Water and tourism

This chapter examines the use of water in the tourism sector with the aim of highlighting how relevant the issue of water scarcity is to the sector. It should be obvious to tourism scholars that tourism development requires a reliable supply of good quality water. What is less obvious is the extent to which tourism development is a major user of water and can contribute to water scarcity and water quality impairment, with serious social, economic and environmental repercussions. In order to devise measures that can be used to promote the prudent use of water in the tourism sector, research is needed to further understand the scale and nature of the problem. Despite a heightened academic and media interest in sustainable tourism in recent years, this has mostly concentrated on the contribution of carbon emissions from travel and accommodation to climate change, with the result that water use in the tourism sector remains a seriously understudied area. The chapter offers a review of the literature on water use in the tourism sector, but also draws heavily on studies from outside tourism to explain issues of general water scarcity and sustainable water use. The chapter looks at the consequences of current water use by the tourism sector and how these are having an impact on local water resources. The section that follows then looks at how the future development and growth of the sector along with impacts of climate change could induce changes in the way water is managed in tourism destinations, especially those which are likely to face increased water shortages. Finally, the chapter examines measures that have been effectively employed to encourage sustainable use of water in tourist destinations and also emphasise how a better understanding of the nature of the problem could eventually lead to the possible solutions.