Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
that it is fraught with uncertainty (Faulkner, 2001; Formica and Kothari,
2008). In particular, it is argued that the greatest difficulty for tourism organ-
izations is the assessment of future environmental impacts (Pechlaner and
Fuchs, 2002). Nor does tourism stand alone; it has well-defined links with the
communications, transport and hospitality sectors (Farrell and Twining-Ward,
2004). In turn, it is dependent on the health of other business sectors that gen-
erate income and the desire to travel among the population.
With regard to the welfare of societies, one external factor reigns above
all else; it is the need to respond with urgency to the challenges of resource
depletion and climatic change. The current global strategy of economic growth
(about 4 per cent per annum, in recent decades) continues to realize pessimistic
scenarios of resource depletion and climate change, which have been presented
as serious dangers some time ago (Daly, 1996; Meadows et al, 1972).
Transport is no exception. It is estimated that the world's citizens travelled 23
billion km in total in 2000, and this is expected to rise to 105 billion km by
2050 (Schafer and Victor, 2000). Tourism could well account for 15-20 per
cent of this projected additional distance; there is also a very uneven distribu-
tion of travel patterns between developed and developing countries (Gilberg
and Perl, 2008). However, there is no certainty that the current development
patterns will continue, as limits may be reached (e.g. through peak oil), or tip-
ping points might occur which bring about a radical restructuring of systems
we currently depend upon (Urry, 2008).
One such tipping point relates to carbon reduction and climatic change.
There is substantial consensus around the need to limit a global temperature
rise to no more than 2˚C; the debate now is how to achieve the right pre-
scription. The 'business as usual' scenario is no longer tenable. Unless all
sectors of the economy act together, there will be unavoidable consequences;
not only could there be devastation in some parts of the world, but also
tourism will wither. Butler (2008) argues that the role of external agents has
been systematically underestimated in future scenarios for tourism and that
prediction should engage chaos theory in order to better understand random
events and the turbulence that might occur. Thus, environmental impact is
now the major agent of change in a move to a new paradigm in tourism, not
supply sector innovation. The consequences of not changing to meet climatic
challenge are unthinkable. Some authors point to the social consequences of
mass unemployment, poverty and disorder if the world collapses into invol-
untary recession (Schriefl et al, 2008). This was avoided, but only narrowly,
following the economic crisis of 2008-09 through unprecedented government
intervention to retain the integrity of a global banking system in collapse
(Jackson, 2009). Dennis and Urry (2007, p66) paint a potentially bleaker sce-
nario which envisages a nexus system coming into place, featuring database
and digital manipulation:
Are we 'predicting' a dystopic digital Orwellisation of self and
society with more or less no movement without digital tracing
and tracking with almost no-one within at least rich societies
outside a digitical panopticon and with a carbon database as the
