Climate change, COVID-19, and the need for global systemic change

March 2, 2021

Working women protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh. By MARUF_RAHMAN (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/women-crowd-protest-protesters-5963960/
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Tan­ner C Knorr picks up themes dis­cussed in a webin­ar by the US-based Cen­ter for Respons­ible Travel and maps them onto five core ten­ets of the Future of Tour­ism Coali­tion. Mr Knorr is the founder of two “Good Tour­ism” Part­ners: Second Look World­wide and Off Sea­son Adven­tures. This is his fourth “Good Tour­ism” Insight.

“Crisis often breeds innov­a­tion. Des­tin­a­tions, com­munit­ies, and busi­nesses must not let this oppor­tun­ity go to waste,” Gregory Miller said at the start of a webin­ar organ­ised by the Cen­ter for Respons­ible Travel (CREST). 

I also believe this is the case. We have an oppor­tun­ity now to make change. 

Dr Miller is the exec­ut­ive dir­ect­or of CREST, which in Septem­ber 2020 released The Case for Respons­ible Travel: Trends & Stat­ist­ics Report (PDF, hos­ted off­s­ite). The report dis­cussed key cur­rent chal­lenges for the tour­ism industry — COVID-19 and cli­mate change — and was fol­lowed up by a webin­ar to expand on the find­ings with a pan­el of experts. 

Research­ers from the Cen­ter for Sus­tain­able Tour­ism at Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity (ASU), includ­ing me, col­lab­or­ated with CREST to con­sol­id­ate the inform­a­tion from the webin­ar into a report so that these vital insights were not lost. ASU then looked to the Future of Tour­ism Coali­tion’s (FOTC’s) Guid­ing Prin­ciples as a frame­work for cod­ing the insights. The ASU report (PDF, hos­ted off­s­ite) was pub­lished on Janu­ary 15, 2021. 

As we exam­ine the res­ults of the report, togeth­er with the key FOTC prin­ciples, I believe that we can find par­al­lels between the cur­rent and future impacts of large crises on the tour­ism industry and on the globe.

Weaving ideas together

Tour­ism world­wide, spe­cific­ally in this cur­rent peri­od of decreased arrivals, has con­stantly struggled to bal­ance the three prongs of sus­tain­ab­il­ity: eco­nomy, soci­ety, and envir­on­ment. Tra­di­tion­ally, and still in many schools of thought today, tour­ism is primar­ily (or exclus­ively) seen as an eco­nom­ic driver. Indic­at­ors, such as GDP, have been used in con­junc­tion with tour­ism devel­op­ment strategies to jus­ti­fy lar­ger increases in arrivals in exchange for for­eign export. 

From some, the the­ory goes, as eco­nom­ic returns grow lar­ger, social and envir­on­ment­al issues will sort them­selves out because there will be lar­ger invest­ments in mon­et­ary cap­it­al to solve them. Eco­nom­ic growth is equated to pos­it­ive social change. And through the dis­tri­bu­tion of resources, people will have a great­er abil­ity to come togeth­er to solve oth­er issues, such as envir­on­ment­al degrad­a­tion, poverty, and hunger. 

This paradigm of con­tinu­al growth in real­ity, how­ever, is one of the greatest con­trib­ut­ors to social, envir­on­ment­al, and eco­nom­ic inequal­it­ies and inequit­ies with­in host des­tin­a­tions around the world. Up until COVID-19, this had reached its pin­nacle through the phe­nomen­on of over­tour­ism — an exten­sion of the eco­nom­ic growth paradigm. Busi­nesses and com­munit­ies had become reli­ant upon this paradigm, so when the sys­tem crashed, these inequit­ies and inequal­it­ies became more prominent. 

This situ­ation is not dis­sim­il­ar from what is hap­pen­ing across fin­an­cial mar­kets, eco­sys­tems, and soci­ety more broadly today. The con­tinu­al growth paradigm has been entrenched with­in spe­cific­ally the west­ern zeit­geist for dec­ades, and has bled into many nations around the world. 

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The mer­ging of busi­ness and polit­ic­al agen­das has caused increased inequit­ies and inequal­it­ies, not only with­in the tour­ism industry but in sys­tems the world over. People see socioeco­nom­ic divides widen­ing and are increas­ingly angry that they can­not change the sys­tems gov­ern­ing their lives (cite any “grass­roots” move­ment of the left or right in the west from the past 10 – 15 years). 

So, how are these themes sim­il­ar to the prin­ciples dis­cussed with the CREST webin­ar to bring about change in the tour­ism industry? How do the spe­cif­ic FOTC prin­ciples dis­cussed fit into the broad­er glob­al narrative? 

The key themes dis­cussed in the webinar:

1. Collaborate in destination management (FOTC principle 3) 

Pan­el­lists spoke about in-des­tin­a­tion col­lab­or­a­tion as a way to bet­ter man­age COVID-19 and cli­mate change. Des­tin­a­tion lead­ers, private sec­tor, and con­sumers were all seen as act­ors in the sys­tems-think­ing approach to col­lab­or­a­tion and man­age­ment. 

A new sys­tem is clearly needed; one that goes bey­ond the cur­rent, lin­ear, top-down paradigm of eco­nom­ic growth. The words here do not spe­cific­ally imply the sus­tain­ab­il­ity paradigm, but rather a sys­tems-think­ing approach. 

For many insti­tu­tions that talk about sys­tems-think­ing approaches to gov­ernance or change, their pro­posed new sys­tems move past the three pil­lars of sus­tain­ab­il­ity to encom­pass a pleth­ora of subsystems. 

Pan­el­lists iden­ti­fied that col­lab­or­a­tion between sev­er­al groups of stake­hold­er was neces­sary to make this shift: insti­tu­tions, private sec­tor, and res­id­ents. This would strike a bal­ance and (ideally) give each their own voice. 

Also see Dav­id Gill­banks’ “GT” Insight
“Has ‘Future of Tour­ism’ failed host communities?”

2. Choose quality over quantity (FOTC principle 4)

Pan­el­lists spoke about des­tin­a­tion qual­ity in terms lead­ing to health­i­er trav­el­lers, res­id­ents, and places. How­ever, there were dif­fer­ent views on the source of demand for high­er qual­ity destinations.

So the say­ing goes: a nice place to live is a nice place to vis­it. When did the pri­or­it­ies of the tour­ists take pre­ced­ence over the pri­or­it­ies of res­id­ents who are left with the (invis­ible) bur­den of tour­ism? The ques­tion is not: “Will tour­ism come back?” The ques­tion should be: “When tour­ism comes back, how should it look and whom should it benefit?”

We need to move past count­ing the num­ber of tour­ists enter­ing a des­tin­a­tion and even the money they spend. There are a vari­ety of oth­er indic­at­ors we can use to identi­fy how tour­ism enhances the qual­ity of a des­tin­a­tion, rep­res­en­ted in con­cepts like social and envir­on­ment­al equity and justice. 

Also see Tan­ner C Knor­r’s “GT” Insight
“Tour­ism infra­struc­ture, well-being, & how to ‘build back bet­ter’ for all”

3. Mitigate climate impacts (FOTC principle 8)

Pan­el­lists spoke about dif­fer­ent levels of con­sumer and busi­ness stake­hold­er insight around cli­mate change mit­ig­a­tion, and dis­cussed how and who would man­age mit­ig­a­tion at the des­tin­a­tion level. 

Cli­mate change impacts us all, espe­cially those work­ing in the tour­ism industry. Set­ting aside the ques­tion of wheth­er cli­mate change can be mit­ig­ated, or if we’re solely at the adapt­a­tion point, col­lab­or­a­tion for cli­mate change-related strategies of any kind should include the voices of glob­al stakeholders. 

This point is sim­il­ar to the first in that gov­ern­ments, insti­tu­tions, busi­nesses, and indi­vidu­als must work togeth­er to see change in this area. A sys­tems-think­ing approach, I believe, will also help. 

Also see Dav­id Gill­banks’ “GT” Insight
“Don’t pan­ic: Oppor­tun­ity, ingenu­ity will give us cli­mate-friendly travel”

4. Diversify source markets (FOTC principle 11)

Pan­el­lists dis­cussed the chal­lenges and oppor­tun­it­ies in diver­si­fy­ing source mar­kets and boost­ing domest­ic tour­ism. 

The shift to pro­mot­ing domest­ic travel to replace inter­na­tion­al inbound tour­ism is seen by some to be a win­ning strategy, not only dur­ing COVID times but also after. 

There are bene­fits, such as emis­sion reduc­tion (when com­pared to long-haul flights) and retain­ing domest­ic cap­it­al with­in the nation. How­ever, the lat­ter bene­fit isn’t avail­able to des­tin­a­tions that have been net tour­ism export­ers. For res­id­ents there who can afford to travel, their choos­ing to stay at home will not make up for the loss of inbound inter­na­tion­al vis­it­ors and the money they spend. 

But per­haps eco­nom­ics, exports, and for­eign exchange is not the point of the argu­ment. Per­haps the bene­fit comes from decreas­ing the total amount of tour­ists in favour of more equit­able dis­tri­bu­tion of eco­nom­ic, social, and envir­on­ment­al capital. 

Also see Paul Rogers’ “GT” Insight
“Why build well-being into des­tin­a­tion resi­li­ence and tour­ism recovery?”

5. Operate business responsibly (FOTC principle 13)

Pan­el­lists dis­cussed how busi­nesses can oper­ate more respons­ibly to provide bet­ter out­comes for des­tin­a­tions. 

Many busi­nesses work­ing with­in the con­tinu­al growth mod­el have, I would argue, oper­ated irre­spons­ibly. ‘Respons­ible’, how­ever, is a rel­at­ive term and needs to be qual­i­fied by some sort of inter­pret­a­tion. For share­hold­ers, a busi­ness may be act­ing respons­ibly if it sends or receives as many tour­ists as pos­sible. But for des­tin­a­tion res­id­ents this may be deemed irre­spons­ible. I believe shift­ing per­spect­ives like this will help prac­ti­tion­ers of tour­ism and oth­er busi­ness make bet­ter decisions for a great­er major­ity of stakeholders. 

Also see the Partner/Sponsor Mes­sage
“Wake UP! to the trans­form­at­ive power of part­ner­ship & enterprise”

Per­spect­ive is also an excel­lent segue into the final key theme dis­cussed in the webinar. 

6. Consumers’ perspectives and responsibilities

The role of the con­sumer was the final dis­tinct theme dis­cussed in the webin­ar, though was not dir­ectly reflec­ted in the Future of Tour­ism Coalition’s Guid­ing Prin­ciples. Pan­el­lists con­nec­ted trav­el­lers’ respons­ib­il­it­ies to FOTC prin­ciples 3 (col­lab­or­ate in des­tin­a­tion man­age­ment), 4 (choose qual­ity over quant­ity), and 8 (mit­ig­ate cli­mate impacts). 

In order to change any of the pre­vi­ous issues and themes, the per­spect­ives and respons­ib­il­it­ies of indi­vidu­als must be under­stood at a deep­er level. These chal­lenges are too big for one gov­ern­ment, one organ­isa­tion, one busi­ness, or one per­son to accomplish. 

We must move past exclus­ively top-down strategies to man­age­ment, devel­op­ment, and change, and accept that each indi­vidu­al has a voice and a say in the exist­en­tial chal­lenges that face us today.

By open­ing ourselves up to altern­at­ive epi­stem­o­logy, listen­ing and not just hear­ing each oth­er, and lead­ing with empathy and under­stand­ing, we may have a chance of cre­at­ing a bet­ter sys­tem post-COVID. 

Also see Kelly Louise’s “GT” Insight
“Pivots to make a dif­fer­ence: Edu­cate, inspire, satiate”

As one pan­el­list, Daniel Scott, said: “Look­ing after and doing right by our people is going to be a fun­da­ment­al thing that we have to focus on over the next 20 years.”


The CREST webin­ar was mod­er­ated by K Denaye Hinds, Own­er and Man­aging Dir­ect­or of JustaTAAD, LLC. The pan­el­lists included the afore­men­tioned Dr Scott, Exec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or, Inter­dis­cip­lin­ary Centre on Cli­mate Change (IC3), Uni­ver­sity of Water­loo; Erin Fran­cis-Cum­mings, Pres­id­ent and CEO, Des­tin­a­tion Ana­lysts; and Ewald Biemans, Own­er and CEO, Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort, Aruba.  

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

Fea­tured image (top of post): Work­ing women protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh. By MARUF_RAHMAN (CC0) via Pixabay.

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About the author

Tanner C Knorr
Tan­ner C Knorr

Tan­ner C Knorr is own­er & founder of the sus­tain­able tour oper­at­or and “GT” Part­ner Off Sea­son Adven­tures and pres­id­ent of “GT” Insight Part­ner Second Look World­wide, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organ­isa­tion that ensures the bene­fits of tour­ism are real­ised in loc­al com­munit­ies by spon­sor­ing infra­struc­ture improve­ments. Off Sea­son Adven­tures keeps more than 90% of the tour costs with­in host eco­nom­ies and con­trib­utes sig­ni­fic­antly to con­ser­va­tion with­in des­tin­a­tions. Extens­ive stake­hold­er meet­ings and inter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships go into his work with both organisations. 

With a Bach­el­ors in Archae­ology and a Mas­ters in Admin­is­trat­ive Stud­ies (Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment & Tour­ism Man­age­ment) from Boston Uni­ver­sity, Tan­ner has assisted in teach­ing tour­ism-related sub­jects at Har­vard Exten­sion School and Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity. He is now a PhD Stu­dent at Ari­zona State Uni­ver­sity (Com­munity Resources & Devel­op­ment, con­cen­trat­ing in Sus­tain­able Tourism). 

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