Draft Report
Headline lessons from our exchange;
Tourism that develops without planning, regulation or any kind of longer term vision can result in horrific development and a low quality product that degrades a location for both guests and inhabitants.
Zakynthos is not directly comparable to Cumbria in terms of the tourism offer (this is a low-value package holiday destination), but seeing this worse-case scenario of tourism gone wrong was extremely thought provoking.
Even mainstream guidebooks to the destination are full of negative PR about the degradation of the marine habitat and especially the destroyning of the loggerhead turtle nesting beaches. This is a huge own goal for the local tourism industry and results in the tourism offer becoming ever cheaper and nastier, and higher value tourists being repelled.
Wildlife tourism is viewed by several of the island’s inhabitants as a more sympathetic and authentic kind of tourism that offers them high quality work/lifestyle experiences whilst at the same time attracting higher spending visitors who in turn have a greater respect for the island’s people, values and environment. It is viewed as a counterpoint to the negative impact of tourism in the past two decades on the island.
Environmental/Landscape designations are only worth the paper they are written on if the organisations on the ground have a clear remit and the ability to enforce it. In Zakynthos the local political culture has resulted in a situation where the National Marine Park is little more than a paper exercise and the local people are hostile to any manifestation of it.
The cost associated with non-compliance with EU Directives is massive, the Greek government is incurring millions of euros in unpaid fines for non-compliance with directives on their marine habitat. Given the implementation of the Water Framework Directive Cumbria should continue to plan ahead to resolve our issues.
Cumbria is by no means perfect, but we should continue to develop our green holiday credentials, and should perhaps bring further attention to our successes to potential consumers as a selling point in the future.
‘THIS IS NOT GREECE!’
Team Leader’s Report from STEEP ZAKYNTHOS exchange
Anyone on the team who supposed that a week on Zakynthos (Zante) studying tourism sounded like unadulterated pleasure, was soon disabused of this notion. This exchange was often depressing and frequently thought provoking.
The Vasilikos Peninsula is the frontline in the battle of ideas about the future of tourism. The STEEP Zakynthos Team, met the people fighting to protect Zakynthos (Zante) from rampant development and commercialization through cheap package tourism. The trip was accompanied at all times by gunfire and at times we witnessed outright hostility (see below) to our hosts.
Our host, Ioannis Vardakastanis, is a pioneer in environmental tourism, and he has fought to change the island’s behaviour and its tourism offer. He was originally a mainstream businessman, but over time he became disillusioned with the damage that development was doing to his island and became a champion of a more sophisticated and sympathetic kind of tourism.
Tourism development is highly politicised on Zakynthos. Taking the position he takes has led to many problems; like him being shot. The first information centre built by Ioannis to educate tourists about the damage being done to the turtle nesting beaches was burnt down. Conservationists on Zakynthos have been beaten up on many occasions, and some have even been shot. As everyone on the island is armed to the teath to shoot turtle doves, and we were travelling with the most famous conservationist/businessman on the island it was a rather edgy experience.
The Vassilikos peninsula is a place of such polarisation that it is already the subject of a rather interesting book, Troubles with Turtles, Cultural Understandings of the Environment on a Greek Island, by Dimitrios Theodossopoulos, this book charts the social and cultural history of the local farmers and explains how they were effectively peasants with very few rights and little access to land they could own or control until well into the 20th century.
The farmers who had the poorest land on island were in the coastal areas and scraped a living. Then, in the 1980s and 1990s this island suddenly underwent an economic revolution created by package holidays and charter flights to the island.
As our host explained, the farmers went from being very poor to ‘unbelievably rich’ overnight. No sooner did they get access to the land and the money that can been made from tourism than environmentalists started to campaign against the damage to the environment… to cut a long story short, the result was a polarisation between locals and environmentalism that is aggressive by anyone’s standards and continues to this day.
This book and the tale it tells about Gerakas was echoed in Ioannis’s words and is a lesson for us all in taking the local community with you when you attempt to implement policies or designations.
***
In a few moments of arriving in Zakynthos we were made painfully aware that this is island has very serious problems. One of our team counted the gunshots from our accommodation and recorded 600 shots per hour from the hunters in the surrounding woods. We had stumbled into the annual massacre of turtle doves (and anything else that moved) as they migrate north. Some of this shooting is illegal, but there is no enforcement of the legislation. Our first meeting took place with cartridge pellets rattling on the roof!
On the first day we met our hosts, who represented three organisations; Earth, Sea and Sky, Nature World Travel and Ionian Eco-Villages. The STEEP CUMBRIA team did presentations and fielded questions from the hosts (including a searching question about how our own visitor numbers have risen in the last few years and how we cope with such numbers in the landscape).
We met at the Gerakas Information Centre near Gerakas beach, an important nesting beach for the endangered Loggerhead Turtle. Our host then explained the history of tourism on the island and his own history (he was born on the Vassilikos peninsula before the tourism development and later lived in England for 15 years). We learnt that our accommodation was part of his family’s diversification and it enabled his family to remain on the land as farmers.
Ioannis’s father had a small mixed farm that consisted of 30 sheep, some pigs and a few dozen hens, geese, and turkeys, alongside some vineyards and cultivated land for household vegetables. During the week we had the pleasure of meeting with the wider family, and talking to them about the tensions on the island about the future of tourism.
This farm tourism pattern is common in the Ionian where 6 months of tourism takes place alongside year round farming in the traditional manner. The island is a complicated mix of olive groves, villas, hotels, tavernas, beaches and wilderness scrubland. It alternates from the stunningly beautiful (the coast is as beautiful as anything in the mediterranean) to the utterly horrific (if you ever find yourself in Laganas a) leave, or b) do not swim in the sea!).
We repeatedly met inhabitants of the island who were sickened by the way that tourism is spoiling their home, with seemingly no organisation able to stem its onward march. We also met several people who could see very clearly that pursuing the cheapest kind of tourism was a mistake that would utimately leave the island spoiled, and the tourists would eventually tire of the poor quality offer and go elsewhere, to their even lower cost competitors elsewhere in the Med.
A day spent touring the island in a mini-bus showed us the villages to the North of the Island where life continues in a more old-fashioned form, to see the contrast between what now covers most of the island and what was there until a few decades ago. We saw lots of signs claiming to sell ‘local produce’ but sadly, were told that most of it is made in China or elsewhere. Our hosts were interested in how Cumbria markets itself and its products but Zakynthos seemed to be a long way behind us in terms of this aspect of its identity.
On the Thurday we met Laurent Sourbes, National Marine Park of Zakynthos. Laurent faces massive problems trying to get anyone to comply with even basic legislation regarding the marine park, but was doing his best to protect what was still worth protecting. Earlier, we had witnessed a bulldozer carving a hillside that is part of the area protected by legislation but seemingly nothing could be done to stop this. Laurent explained to us that ‘it was an economic problem’.
Interesting comparisons emerged between our own interest in more sustainable tourism and their efforts. We spent a great day on the yacht of local businessman Dennis XXXXXXX and XXXXXXX, who take tourists out on their yacht to show them the island and its wildlife.
Wildlife viewing trips are a sizeable economic activity on the island. Ioannis, also has a catamarran, and seven days a week takes between 10 and 20 people out per trip at 40 euros (the standard charge was 55-65 euros).
Wildlife tourism in the form of turtle trips is a core part of the tourism offer, with very few other ‘outings’ available, but the quality of most of the offer was a matter of deep concern to to turtle organisations. We passed the large and ugly ships used to take hundreds of tourists out in the peak season, and heard horror stories of how they offer money back if you do not see a turtle. Some years ago they were caught with plastic turtles chained to the ocean bed, or, far worse, a dead turtle anchored off the coast. 200ft long ships surround a turtle whilst tourists hang over the rails.
With hundreds of people per day paying 50 euros per head this was generating a lot of money during the season. However, it was clear that whilst money was to be made from this kind of activity, and more can be done in Cumbria, regulation was needed to ensure the offer is of a high quality from the start, the higher value tourists likely to be interested in this kind of activity in Cumbria are not likely to be impressed unless the offer is extremely professional, perhaps the conservation/landscape organisations and CTB should discuss how this might develop in the future. This regulation is now being attempted by the greek authorities but the horse has already bolted the stable.
We experienced the higher quality wildlife tour offer, spending an enjoyable day on a yacht on the coast, including a brief but close sighting of a family of common dolphins, several sightings of peregrine falcons, and some stunning coastal scenery including many caves along the coast. The flora of the island is stunning, where it has not been bulldozed for olive groves or hotels and villas. We sailed to Keri Caves, Pelouzo Island, Marathonissi and Laganas Bay and got a unique and wonderful view of the best and worst of the island.
However, we could see, even more clearly than from the roads, the spoiling of the island, through unsympathetic development. Whole hillsides being bulldozed into terraces for olives groves or villas. Corruption is rife on the island with developers leaving developments unfinished for many years.
Our guides around the island and our hosts could see that pursuing a tourism based upon the quality of the offer, would result in fewer tourists but would result in both a nicer island and also potentially a vastly increased spend, but it they were very much outnumbered by other islanders who are racing to get a share of the easy money that is on offer from developing new land for villas and hotels.
It is hard to convey in words the situations that we witnessed, the sheer lack of authority or planning control. And even the most tourism-business-friendly amongst us, were repelled by this lawless and unsympathetic development style. Looking at the negative impact of tourism is a rather ugly and tiresome business.
Our host, Ioannis, conveyed to us his utter dismay and embarrassment at the things that are being done to his island. As he repeatedly stated, ‘This is not Greece’.
His embarrassment was matched by ours when we realised that the effects on the island were the result of consumer choices in our own country for cheap, lager-fuelled breaks in the sun.
***
The idea behind these exchanges was threefold; firstly, that we would travel to other tourism destinations and learn from their experiences in offering sustainable tourism and eco-tourism; secondly, that we would be spending time with each other and building working relationships that would be beneficial for Cumbria in the years to come, and, thirdly, that we would bring back ideas or contacts for the future that will enable us to work with European partners.
The exchanges therefore will result in totality in an overall perspective on these issues that ambraces several markedfly different experiences. It is to the credit of the Zakynthos team that they visited and gathered evidence on some of the worst practices and effects of tourism, and endured what was at times a slightly depressing experience. When we bring our evidence together at the end of the exchanges we will hopefully be able to show a range of experiences from the awful through to the fantastic.
One of the more pleasing aspects of the exchange was the fact that wherever we went conversations began between the team about our work, our organisations and what we are all trying to achieve. A number of meetings were set to result, and some common ground emerged that will be fruitful in the future.
***
Lessons for Cumbria on wildlife tourism
Wildlife tourism needs quality equipment and transport
It needs to be linked into decent quality ‘green’ accommodation
Wildlife viewing will always be hit or miss – it needs depth and interest created by the guide and the overall package
The guide needs to have the dynamism/charm to enliven an empty/wet day
Wildlife tours need to be linked to cultural heritage and flora
Cumbria has a wealth of wildlife that is suitable for such packages
The average consumer has limited attention and patience – packages need depth of topics and flexibility
posted by James @ 12:43 PM
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