Protecting the World from Tourists

M A D R I D, July 10 -- — World tourism is booming, withEurope’s best-known monuments groaning at the seams and tropicalislands at risk of being spoiled, the head of the World TourismOrganisation said in an interview.

The 138-member country organization’s most urgent task is to put into practice a code of ethics to protect sensitiveenvironments and shield remote cultures from the onslaught oftourists, Secretary General Francesco Frangialli told Reuters.

Things are going to get worse. The World TourismOrganization’s (WTO) forecasts show that by 2020 1.56 billiontourists a year will be roaming the world — more than doublethis year’s forecast of 668 million.

Vulnerability Worse for Some

“The pressure on the environment and on [travel]infrastructure will be high, even based on these conservativeforecasts,” Frangialli told Reuters.

Countries just opening to tourism are particularly vulnerablebecause their roads and airports are ill prepared for the hordesand their people are unused to Western customs.

The WTO has recently been helping India’s Andaman andNicobar islands develop tourism while respecting the Muslimlifestyle of local inhabitants, and found a solution in puttingtourist hotels on uninhabited islands to leave the local peopleundisturbed.

It has also advised the Maldives about water and wastemanagement as the Indian Ocean archipelago’s tourist tradegrows.

Europe can just about cope with its 400 million tourists ayear now, but not if they all come at the same time and want togo to the same places, he said.

“We get groups of Japanese girls coming to Europe for aweek and they all want to see the Mona Lisa and the Hermes shopin Paris and then go the Sistine Chapel and buy a bag at Gucciin Rome,” Frangialli said.

“We have to work on diversifying tourist flows to avoidconcentrations and lower the pressure on some sites andmonuments at certain times of year,” he said.