WHEN Boracay Island was reopened to the public on October 26, 2018, the Department of Tourism (DOT) promoted it as a model of sustainable tourism. Just six months before, it underwent a massive cleanup and rehabilitation, including the implementation of much-needed infrastructure projects, like the widening of the main beach road, improvement of the drainage system, as well as enforcing the no-build zone on the beach.
“This is the Boracay we fell in love 30 with years ago,” said Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat during the island’s reopening. “The Boracay experience is the ultimate lesson in balancing development and protecting the environment,” she added.
“The lessons learned here are not for Boracay alone but also for the other island destinations around our beautiful country.”
But what exactly is sustainable tourism?
The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) defines it as “tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.”
To Beautiful Destinations (BD) founder, Jeremy Jauncey, “As humans, our goal, whether we are the visitor or the host community, is to always reduce our impact on the environment. One way to achieve this is by leaving places we visit in their most natural state. Second is by supporting local communities whose jobs depend, not just on tourism, but responsible tourism. This means supporting communities that do not interfere with or alter the wild’s natural behavior and habitat, and communities that advocate for the preservation of their heritage and culture.”
A travel-focused creative agency, with the largest travel community on social media, BD has made numerous videos showing the beauty of Philippine destinations. In 2017, it was hired by the DOT to further promote Philippines through its social-media accounts, which now has 20 million followers across 180 countries. “My team and I visited the islands of Cebu, Bohol, and El Nido Palawan, and these are destinations that thrive on tourism as a source of livelihood. I believe that sharing best practices between governments and communities is the way to go, and places like these must take the lead in influencing both existing and emerging destinations toward sustainable practices.”
For him, El Nido does a good job in practicing sustainable tourism. “Although we stayed in a private hotel facility, their practice of hiring locals to serve their customers, using treated water for their toilets, and not serving drinking water in plastic bottles has huge and long-term positive effects on the environment.”
Challenges
There are, however, challenges for a tourism site or establishment to become sustainable, especially in a developing country like the Philippines.
For many hotels, resorts, for instance, it takes a huge amount of investment to move toward sustainable tourism practices.
When Boracay was reopened, the 71-room Coast Boracay was one of the first to support government’s initiatives to protect the environment by reducing the amount of waste the resort and its guests produce.
It first started by getting rid of its plastic water bottles, which used to be served in every room, and to its guests at its restaurants, and replacing these with glass water bottles that are refillable. Next, it provided bamboo water straws for its guests.
According to Randy Salvador, general manager of Coast Boracay, they invested an initial P75,000-P80,000 to purchase water bottles, water and dispensers, and the initial batch of bamboo straws. The resort puts two water-filled glass bottles and two bamboo straws in each room.
There are daily expenses as well for water refill and replacement of bamboo straws, depending on the guest occupancy and how many days they stay at the resort.
Prior to this, the resort already spent some P2.5 million to build a sewage treatment plant, a requirement of the government for resorts located at the beach.
Despite the large costs involved in its sustainable tourism efforts, Salvador said it is one of the reasons foreign guests like staying at the resort. “While I don’t have the figures that we had more visitors [because of our sustainable tourism efforts], a lot of guests appreciate it, especially the European market,” he noted.
And Europe is a major source market for tourists that the DOT wants to expand. Travelers from Europe stay longer and spend more when they go on holidays. DOT data in the first half of the year showed that tourists from France, Germany and the United Kingdom, spent anywhere from $1,218 to $1,287 per capita, edging out the Chinese, who, despite their large numbers, spent just $1,130 per person.
Moreover, Salvador said, undertaking these simple measures is a “big help to the island’s waste management.”
Needless to say, not only hotels, resorts, and other tourism establishments should practice sustainable tourism, but travelers as well.
BD’s Jauncey averred: “We can all become sustainable travelers by becoming mindful of our actions whenever we are outdoors. It may sound simple, but we tend to be lazy and forgetful whenever we travel.”
He pointed out, “The leave no trace principle is one effective way to contribute least human impact on the places we visit. Planning ahead for our travels, disposing our waste properly, leaving what we find, minimizing campfire impacts, respecting wildlife, and being considerate of our hosts and other visitors are just some of the basic tenets of the leave no trace principle that we have to remember and be mindful of whenever we travel.”
Image credits: Beautiful Destinations, Stella Arnaldo