Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Peninsula region, for reasons of relative proximity and cost. Many of the visitors have been
women, and increasingly numbers have come from outside Europe and North America.
The tourism industry has drawn both on memories of past exploration ('In the footsteps of
Scott and Shackleton') and contemporary interest in the fate of wilderness regions such as
the Antarctic (a kind of disaster tourism - see it before it disappears) to dispatch far more
people to the Antarctic than was possible in the years preceding the advent of the first
commercial over-flight. The predominantly ship-based industry was further enhanced by the
post-Cold War release of former Soviet icebreakers, which had previously worked in the
Arctic region. My first visit to the Antarctic Peninsula in 1997 was on board a former Soviet
Union icebreaker departing from the port of Ushuaia with only 40 passengers. The largest
ships involved in Antarctic tourism, by way of contrast, were the Princess Cruise Line's
Golden Princess and Star Princess, carrying more than 3,500 passengers, with more limited
opportunities for actually leaving the ships once in the Antarctic.
However, the tourism industry in the Antarctic is a dynamic one. It is no longer accurately
characterized as merely ship-based, with some over-flight activity. If you have the necessary
resources, it is now possible to mountaineer, ski, parachute, and kayak in the Antarctic.
There are far more operators compared to the early 1990s when seven operators helped to
create the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO). By 2010-11,
over 100 companies are participating, with responsibility for thousands of people sailing,
landing, and flying around, in, and over the polar continent and surrounding ocean. While
not all the visitors land in the Antarctic, about 27,000-28,000 people do each year. The
overall value of the sector is estimated to be about US$40-50 million per year.
Discovering the Antarctic in this fashion does have costs and implications. While tourism
does generate revenue for research stations selling stamps and souvenirs and can be used to
help fund conservation initiatives, it can also lead to concerns about contamination of
particular sites, the accidental introduction of non-indigenous species, the degradation of
habitats, disruption of animal breeding, and search-and-rescue-related emergencies. In and
around the Antarctic Peninsula, the twenty most popular sites are being monitored, and the
sinking of the tourist-carrying MV Explorer in 2007 reminded the industry that accidents do
happen when you 'follow in the footsteps' of past explorers (fortunately without loss of life
on this occasion). The crash of Air New Zealand flight 901 in November 1979, which led to
257 people perishing when the plane struck Mount Erebus during an over-flight, remains a
reminder that such activities are not risk-free. The cumulative impact of all kinds of tourism,
including smaller tailor-made trips to remoter parts of the Antarctic, is still { margin-top:
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ascertain given its diverse nature, albeit concentrated in the summer season.
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