guided by long-term visions and goals that are supported by genuine commitment from all actors. Multiple dimensions and perspectives of human engagement with the Antarctic environment (e.g. time, space, individual and collective values, ecosystems) need to be taken into consideration. Effective Antarctic environmental governance can only exist within the context of a stable and supportive governance regime that is invested with genuine political will and necessary resources. This ultimately depends on how much Antarctic Treaty Parties or, in fact, humankind in general, want to protect the Antarctic environment. The future of human engagement with the Antarctic environment draws on basic human values that underlie all decision making. We strongly recommend continued and coordinated studies into the values that different publics and Antarctic Treaty Party members actually associate with Antarctica and into how these values manifest themselves in human behaviour in Antarctica as well as in its governance. Finally, the Antarctic exists within a global context, and its environment cannot be protected through efforts within the Antarctic only. The sustainability of the Antarctic environment also depends on the preservation and broadening of agreed provisions within the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), links between the ATS and other relevant global environmental agreements and global environmental initiatives.

Looking Back, Venturing Forward: Challenges for Academia, Community, and Industry in Polar Tourism Research

This chapter will address questions of what polar tourism is and how it has been researched. These questions serve to allow the field to look back upon its research and reflect. However, looking back is not enough. Within a group such as the International Polar Tourism Research Network (IPRTN), we must also attempt to venture forward and ask: how should polar tourism be researched? On the surface these questions seem simple, but when one dives deeper, there is considerable complexity to consider. This chapter will put such questions in context by offering expert reflection on them from three perspectives: academic, community, and industry. This will be done within a geographical scope of both poles and across decades of work. While one can never expect to capture absolutely everything about these questions, this chapter will hopefully contribute to an ongoing conversation of research practices and research relevance moving into the future.