Seeing amazing places, experiencing new cultures, meeting new people is a form of education in itself. Tourism, while leisure to many, is also a livelihood for a number of people.
Tourism, an important aspect of our lives in various forms, is at the helm of getting badly disrupted. And the reason is climate change. Damaging the fabric of life on not only macro but micro level, climate change has impacted our day-to-day lives in more ways than one.
TOURIST DESTINATIONS TRANSFORMING
Climate change is affecting tourist destinations in ways that cannot be reversed. Locations that were once the perfect getaway for people are losing their charm because of the deteriorating ecosystem.
A report by Deutsche Welle mentions how wide sand beaches at Mallorca, Spain are vanishing foot by foot due to the rising water levels. “Rising sea levels have swallowed up parts of the beach and radically altered this coastal landscape,” the report states.
Similar cases can be seen in places like the Alpine and the Mediterranean regions due to the effects of global warming, where people are avoiding visiting them. The European Alps are losing snow while the Mediterranean is warming up.
TOURISTS SHIFTING FOCUS
People are losing interest in places where climate change has been playing a key role in the destruction. Less footfall in places where tourism is the only means of livelihood can badly affect the economy of the place. Forest fires, new infectious diseases, and biodiversity loss, among others are the reasons why people have dropped a few places off their list of locations they were planning on visiting.
LESS TOURISM DOES NOT MEAN SUSTAINABLE CONDITIONS
With climate change curbing tourism in various places, a conundrum also surfaces. One would think less footfall is a positive sign for the flora and fauna of the place. In remote areas, if the locals start losing their means to earn daily bread, they might start hunting what the authorities have tried to conserve in the wild, a Reuters report suggested.
BALANCE AND ADAPT
Solutions need to be tailored with two important things in mind – Balance and Adapt. Tourism can be a threat or a driver of biodiversity but what form out of the two it takes, depends on how well we balance it and adapt to the changing face of tourist destinations.
