At a switchback called the Loop on Glacier National Park`s Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana, a family parked its car and opened the trunk to pull out some food. Then the parents held their two small children as the kids tried to feed and pet mule deer grazing in the brush near the parking area.
What the family was doing-feeding animals-was illegal. Had a park ranger come along, the family could have been ticketed and prosecuted.
The family had not read National Park Service literature or looked at posted signs, or simply thought they were at a petting zoo, not a national park and a wilderness area.
This single incident points out a major problem: While more people apparently are becoming environmentally conscious, some choose to ignore rules or common sense. When it comes to the environment, these people are jerks. For the two steps forward toward preserving the environment, there`s a step back taken by inconsiderate tourists.
The $330 U.S. billion tourism industry, third-largest retail business after auto and food sales, last month issued a 79-page report, ”Tourism and the Environment,” prepared by the U.S. Travel Data Center and published by the parent Travel Industry Association of America. The report, said the TIA, is a review of nearly 200 studies, surveys and polls on the environment and contains primary research about environmentally conscious travelers.
The report pinpoints the dilemma of the tourism industry all over the world. The assault on the environment comes from all quarters.
”The mere presence of large numbers of tourists can alter the setting that attracted them in the first place,” the report`s introduction says. For example, some of the tombs in Luxor, Egypt, reportedly must close because the perspiration produced by so many visitors has raised the humidity and is having a chemical impact on the tombs` wall paintings.
The masses of tourists who visit national and state parks, historic sites and other attractions in the public domain usually are mindful of where they are. They are drawn by the wonders of nature and history and take pains to treat these places with respect. In doing do, parents impart their own sensitivities to their children. But there are always the mindless ones who pick at the alabaster at the Alhambra in Granada to see if the substance is soft, or those who feel compelled to feed or torment animals in a park or carve their initials on canyon walls covered with pictographs left by Indians hundreds of years ago.
Among the areas covered by the travel industry report are environmental trends and concepts, consumer attitudes and behavior, environmental and tourism public policy, business and the environment, environmentally reponsible travel industry programs and things business can do.
The report provides a primer on environmental problems that affect the great outdoors and therefore impact directly or indirectly on the travel industry.
The problems cited by the report include air pollution (the U.S. has the dubious distinction of leading in total greenhouse gases emissions), global warming/ozone depletion (the death rate from melanoma, a serious form of skin cancer, increases at least 4 percent a year), destruction of rain forests/
habitat/wildlife (deforestation destroys 50 acres of rain forest every minute) and energy consumption (the U.S. consumes just more than one-quarter of the world`s annual oil and natural gas production, and nearly one-fifth of its coal, but has only 5 percent of the world`s population).
On the plus side, the tourism/environment report says that steps are being taken to curb environmental abuses all over the world. There`s greater concern over reducing air pollutants, recycling all sorts of materials, developing renewable energy sources and protecting our natural habitat.
Today`s consumers/travelers are more discriminating and demanding, according the U.S. Travel Data Center report. ”They have a strong sense of value and believe in spending their hard-earned money on high-quality, time-efficient and environmentally sensitive goods and services.”
Citing several surveys, the ”Tourism and the Environment” report says consumers appear to be willing to spend more to get more, that consumers don`t trust manufacturers and complain or organize boycotts when they don`t like what they get. One example: A consumer boycott of tuna products when reports surfaced that tuna fishermen were inadvertently killing dolphins.
The study, referring to a Gallup/Advertising Age survey, points out that more than 70 percent of the 1,514 consumers interviewed indicated that the government and business and industry are not worried enough about the environment.
At one moment we can see good things happening, and the next day learn of new environmental disasters.
Travelers can applaud efforts to clean up beaches, lakes, rivers and parks, then get depressed over vanishing wetlands, new oil and other toxic waste spills that foul the places where we live and play.
As the report shows, more travelers are looking for quality experiences. Americans are seeking out the scenic byways, roads protected to preserve their unique historic, scenic, recreation and educational attributes.
Increasing numbers of Americans are flocking to national parks, putting added pressure on the National Park Service to safeguard wilderness areas, although the parks are woefully underfunded by Congress.
If anything, the ”Tourism and the Environment” report shows the need for all of us to be responsible. Dealing with the jerks is a more complicated issue.
