Towards a
more sustainable
dive tourism industry
-Why local communities matter
Scuba diving is one of the fastest growing recreational activities in the world - around one million people learn to dive every year. The dive tourism industry primarily caters to elite, higher spending visitors from the developed world, but many of the most popular destinations are located in the Global South. With more and more tourists travelling abroad to dive, the industry is having an immense economic impact on host destinations - but to what extent does dive tourism contribute to sustainable development? Two years ago, I travelled to Flores, a booming tourist destination in Indonesia, to investigate.
Flores is commonly known as the gateway to Komodo National Park which includes the islands of Komodo, Rinca and Padar, several smaller surrounding islands and more than 1,000 km² of marine habitat. The park is perhaps best known as the home of the iconic Komodo Dragon, but it is also one of the world's richest marine environments and a biodiversity hotspot, with more than 1,000 species of fish, 385 species of reef-building coral and 70 species of sponges, as well as dolphins, whales, turtles, dugongs, sharks, and rays. It offers an attractive destination for nature-based tourism and has evolved into a world-class diving destination attracting a growing number of divers every year.
Despite an influx of tourists (according to the Lonely Planet the island is “Indonesia’s next big thing”), Flores is located in one of the poorest provinces in Indonesia and the economic gains from tourism have yet to benefit the poorest members of society. This is a problem shared by many tourist destinations around the world and a growing recognition of this issue has fuelled the emergence of ‘sustainable tourism’ – the idea that tourism should not only increase a nation’s GDP, but should also increase the living standards, self-sufficiency, self-determination and empowerment of local communities while at the same time making a positive contribution to preserving the natural environment.
On the one hand, scuba diving has the potential to be an ideal form of sustainable tourism - the dive industry depends on healthy marine ecosystems, which means that it has a stake in protecting it. Indeed, many dive centres around the world actively engage in conservation efforts such as beach clean-ups and reef-surveys and try to do their part in protecting the underwater world. On the other hand, when it comes to local empowerment, self-sufficiency and self-determination, the high cost of dive training, equipment, and the need for advanced language and customer service skills present significant barriers. This is an issue that needs to be addressed, particularly as conservationists are increasingly realizing that effectively preserving nature means figuring out how doing so will be good for people; if local communities directly benefit from an industry dependent on healthy marine ecosystems, they are more likely to care about conserving it.(continued on page 21
16 - SEVENSEAS
By Helen Klimmek
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