This is the first of a two-part piece on the impacts of tourism on coral reefs and how the tourism market that is emerging post-Covid could be a boon for both reefs and the local communities that rely on them.
Previously we have looked at how a number of inter-linked themes have an impact on management of coral reefs: resilience, livelihoods and co-management. But one thing we haven’t considered in any detail is tourism and its impacts on coral reefs. This is particularly appropriate now, given the impact of the pandemic on tourism.
So: reefs and tourism - what’s the issue?
Let’s start off by recognising the importance of tourism to most national economies. According to data from the Ministry of Tourism, pre-Covid, Malaysia was receiving around 25-26 million tourists per year; tourism accounted for nearly 10% of GDP and as many as one in four or five jobs, depending on how you measure it. So, big. Important.
And this is especially true of Malaysia’s islands, a magnet for tourists from all over the world – whether hard core divers or people who just want a day on the beach.
Pick an island. Tioman island off the East coast of Peninsular Malaysia is close to my heart. With a population of around 3,700 in seven villages, it receives approximately 250,000 visitors per year. Mantanani island – off the West coast of Sabah in Borneo – has a population of just under 1,000. Tourists? Pre-Covid as many as 3,000 per day. Yeah. We’ll come back to that shortly.
Just as an example of the value of tourism, we have previously estimated that marine-related tourism to the three East coast islands of Tioman, Redang and Perhentian is worth around RM 500 million per year – on accommodation, food, activities; and that doesn’t include related expenditure such as stays in KL, other travel, etc. Islands such as Tioman rely almost 100% on tourism for their economy; on most of the islands there is 100% employment during the season.
So that’s the good news. But there is a down-side to tourism, too, and that is the impact that those hordes of visitors have on the places that they visit.
There is a considerable body of research that describes how large numbers of tourists can harm both ecosystems (physical breakage by divers and snorkelers, pollution from inadequate sewage treatment infrastructure, trash, etc.), and the communities that live on the islands, who, quite often, didn’t really ask for all those tourists in the first place.
Let’s look at that last statement a bit more carefully.
Yes, we have acknowledged the economic benefit of tourism; and yes, most of these communities do welcome tourism, for the jobs it provides. But…do they really welcome mass tourism on the scale they are experiencing? Were they ever consulted on what type of tourism they would support? Did anyone really think about the trajectory of tourist numbers? Who is responsible for regulating tourism, numbers of tourists, operators, etc.? Or do we not care – relying on the mantra “tourism is good for the economy”?
Take Mantanani island as a case study. 10 years ago the island was home to a couple of small backpacker resorts and a voluntourism operator. That was about all there was for accommodation. There were maybe 50 day-trippers who visited the island for a few hours and then returned to the mainland. Just a few people stayed overnight.
Fast forward a few years. Numbers started to grow as the destination became better known. By the end of 2019, just pre-Covid, the island was receiving up to 3,000 visitors per day, brought in by 27 tour operators based in the State capital, Kota Kinabalu. Pick up from your hotel at 7.30; reach the coast by 9.30 and the island by 10.30 or 11…and then depart at about 2.30…having squeezed in a couple of snorkelling trips and a BBQ lunch. A few dozen people now stay overnight in one of several resorts.
While this might be “good business” for the tour operators, and it might be “good for the economy” because of the large volume, we need to take a step back and look at this in more detail, through a different lens – not from the perspective of the tourism industry, but from a local perspective. Several themes emerge:
Clearly there is damage to ecosystems with large numbers of tourists. Our annual survey data point to a slow, but steady decline in reef health in Malaysia; ok, not all of it is caused by tourists; but the indicators are there that at least some of the damage is.
During the busy season on many islands, carrying capacity is reached – in the sense that water supplies run out; there are no spare rooms; electricity black-outs can occur. How is this infrastructure going to cope with ever-increasing numbers?
And let’s not forget the people who actually live there, the local communities. Mantanani island is a remote, conservative community; they don’t necessarily appreciate scantily-clad tourists wondering through their village…but being polite people they don’t say anything; did the powers-that-be understand this would happen when they were planning for ever-increasing tourist numbers?
A recent survey of islanders on Tioman demonstrates quite clearly that local communities support tourism, they want tourism…but they don’t want any more of it.
Suggestions (by outsiders, of course) of doubling or tripling the number of visitors to the island seem not to be aligned with what the locals want. Again the questions: are we thinking about the trajectory of tourism? Is the assumption that we should just keep bringing more tourists a valid one? Should we be asking local communities for their views?
My personal conclusion: managed tourism good; unregulated, uncontrolled tourism bad. Might seem obvious…but we seem to be following the latter model, not the former.
I was on Tioman island recently. I was expecting to find despondency and despair among the community and tourism operators who have basically had no economy for the last 2 years. Instead I found smiling faces and happy people. I asked a friend who runs a resort how has it been – you’d expect her to be desperate, right? She said: “very nice; very quiet and peaceful, no tourists around”.
The villagers have got their island back – apparently families have been taking day trips, island hopping in the way that tourists do! And they are clearly resilient – they have survived on very little for 2 years…and yet no-one seems to be in a rush to get back to the “good old times” of mass tourism. I think maybe we need to take a long hard look at that.
Part 2 in a couple of weeks on tourism trends and how this should affect our thinking on tourism.