Tourism in Antarctica – An Introduction

Today’s post will be a light one, introducing tourism and the different ways that it impacts Antarctica.

It is correct to say that there are no continents on Earth that humans have not touched. Human visits to Antarctica were initially for research only. However humans are visiting the continent in vast numbers for no reason other than for entertainment and pleasure (see Figure 2). Seeing wildlife is perhaps the only reason why tourists venture out to Antarctica, but ironically, their activities are harming the very environment which they claim to idolise. The visits have been identified as causing disturbance to wildlife, having negative impacts on vegetation and soil and leaving litter ashore (Bauer, 1994). Furthermore, Aronson et al. (2011) identify further disruptions to the environment such as pollution and the introduction of invasive species. These impacts are no doubt harmful to the Antarctic ecosystem. This raises some important questions such as: to what extent is the industry being regulated, what does the future of Antarctic tourism look like given the issues concerning ice instability and global warming and how severe is the wildlife impact of tourism?

Figure 1: Tourists observing penguins

Figure 2 shows the pace of tourism growth in recent years. This graph is an indication of what the future for Antarctica holds and the severity of the impact of humans through tourism. The figure shows that total tourism increased to more than 45,000 visits per year from 2007 to 2008. After 2008, there has been an overall decline in tourism, falling to about 37,000 per year in 2009. This is presumable attributed to the global financial crisis and reduction in consumer spending as incomes fell. Nevertheless, tourist numbers are still higher than they have been for the past 20 years.

Figure 2: Estimated numbers of passengers travelling annually to Antarctica on expeditions and cruise-only tour ships between 1992-2010. Source: Aronson et al. (2011)

Keep a look out for the answers to the above questions and insightful discussions on this topic!