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At the end of this week, the third long -awaited season from the HBO exhibition White Lotus The first episode was dropped. The famous show shows a dark aspect of tourism, as the separation of the wealthy Westerners who travel to advanced resorts that beats with entitlement and locals whose livelihoods depend to meet their needs.
Nevertheless, each season of display contains the superior tourism of the incoming sites. In the GRIT story published todaySarah Stodola explores how Koh Samawi, Al Jazeera off the coast of Thailand, the language of the third season, is preparing for the challenges that it may bring.
Even without the offer, tourism to Koh Samawi-the second largest island in Thailand and a famous travel destination-contradicts the island’s natural beauty. The 70,000 local population is increasing by the annual visitors in millions, and the huge volume of visitors is that local water resources are restricted, Waste management is an increased problemThe construction has damaged nearby coral reefs and other ecosystems.
It is a similar story in many parts of the world, where societies have become dependent on tourism dollars while suffering from the effects of turmoil. But there are many ways that the industry can be improved from the perspective of sustainability and fairness, says Stodola – from He wrote a book on the economy of the beach resort And its future on a climatic variable planet, and also writes Newsletter Dismantling travel and tourism.
She referred to the places where governments limited the total flow of tourism, as well as companies, such as hotels, which bore the responsibility for giving priority to the needs and well -being of the local community. “I think this is the key to the existence of a successful tourism industry,” Stodola said.
She cited one example on an advanced resort, Nihi Sumba, who created the tourism industry on an Indonesian island with high rates of malaria. “They gave mosquitoes to the entire society, and malaria mortality has decreased dramatically in the population around this resort,” Stodola said. “This is a really positive result.”
But she also said that the best tourism may mean changing the concept of tourism itself. “I think, partly, that the travelers have moved away from expecting to be somewhat adapting to somewhere,” said Stodola. Luxury hotels and comprehensive resorts can create a kind of bubble that makes it unnecessary, for example, identifying local customs or even a few words of the language. She said: “The conversion of this mentality to expect that it will be forced to absorb the place where it is going, instead of the opposite, will be really great positive.”
In a question and answer below, I talked to Stodola about how governments and the private sector work together to redesign an approach to sustainable, economically useful and designed for unique needs and priorities in a specific place.
Q: I have covered travel and tourism a lot – including some positive things they can achieve. but In your news messageYou are also talking about how travel is not a good thing in its nature. Can you tell me more about it?
A. right. My background was a kind of doing more traditional writing, until the past five or six years. I was increasingly uncomfortable with a positive extent, and in short, the coverage was always. There was only this assumption that it was a great thing.
It is great – travel and tourism has the ability to really good and positive powers in the world. But like anything else, it can be positive or negative. I think the tide is now turning after the disorders are widely covered. But I believe, until recently, that the places that were planting the new tourist industries have learned about the revenues that I created for them, and any other traces that have always been a kind of taking the economic seat they saw.
Q: Capitalism everything.
A. Capitalism of everything.
Q: Can you expand a little on what you think the good parts of travel and tourism are? Can it be a good thing for the planet?
A. The way it is organized now, no. I mean, it is clear that this is a complex topic, but the way it is organized at the present time, a lot of tourism depends mainly on a long journey. And as long as this is the case, and as long as the long -term flights are harmful to the environment as they are, then from the basic line, no.
But then, if you dig deeper, there are players in the tourism industry who do good things at a more translation level. I have seen some resorts or some hotels that help expand knowledge on how to maintain ecosystems. There are elements of it that can be positive.
Q: Are there any examples that come to mind from the places that you faced doing this correctly? How can it look like that?
A. I do not think that the tourism industry can be done in a sustainable manner or is responsible without a heavy government participation. Because, as I said, I left capitalism of all of this, I think the environment and the locals are somewhat losing each time.
With the example of Thailand, I think the government showed good intentions. But the feeling that I get from everyone I am talking to is that they have enforcement issues. They are familiar with problems, pass the regulations, but they really don’t have an enforcement system in place to ensure that everything they want to see is happening.
One of the things I think all sites should do because they grow the tourism industry at the present time is to determine the ideal level of tourism, or the ideal number of tourists for their site based on the size of the local population, what the environment there can be a treatment. It is something that does not seem to do places, and it seems to me that it is a clear standard that they should work with it from the beginning.
Looking at KoH Samui, almost all of its waters comes from this pipeline from the main righteousness that has a very clear ability – it was very clear that at some point, they will not have this tourism industry, they will not have the ability of water to all people in that island at a time one. And now they do not. And they have a shortage of water. This is a clear example – they could determine the number of people who could deal with them on the island with the amount of water capacity they had, and worked at those limits.
There is an archipelago away from the Brazil coast called Fernando de Noronha, and they built a tourist industry, but from the beginning, They restricted the number of daily tourists This can be on the island somewhere about 400. They reached this number that seemed appropriate for the economic benefit and then balanced with the preservation of the environment, and it was very successful.
Of course, it is much easier to implement these types of borders when it is a remote island – much easier than a place where you cannot control the transportation to and to and with great care.
Q: One of them wanted to return to-I raised the issue of long trips, and the huge amount that cannot be avoided from carbon emissions that come from travel for long distances. Do you see more regional and domestic travel as part of what the future of sustainable tourism can appear?
A. One hundred percent, I do. Especially when we talk about something like beach tourism – this is a problem that may occur as a result White Lotus In Thailand, many Americans will now go in larger numbers to Thailand to make a beach vacation. I do not think that most people who go to the middle of the road around the world for a beach vacation necessarily interact with the culture they find themselves.
It is an argument that I have previously provided. I think, especially the largest hotel companies that have resorts around the world, I would like to claim that they should be marketing in a more focused way at the regional level, rather than marketing worldwide and trying to make people fly in the middle of the road all over the world to spend their beach leave. This is one of the fields in particular where many long trips can be cut.
Q: Is there anything else you see as a top priority in your vision of the future of sustainable tourism?
A. I always think that giving priority to local communities for tourists is an important base. I think many places have moved away from it and gave priority to tourists on the locals. I would like to see a shift to that where, if you want to go to this place, you will go they Society and they Culture – they have no responsibility to reconfigure your culture and comfort for you. I think it is likely to have a calm effect and solve many other problems.
Claire Elise Thompson
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As Stodola describes its advantage, Thailand has seen a similar tourist madness by Hollywood in the past. When the movie Beach He went out 25 years ago, and led to the turmoil (and destruction) on the Gulf of Maya, a closed beach in a national garden on the uninhabited Fayy Island. Things became so bad that the government completely closed the beach and reopened it after four years with strict regulations. This picture shows boats in the border line in 2019, when the garden was closed to visitors.
