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The concept of sustainability in tourism
Is this concept applicable to large tourist centres ?

Bruno GERBER - Manager of the Tourist Office, Davos, Switzerland

 

During the following talk, I will naturally concentrate on facts concerning Davos, where I come from, and my remarks will therefore be specific to Davos and will not pretend to be universally applicable.

There is no reason why a major holiday resort cannot adopt the concept of sustainable tourist development. This is the answer to the question hidden in the title of my talk. It can be done. However, whether it is likely to do it and wants to do it depends solely on its will. It is only a question of knowing whether this major centre has the will to show evidence of assessment, limitation and preservation in the management of its natural resources. If it is ready not to abide by certain limits !

To moderate, to restrict, and to preserve - these notions have a "defensive" connotation. They do not evoke initiative, innovation or modernisation. They are not appropriate at a time when everywhere the praises of the "Shareholder Value" are being sung. However : these notions are part of the concept of a sustainable tourist development ; their meaning is not in themselves, but in the context of "not only...but also...." :

Not only to moderate but also to strengthen and to increase economic prosperity, while improving the quality of life and well being. What I say is not free from contradiction.

When we speak of natural resources and describe them (understandably) as tourist capital, we need to be aware that the concept of sustainability implies in particular that one abandons the consumption of this capital, or at least that one consumes it sparingly. That is the crux of the matter !

If I am here today, it is not because the picture that Davos presents in 1999 is the result of a successful policy of sustainable development. It is also not by chance that today in Davos the demand - weak but audible - for sustainable tourist development is increasingly a matter for discussion.

It is necessary to recognise that in some aspects of Davos we need to correct and purify, because we have not respected the laws of sustainability.

Examples :

Pollution from traffic emissions in the town harms the quality of life and endangers the reputation of the town as a health resort.

Clinics, for whom the climate and the air in Davos are important therapeutic factors, risk losing one of the main reasons for staying at a stimulating high altitude. The argument of clear and pure air.

During the last 30-40 years, the construction of secondary homes and apartment buildings has been such that the amount of land available for building within the town of Davos is severely reduced, and the next generation will have restricted planning possibilities.

While tolerating arbitrary and variable architecture, Davos risks losing its urban identity. The loss of this identity goes hand in hand with the loss of subjective well being of the local population.

In other domains, Davos has generated and reinforced developments that have features almost typical of sustainability. These developments are not therefore the fruit of a sustainability strategy, defined beforehand then stubbornly respected thereafter, but rather the consequence of favourable circumstances, and not the result of

Davos shedding its tourist past, but rather considering it a means of protecting its activities in the present.

Example of agriculture. The area occupied by the town of Davos (about 250 km²) is very large for a country such as Switzerland. More than 80 % of forests and mountain land are privately owned. More than 80 families live from agriculture at an altitude of about 1600 metres, and it is interesting to note that they do not have problems of succession. Within the town boundary of Davos there is practically no high pasture nor area of forest that is not cultivated. Whereas elsewhere it is necessary to use "landscape gardeners" to avoid the agricultural decline of sizeable localities or protected forest, Davos has no problem of this type. This situation is the result of an informal solidarity pact by which persons responsible in the field of tourism commit themselves to buying products from farmers even though their price is higher than that of the major producers in the centre of Switzerland. Farmers, in return, take care of the "natural" capital. Sustainability for agriculture and for tourism!

Example of the symbiosis of the city and the countryside (nature). I mentioned that the urban areas of Davos, i.e. for those that know the place, Davos Platz and Davos Dorf, have seen the amount of available building land reduced and that the possibilities left for the next generations for urban construction will be limited. However, for the remainder of the territory (farmland), Davos has established a regulation for regional development that requires rigorous natural resource management. Real estate development in areas outside the centre of Davos is only possible in a very modest measure, and this right is practically reserved for local farmers. The fact that it is possible to pass in some minutes from the centre of Davos to an unspoilt natural landscape is thanks to these authorised "good works".

If real estate regulation oriented towards preservation and moderation was supported by the majority of citizens, in a region that is politically conservative and where property rights are strenuously defended as being of supreme importance, it is of course because there were reasons.

They are obvious: it is the local Davos farmers who own most of the large areas of land. Farmers who, in spite of an unfavourable opinion of their activity, want to cultivate their lands rather than to build on them.

If the tourist sector in Davos did not support the agricultural income by buying regional products, these proud farmers would have disappeared a long time ago. Their land would have already belonged for a long time to non-farmers, whose incentive would not be love of nature or the safeguard of the "natural" capital in the sense of sustainable tourism.

Example of diversification (social consequences). Until towards the end of the Second World War, Davos was especially famous as a spa.

Certainly, for more than one hundred years, the town was also a holiday centre. The predominance of clinics and the large number of patients in comparison with healthy holidaymakers were, however, significant. The "miraculous mountain" was not a fiction. The image of Davos was defined by patients and their recovery.

When a medicine (penicillin/streptomycin) was found to be a more efficient therapy against consumption (tuberculosis) than a long stay in the good air of Davos, the town was quickly deprived of its means for existence. Patients did not come anymore, clinics were closed and jobs lost. To speak familiarly, the economy of Davos was knocked out. What lesson has Davos learned from this economic disaster, which was more than 50 years ago ? Davos no longer wanted to concentrate almost completely on only one economic sector! In spite of the fact that the town, situated away from the economic centre of the country, did not have any real chance of promoting an economic activity that was not tourist related.

Let's take a jump forwards : Davos 1999. Davos is different. It is, in both winter and summer, a sporting and cultural centre, a place of vacations and relaxation, a place for hypermodern spa visits, a metropolis for international conventions, a centre for services and a pole of scientific research of international renown. Davos is about to become a destination for all seasons of the year. Davos 1999 has recently been designated the most dynamic town in Switzerland.

You are not unreasonably wondering what all this has to do with the theme of this congress : sustainable tourism. I find that the sustainable tourism concept underestimates the aspect of social relevance. In other words, from the point of view of the inhabitant of the tourist centre.

From the aspect of the quality of life, of the subjective feeling of wellbeing, the diversity and the quantity of jobs, the diversity and the quality of the training available in the town itself.

It is thanks to the policy of diversification, followed with perseverance, and to the promotion of activities mentioned above that Davos today has no exodus of its young population, that this small town in the Alps has about 450 high-level academic jobs, and that Davos preserves its own life outside tourist holiday periods.

The major tourist sites and the possibility of applying the concept of sustainability. Whereas Davos claims sustainability as we mean it at this convention, in the case of tourist diversification, it is actually the result of deliberate planning, and in other cases (agriculture / preservation of the local territory from over-exploitation), it is the result of a favourable dynamics.

The concept of sustainability experienced a rebirth at the Rio conference on the environment. More than 40 years of activity in the domain of tourism has left me with a certain amount of cynicism. It is why, if I do not doubt that the "sustainability" concept has experienced a rebirth, I say that it is necessary to find "proof of sustainability" of tourism, before evoking its rebirth.

The UN Brundtland report formulated the basis of the problem : "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Amen.

The eve of the new millennium has been well chosen as the date of the summit in Chamonix. Central European countries are at the beginning of an economic recovery, and the time approaches where even die-hard liberals will play with the notions of "environment", "preservation of resources" or "fight against disparities". It would be or it is cynical to affirm that these notions have had the importance that they are owed in the approach of decision-makers in the economically weak 1990s (the post-Rio years).

Having arrived at the end of my talk, I will answer the question in the title : of course, it is possible to apply the "concept of sustainability" to a large tourist centre. The applicability of this concept has nothing to do with the size of the place, but with the judgement and the will of those responsible for the site.

One last thing: we can almost find comfort in knowing that "sustainability" will finally arrive at the moment when penalty mechanisms take effect. When, following bad or over-development, tourists stay away and it is necessary to make repairs. I hope for us all that our lasting speeches on sustainability will have a lasting effect. Thank you !