Is Antarctica the best-managed tourism destination in the world?

Is Ant­arc­tic travel & tour­ism the best in the world? In terms of sus­tain­ab­il­ity, Thomas Bauer thinks it is. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Dr Bauer explains what tour­ism in Ant­arc­tica can teach the rest of the world.

UPDATE, June 2021: Dr Bauer is happy for this “GT” Insight to be giv­en anoth­er round of pub­li­city. He chose not to update it not­ing that, COVID-19 not­with­stand­ing, the con­tent is as rel­ev­ant in 2021 as it was in 2017. 

Dr Bauer has vis­ited Ant­arc­tica dozens of times in his roles as research­er and exped­i­tions guide. He offers informed inspir­a­tion for pro­spect­ive trav­el­lers to the south­ern­most con­tin­ent in the “GT” Travel post: “Voy­ages to Ant­arc­tica: Unique, life-chan­ging, mem­or­able”.

Sus­tain­ab­il­ity has become the catch­phrase of the early part of the 21st cen­tury. Politi­cians talk about sus­tain­able energy, sus­tain­able cit­ies, sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture and we, in tour­ism, talk about sus­tain­able tourism.

What used to be simply called tour­ism when I did my under­gradu­ate degree in the field in 1980 first morph­ed into eco­tour­ism and now many aspects of tour­ism are dis­cussed with ref­er­ence to sustainability.

It is import­ant to make tour­ism (loc­al, region­al, domest­ic and inter­na­tion­al) an activ­ity that is long-last­ing without impact­ing neg­at­ively on people and places involved in it. The key ques­tion is, how­ever, who determ­ines what level of vis­it­a­tion at a des­tin­a­tion (or attrac­tion) is sustainable?

It strikes me that the level of sus­tain­able vis­it­a­tion in many places is adjus­ted year by year so that this year’s sus­tain­ab­il­ity is last year’s vis­it­or arrival plus 10 per cent. There are often no hard and fast rules that will clearly state what is sus­tain­able and what is not. It is often a case of profit before sustainability.

Of course the concept of car­ry­ing capa­city can be used to set cer­tain lim­its of vis­it­a­tion — in the built envir­on­ment a foot­ball sta­di­um has reached its phys­ic­al capa­city when all the seats are occu­pied — but in nature such phys­ic­al lim­it­a­tions are not always eas­ily iden­ti­fied. In such cases those respons­ible for the man­age­ment of nat­ur­al resources need to determ­ine how many people should be allowed to vis­it at any one time.

Why Antarctic tourism is the best in the world

In Ant­arc­tica, a region of the world that I have had the priv­ilege of vis­it­ing as a research­er, guide, lec­turer and Zodi­ac driver on more than 40 occa­sions since 1994, the tour­ism industry and gov­ern­ments have jointly set firm vis­it­a­tion guidelines.

Under the guid­ance of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­ation of Ant­arc­tica Tour Oper­at­ors (IAATO), and with the adop­tion by the Ant­arc­tic Treaty Parties, guidelines have been estab­lished that allow a max­im­um of only 100 pas­sen­gers ashore at a site at any one time. Thus if a ship has 200 pas­sen­gers, 100 will have to stay on board or go Zodi­ac cruis­ing while the oth­er 100 are ashore.

Firm guidelines for site vis­its are also in place. They include: no smoking or eat­ing ashore, no toi­lets are provided, no souven­ir­ing of any kind, and no approach to wild­life closer than a dis­tance of five metres.

A guide-to-pas­sen­ger ration of 1:20 assures that vis­it­ors do not dis­turb the fauna and (very lim­ited) flora of Antarctica.

Nearly all Ant­arc­tic tour­ism is ship-based. Before guides are allowed to work aboard ships that vis­it South Geor­gia and the Ant­arc­tic Pen­in­sula they must pass a test set by IAATO that tests their know­ledge of cur­rent reg­u­la­tions per­tain­ing to vis­its to Antarctica.

Pas­sen­gers are required to attend a spe­cial IAATO present­a­tion on the code of con­duct in Ant­arc­tica. Those who do not attend are not allowed to go ashore.

The above meas­ures have ensured that Ant­arc­tic tour­ism is the best-man­aged in the world. Oth­er des­tin­a­tions can learn much from the way they are car­ried out. For example all vis­it­ors to nation­al parks or World Her­it­age-lis­ted areas should be com­pelled to attend a brief­ing on a code of con­duct before being allowed to enter. The same could apply to cul­tur­al sites such as churches, mosques, or temples.

With the steady increase in vis­it­or arrival num­bers around the globe, vis­it­ors will need to take respons­ib­il­ity for their con­duct at sens­it­ive sites. At the same time, the tour­ism industry must strive to make its impacts on the nat­ur­al, cul­tur­al, and social envir­on­ment as small as pos­sible. This requires all com­pon­ents of the industry to take appro­pri­ate actions to min­im­ise the impacts they have.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Hump­back whales south of Lemaire Chan­nel. Image by Dr Thomas Bauer.

About the author

Dr Thomas Bauer is Adjunct Pro­fess­or, School of Tour­ism and Hos­pit­al­ity at The Uni­ver­sity of the South Pacific, Fiji as well as a polar exped­i­tions guide for Albatros Exped­i­tions. Since 1989, Dr Bauer has been a lec­turer, admin­is­trat­or and research­er in the field of tour­ism, as well as a con­sult­ant on pro­jects for the United Nations World Tour­ism Organ­isa­tion (UNWTO) and the gov­ern­ments of China and Hong Kong SAR. He has also gen­er­ously giv­en of his free time: As a State Emer­gency Ser­vice (SES) volun­teer in Queens­land, Aus­tralia; and, formerly, as an act­ive mem­ber of the Pacific Asia Travel Asso­ci­ation (PATA), includ­ing its Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Committee. 

Res­id­ents of Mis­sion Beach in Queens­land, Dr Bauer and his part­ner Lina are rain­forest guard­i­ans of the Aus­trali­an Rain­forest Found­a­tion.