Tourism, Climate Change and Development - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 355

- provides a potential avenue into examining responses to climate change
and tourism. However, difficulties in progressing and operationalising the
concept of sustainable development also point to some of the challenges
faced in responding to the relationship between development and climate
change (Grist, 2008; Hall, 2011). Such issues have only been exacerbated by
contemporary tourism initiatives that focus on reducing tourism's contribu-
tion to climate change on a per capita basis via efficiency measures and
technological improvements, while absolute contributions continue to
increase (Gössling et al. , 2013).
Given that the effects of climate change are geographically variable and
the capacity to manage risks and adapt to change is also unevenly distributed
within and across nations, regions, communities and households (Barnett &
Adger, 2007), 'climate change-related stresses upon and strategies for sustain-
able development are often most usefully considered in a place-based con-
text, where an integrated view of complex interrelationships is more tractable
and strategies for action can be made more tangible' (Wilbanks, 2003: S147).
This is especially the case given the difficulties in achieving clear global and
national strategies to combat climate change. Similarly, O'Brien et al. (2008:
19) highlight, 'Local-level experiences can be considered the front-line of
impacts from hazards and extreme events, thus they can provide important
insights on the most urgent challenges associated with extreme weather
events in a changing climate'. From such a perspective, destinations should
seek to assess their dependency and vulnerability on energy-intense tourism.
Destinations would seem well-advised to restructure their tourism products
towards low-carbon and/or high-value tourism. Many models now exist to
strategically reduce the energy intensity of tourism markets with a focus on
maintaining or increasing yield. For instance, Gössling et al. (2005) have used
eco-efficiency as an integrated indicator combining ecological and economic
information. Knowledge of the energy intensity of various markets can,
therefore, potentially help consumers help to make decisions in favour of
low-carbon tourism that generates high revenue (Gössling et al. , 2009). In the
absence of other regulatory measures to combat climate change, providing
clear cost/benefit results from encouraging certain types of tourism at the
expense of others would seem to be the only viable approach to encouraging
lower emission tourism at an aggregate level.
While tourism growth has encouraged higher levels of economic devel-
opment in some developing country destinations, it is also clear that tour-
ist arrival numbers as a measure of development highly simplifies tourism
production systems, omitting much of the complexity of tourism-derived
income generation and the socio-economic benefit it brings. While higher
tourist numbers may generally indicate the potential of higher revenue, it is
clear that per tourist income varies widely between markets, tourist types
and production systems. In some cases, a limited number of backpackers
may actually make a more substantial contribution to livelihoods and