Risks
Still landscape development in the course of a touristic exploitation is accountable for the degradation or even loss of precious ecosystems. The water consumption of hotels, amusement parks etc. is extremely high despite available more efficient technologies and although the overuse of water resources is well-known to destroys rivers, lakes and wetland areas as well as groundwater reserves.
Furthermore, connected touristic motorized travel activities supplement climate change, again leading to increased pressure on ecosystems. Alternated ecosystem and consequential changes like disappearing coral reefs and decreasing number of days of snow cover again will noticeably effect the tourism sector.
Also, a lot of of touristic activities, especially in the outdoor segment, e. g. hiking, climbing, cycling, canoeing etc., depend on intact ecosystems and therefore biodiversity. If natural and near-natural ecosystems are endangered, high risks of loss of income for the tourism industry are inevitable. A prominent example can be given in the case of the carribean coral reefs: shrinking by 80 percent within three decades, losses in the diving tourism accumulated to about 300 million US $ per year.
But even conventional tourism progressively needs to consider state of and impacts on the natural environment, since customer expectations increase, as e.g. a customer survey study by TUI in eight European country’s already in 2010 revealed: about 70 percent attached importance to the protection of natural resources and 67 percent explicitly to environment protection. 64 percent even expect providers of touristic offers to be active in biodiversity conservation.
There is a long list of examples proving that tourist reject misdeveloped landscapes and change destinations. This can also be proven by a growing amount of studys and surveys all highlighting a growing importance of the environmental quality as a decision factor to touristic customers. Not realizing these developments means risking the loss of costumers in this tight market.