dossier sur le tourisme et le développement durable

56
Tourism and the Environment
development by air transport was therefore quickly rejected. The only alternative remains sea
transport by ferry. The existing lines can transport the tourists to the bigger island but the lines for
the smaller islands were made in function of the inhabitants’ needs and so they are not adapted for
tourists.
The solution chosen is one that goes in the direction of high speed sea transport from the airports of
Split and Dubrovnik so that transfer time is not greater than three hours. Service has to be supple so
that it can be adapted to the evolution in the demand for various islands.
Source : TEC, Monica Trsic’s contribution (Croatia)
At the level of the destinations, car traffic can be a great nuisance factor, especially in the
popular mature destinations where traffic is heavy. For example in the high season in Calvià,
there are 70 000 cars on the road every day for a total of 70 million trips per year. Tourists
contribute to more than 70 % of these trips, with an average of 2.25 trips per person and per
day. In France, according to a study carried out in 1995, parking was considered as “difficult” or
“saturated” in tourist periods in about 40% of the towns with more than 20 000 inhabitants and
the traffic the same in 30 to 40% of towns. In Malta, 40% of the tourists use rental cars. Tourist
traffic can cause air pollution problems in towns with devastating effect on the facades of
historical monuments.
Frame 12: An attempt at an overall approach: the ecological footprint
The WWF of Great Britain and Thomson Travel carried out a joint exercise to calculate the
ecological footprint caused by tourist stays in Cyprus and Majorca starting from Great Britain. The
ecological footprint (the method is still subject to discussion) permits the environmental
repercussions of a trip to be brought to one single index, expressed in surface units. The main
interest of this is the fact that it permits the assessment of the global impact, taking into account
indirect or misjudged impact (transport of food to the tourist destinations, impact of excursions,
various purchases made by the hotels) but especially to see how this impact can be broken down
and to find ways for improvement. For example, increasing plane occupancy rate to 98%, recycling
25% of the waste, reducing meat consumption by 20% in favour of local vegetable products,
reducing electricity consumption by 20% and replacing 20% by solar energy would lower the
ecological footprint by 18%.
A stay in Majorca represents 5% of the ecological footprint of an Englishman and a stay in Cyprus
14%. The main component of the ecological footprint is by far air transport, with 56% and 46% of the
total for Majorca and Cyprus respectively, on the basis of a two-week stay. Waste is responsible for
25% and 35% respectively.
Source: WWF, 2001