DUE to the rising number of tourists going to destinations via air transport, tourism inadvertently contributes to the rise in greenhouse gases that increase the number of weather-related disasters.
Unfortunately, being an archipelago and due to its geographic location, the Philippines is vulnerable to these natural disasters, as what happened in 2013, when Supertyphoon Yolanda (international code name Haiyan) cut across the Visayas region, resulting in more than 6,000 death and rendering many people homeless.
In his presentation at the recent Tourism Crisis Management Symposium hosted by the Department of Tourism (DOT), Philippine Red Cross (PRC) Secretary-General Oscar Palabyab said “global tourism is closely linked to climate change,” adding that “tourism involves the movement of people from their homes to other destinations and accounts for about 50 percent of traffic movements.”
He added: “Rapidly expanding air traffic contributes about 2.5 percent of the production of carbon monoxide. Tourism is, thus, a significant contributor to the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
He said that, according to a World Wildlife Fund study: “Air travel itself is a major contributor to the greenhouse effect. Passenger jets are the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. The number of international travelers is expected to increase from 594 million in 1996 to 1.6 billion by 2020, adding greatly to the problem unless steps are taken to reduce emissions.”
A former DOT undersecretary, Palabyab also expressed fears that because the Philippines’s tourist destinations are mostly natural resources, increasing foot traffic, and uncontrolled exploitation of these destinations could damage them.
He likewise cited the 2003 paper of Ege University’s Ugur Sunlu on the environmental impacts of tourism: “Uncontrolled conventional tourism poses potential threats to many natural areas around the world. It can put enormous pressure on an area and lead to impacts, such as soil erosion, increased pollution, discharges into the sea, natural habitat loss, increased pressure on endangered species and heightened vulnerability to forest fires. It often puts a strain on water resources, and it can force local populations to compete for the use of critical resources.”
Natural disasters can have an impact on tourism in several ways, Palabyab said, such as damaging natural resources like what happened when an earthquake rocked Bohol in 2013; damaging infrastructure like road networks that disrupts transport services, hampering travel; and disrupting basic services and businesses.
He added that “catastrophes like floods, earthquakes, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, avalanches, drought and diseases can have a serious effect on inbound and domestic tourism and, thus, on local tourism industries.”
Climate change has already been scientifically proven to cause more powerful storms and drier droughts, which can impact places like the Philippines. Palabyab noted that the Philippines sustained about P90 billion ($1.94 billion) in economic damage in 2015 due to weather-related disasters.
That year, there were at least four natural disasters caused by typhoons, beginning with typhoon Amang, which rained out Pope Francis’s historic visit to the Philippines, specifically in Leyte, which was also ground zero for Yolanda. Amang was followed by Ineng in August, which battered Metro Manila and surrounding provinces; Lando in October, which mostly damaged the Cordillera Administrative Region; and Nona in December, which moved across Southern Luzon and the Visayas.
Foreign visitor arrivals grew by 9.6 percent to some 4.7 million in 2015, but this was way off the government’s arrivals target of 8.2-million.
Tourism accounted for some 8.2 percent of the local economic output as expressed in GDP.
Palabyab recommended ways for the Philippines to minimize the impact of disasters on the tourism sector:
- Conserve and protect natural resources.
“Negative impacts from tourism occur when the level of visitor use is greater than the environment’s ability to cope with this use within the acceptable limits of change.”
- Risk-informed and sustainable infrastructure development.
“The quality of the environment, both natural and man-made, is essential to tourism. The development of tourism facilities, such as accommodation, water supplies, restaurants and recreation facilities, can involve sand mining, beach and sand erosion, soil erosion and extensive paving. In addition, road and airport construction can lead to land degradation and loss of wildlife habitats and deterioration of scenery.”
- Help businesses prepare for disasters.
“Disasters are bad for business. These catastrophic events can compromise capital, logistics, product market and labor, which compromise business continuity and recovery. Physical damage and disruptions in supply and labor can cause temporary business closure, while structural repairs to buildings and recovery or replacement of damaged equipment needed to restore operations require large amount of resources.”
Palabyab said the PRC has helped many firms train in disaster-risk reduction.