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Journal of Resources and Ecology >

2022 , Vol. 13 >Issue 4: 697 - 707

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2022.04.015

Ice and Snow Tourism Impact Assessment

A Responsible Tourism System at Glacier Tourism Sites: Reducing the Impacts of Tourism Activities on Glaciers

  • WANG Shuxin , 1, 2 ,
  • TAN Chunping 3 ,
  • DU Jiankuo 1 ,
  • TANG Zi 4 ,
  • LIU Chenyan 1 ,
  • WANG Yarong 1
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  • 1. School of Humanities, Shaanxi University of Technology, Hanzhong, Shaanxi 723000, China
  • 2. Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China
  • 3. Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610207, China
  • 4. School of Tourism and Cuisine, Harbin University of Commerce, Harbin 150076, China

WANG Shuxin, E-mail:

Received date: 2021-01-05

  Accepted date: 2021-08-30

  Online published: 2022-06-07

Supported by

The National Natural Science Foundation of China(41501159)

The National Natural Science Foundation of China(41801137)

The China Postdoctoral Science Foundation(2014M560731)

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Abstract

The anthropogenic heat release from tourism activities has a cumulative effect on glacial retreat when coupled with climate change. Mitigating the impacts of glacial tourism activities on glaciers and promoting the sustainable development of glacial tourism have become urgent issues. Taking Yulong and Hailuogou glacier tourism destinations as examples, we collected survey questionnaires related to glacial tourists (n=1113) and tourism companies (n=329) by systematic field surveys during 2016-2017, and we obtained data on energy consumption from catering, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, shopping, entertainment, and waste disposal. This study builds a responsible tourism system and discusses the strategies and measures used to engage stakeholders (mainly tourism companies, tourists, local governments, tourism associations, and the central government) in responsible tourism in order to reduce the impacts of tourism activities on glaciers. These strategies mainly include: improving the energy efficiency of the supply of tourism products and services, promoting the consumption of low-energy tourism products and services, strengthening the supervision and management of low-energy consumption tourism development, creating an environment for energy savings and consumption reduction, and establishing a long-term operational mechanism for responsible tourism management. A rewsponsible tourism system allows stakeholders to properly address this dilemma, internalize sustainable development goals to find their intrinsic self-discipline, and work together to fulfill the public responsibility of realizing the sustainable development of glacial tourism.

Key words： glacier tourism; stakeholders; responsible tourism system; sustainable development

Cite this article

WANG Shuxin , TAN Chunping , DU Jiankuo , TANG Zi , LIU Chenyan , WANG Yarong . A Responsible Tourism System at Glacier Tourism Sites: Reducing the Impacts of Tourism Activities on Glaciers[J]. Journal of Resources and Ecology, 2022 , 13(4) : 697 -707 . DOI: 10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2022.04.015

1 Introduction

As an important type of tourism attraction, glaciers are diverse landforms which provide beautiful natural scenery. Many glacial tourism destinations, such as the Yulong and Hailuogou glaciers in China, have become well known around the world. These glacial tourism destinations attract many tourists. According to the Lijiang Tourism Development Committee and the Hailuogou Scenic Spot Administration, the number of tourists visiting Yulong Snow Mountain National Glacier Park and Hailuogou National Glacier Forest Park reached 4.3×106 and 2.16×106 persons in 2018, respectively. However, the sustainability of glacial tourism is being threatened. Glacial tourism depends on resources that are scarce, fragile, and sensitive to climate change (Liu et al., 2006). Along with global warming, the changes in glaciers, such as the rapid retreat and disappearance of glacial scenery, have influenced glacial tourism activities (Wang and Zhou, 2019). A survey of Yulong glacial tourism suggests that glacier recession is a factor in the decline in the number of visitors (Yuan et al., 2006). The same situation occurred in New Zealand, with glacial tourism being threatened by glacier recession (Purdie, 2013), and Pastoruri Glacier Park even had to be closed in 2007 because of the increasing glacial recession (Bury et al., 2011). Meanwhile, large-scale glacial tourism activities have resulted in changes in the glaciers. The results of Wang et al. (2019) indicate that, along with global warming, large-scale tourism activities have contributed to rising temperatures by effecting a significant local temperature increase, which has had a cumulative effect on changes in the glaciers at the Yulong and Hailuogou destinations.
Due to these factors, the sustainability of glacial tourism is a growing concern among researchers. The existing research primarily focuses on two aspects. The first aspect is the influence of changes in glaciers on tourism activities, such as examining how climate-induced glacial changes influence visitors (Scott et al., 2007), analyzing the implications of climate change for glacial visitors and stakeholders (Stewart et al., 2016), assessing tourists’ risk perception and preferences in light of glacial retreat (Pröbstl-Haider et al., 2016), evaluating tourists’ perceptions of environmental changes in glacierized destinations (Garavaglia et al., 2012), analyzing the relationship between climate change and summer glacier skiing (Demiroglu et al., 2018), assessing the impact of glacier recession on tourism (Bury et al., 2011), evaluating the susceptibility of tourism destinations to glacier changes (Espiner and Becken, 2014), and analyzing the potential danger of glacial changes to tourism activities (Purdie et al., 2015). The results indicate that increasing glacier recession threatens the sustainability of glacial tourism. The second aspect is the analysis of adaptation strategies, such as calling for a collaborative adaptation and change policy (Morrison and Pickering, 2013), keeping the altitude of the surface constant by decreasing ablation or increasing accumulation (Fischer et al., 2011), developing glacier tourism in a planned and moderate manner (Wang et al., 2010), establishing tourist and educational facilities (Rasmussen, 2019), developing multifunctional tourist sites in glacierized destinations (Kaenzig et al., 2016), and examining tourist preferences and willingness to pay to slow glacier loss (Naald, 2020). Actually, adopting mitigation measures for climate change is also an important aspect of sustainable glacier tourism. However, as a relatively new field, few studies have examined glacier tourism (Welling et al., 2015). Relevant research on mitigating the impact of large-scale tourism activities on glaciers is lacking, especially from the perspective of the anthropogenic heat release that is induced by energy consumption. Actually, the energy consumption of large-scale tourism activities is one of the most important causes of negative environmental impacts (Katircioglu, 2014). Previous research shows that increases in tourist populations increase temperatures (Zhang and Wu, 2015). Furthermore, this temperature-increasing effect affects some tourism resources that are very sensitive to temperature increases, such as the glaciers at tourism sites (Wang et al., 2019). Against the backdrop of climate change, mitigating the impacts of glacial tourism activities on glaciers by reducing the anthropogenic heat release from large-scale tourism activities has become an urgent issue.
In view of this need, the objective of this study is to investigate the strategies and measures for engaging stakeholders in responsible tourism at glacial tourism sites to reduce the impacts of tourism activities on glaciers. The two main research questions are as follows. 1) Who are the major stakeholders of glacial tourism sites? How do the stakeholders build a responsible tourism system for glacial tourism destinations? 2) How does a responsible tourism system reduce the impacts of anthropogenic heat release from tourism activities on glaciers?
Using two Chinese glacial tourism destinations with similarities in their locations, glacier types and management models, Yulong Snow Mountain National Glacier Park in Lijiang and Hailuogou National Glacier Forest Park in Hailuogou, as examples, we focus on discussing the strategies and measures used in responsible tourism to reduce the negative impacts of anthropogenic heat release on changes in the glaciers. This work attempts to build a responsible tourism system for glacial tourism sites, filling in the current research gap, enriching the research on responsible tourism in general, and expanding the analytical perspective on sustainable tourism. The results of this study are of significance as they promote glacial tourism in a sustainable way and provide suggestions for other glacial tourism sites.

2 Study areas and research methods

2.1 Study areas

Yulong and Hailuogou Parks are located at the southeastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China (Fig. 1). They have developed into representative glacial destinations and are categorized as 5A (the highest level) tourism sites. According to the Lijiang Tourism Development Committee, the number of tourists visiting Yulong Snow Mountain National Glacier Park has rapidly increased from 7.0×103 persons in 1990 to 4.3×106 persons in 2018, for an average annual growth rate of 25.8%. Meanwhile, the retreat of the glacier (Baishui No.1) was 8.8 m yr-1 from 1982-1999, but it accelerated to 13.8 m yr-1 from 1999-2011 (Du et al., 2013). Hailuogou Park is characterized by a low altitude and strong glacial activity. The ice tongue extends below the line of the Emei fir forest, forming a unique landscape of glaciers and forests. According to the Hailuogou Scenic Spot Administration, the number of tourists visiting the park has increased from 2.7×103 persons in 1990 to 2.16×106 persons in 2018, for an average annual growth rate of 27.0%. In addition, the retreat of Hailuogou Glacier was 0.9 m yr-1 during 1967-1989, but it accelerated to 2.4 m yr-1 during 1990-2006 (Li et al., 2010).
Fig. 1 Locations of Yulong Snow Mountain National Glacier Park and Hailuogou Glacier Forest Park
Due to the intensified glacier retreat at both sites, some mitigation measures have been taken, including the following.
(1) The awareness of environmental protection has been enhanced. The Lijiang Municipal Government (2018) proposed “to protect the ecological environment as one protects eyes, and treat the ecological environment as one treats life; to have the tenacious determination to win the difficult battle against pollution; and to coordinate pollution prevention and control of gas, transportation, motor vehicles and vessels.” When developing Hailuogou Park, the Overseas Chinese Town Holdings Company posited the concept of “traceless tourism” in an effort to mitigate the impacts of large-scale tourism activities on natural resources.
(2) The ecological environmental protection was strengthened using various measures. The Hailuogou Administration Bureau established a special environmental management division in 2013 to promote pollutant reduction supervision and management, as well as environmental pollution prevention and control. The Lijiang Municipal Government facilitated the implementation of pilot programs, such as solar water heating, solar heating and the combination of solar energy and ground-source heat pumps, and created a “green hotel” rating. Yulong Park improved the ecological environment and reduced the impacts of large-scale tourism activities on the environment by increasing the amount of forest vegetation and by building artificial lakes to create an “oasis effect” and a “cold lake effect”.
(3) The glaciers were protected by limiting the forms of tourism and the number of visitors. The Yulong and Hailuogou Parks only allow glacier sightseeing from a distance. There are no glacier-related tours, such as glacier skiing. Without a doubt, glacier sightseeing alone has a much smaller impact than activities such as glacier skiing (Bury et al., 2011). In 2018, Yulong Park controlled passenger flow to protect the glaciers by limiting the number of glacier visitors to 10000 per day.
(4) Tourism companies’ energy consumption and emissions were restricted through taxation. In 2018, the Lijiang and Hailuogou governments imposed environmental protection taxes on enterprises, producers and operators who directly discharge air pollutants. To some extent, this improved the environmental awareness of tourism enterprises, reminded them of their emission reduction responsibilities and acted as a constraint mechanism.
The aforementioned sustainable measures have only had limited effects on reducing the anthropogenic heat release from large-scale tourism activities, so they are not sufficient to ensure the sustainable development of the glacial tourism sites. The major unresolved issues include four aspects.
(1) Because the two glacial tourism sites are located in underdeveloped areas in China, there is insufficient funding for innovative research, experiments and development. The overall research and development capabilities for energy saving and consumption reduction technology are low, and investments in energy saving and emissions reduction promoting technologies and products are insufficient. The majority of the suppliers of tourism products and services lack responsible tourism awareness. They do not have a strong enough awareness to conserve energy and reduce consumption through product and service innovations. Additionally, they are not motivated to improve energy efficiency through technological transformation, equipment upgrades and applying new technologies. In particular, self-employed people are less conscious and are not motivated to improve energy efficiency, promote energy conservation or reduce consumption. Tourism enterprises perform energy conservation and consumption reduction primarily to improve their economic benefits. They have not yet associated energy conservation and consumption reductions with the protection of glacier resources.
(2) Local government departments do not have a strong sense or ability to conduct responsible tourism management. This is reflected in the lack of technological, policy and institutional systems for coordinating regional tourism development and glacier protection, and in the lack of comprehensive supervision and management measures. Because of the insufficient publicity and promotion of responsible tourism, the tourism industry has not yet formed an environment that facilitates responsible tourism consumption, energy conservation and consumption reductions in the production and supply of tourism products and services.
(3) Tourists do not have a strong sense or high enthusiasm for responsible tourism. They often neglect the negative externalities that are caused by tourism activities. A survey of 1113 glacier tourists in Yulong and Hailuogou by the authors showed that 34% of the tourists had no clear intention to conserve energy or reduce consumption. There was a tendency for luxury consumption, such as a preference for luxurious hotels and dining in a gluttonous and wasteful manner. According to the survey conducted by the authors, because the average energy consumption per bed per day of a five-star hotel (173.8 MJ in Yulong and 170.9 MJ in Hailuogou) is approximately three times that of a typical residential house (61.2 MJ in Yulong and 63.7 MJ in Hailuogou), staying in five-star hotels significantly increases energy consumption and the anthropogenic heat release.
(4) The distributions of the rights, obligations and interests of the glacial resources in Yulong and Hailuogou are asymmetrical. Because glacier resources are owned by the state, managed by the local governments, and developed by tourism companies, conflicts are inevitable between these different stakeholders. The state emphasizes environmental and resource protection, but this tends to be more on paper than in practice. Meanwhile, local governments attach great importance to realizing economic goals through tourism, while tourism companies pay more attention to economic benefits and neglect other aspects, such as glacial impacts.

2.2 Research methods

2.2.1 Field surveys

We conducted systematic field surveys in Yulong and Hailuogou Parks during 2016-2017, which were supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation. Survey questionnaires related to glacial tourists (n=1113) and tourism companies (n=329) were collected for the two destinations. We obtained data on the energy consumption from catering, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, shopping, entertainment, and waste disposal in Yulong and Hailuogou. Additionally, we also visited local governments, the Lijiang Tourism Development Committee and the Hailuogou Scenic Spot Administration. Table 1 shows a portion of the data used in this paper.
Table 1 Energy consumption in Yulong and Hailuogou
Source Yulong Hailuogou
Five-star hotel 173.8 MJ per bed per day 170.9 MJ per bed per day
Typical residential house 61.2 MJ per bed per day 63.7 MJ per bed per day
Cars 248.6 MJ per tourist 123.4 MJ per tourist
Buses 122.1 MJ per tourist 72.1 MJ per tourist
Transportation More than half of the tourists (54.15%) use small vehicles such as privately owned and rental cars
Tourists 34% of the tourists had no clear intention to conserve energy or reduce consumption

2.2.2 A responsible tourism system for glacial tourism sites

The analysis of the sustainable development of tourism sites from the stakeholders’ perspective is an important direction for tourism research and has attracted much attention (Morrison, 2013). Stakeholder theory can help to identify and define the major stakeholders in the field of tourism. Specifically, the major stakeholders can be identified and defined according to their potential to either threaten or cooperate with tourism destination management organizations (Sheehan and Ritchie, 2005; Wang and Xie, 2020). Based on investigations and China’s institutional framework for tourism resource management, we comprehensively analyzed the major departments that are responsible for improving the sustainability of glacial tourism. There are five major stakeholders for glacial tourism sites: 1) tourism companies, 2) tourists, 3) local governments, 4) tourism associations and (5) the central government (see Fig. 2).
Fig. 2 A responsible tourism system for glacial tourism sites
(1) Tourism companies—These are the suppliers of all tourism products and services (including small businesses and self-employed people) for glacial tourism, such as companies providing catering, accommodations, transportation, sightseeing, shopping, entertainment, and waste disposal.
(2) Tourists—This category primarily encompasses the visitors to the Yulong and Hailuogou Glacier Parks.
(3) Local governments—For Yulong Park, the governing body is the Lijiang Municipal Government and its relevant agencies; for Hailuogou park, the governing body is the Hailuogou Scenic Area Administration Bureau.
(4) Tourism associations—These are the organizations of all tourism-related associations.
(5) The central government—This is the central government of the People’s Republic of China.
Meanwhile, guided by responsible tourism theory, the stakeholders should jointly build a responsible tourism system for glacial tourism sites. The essence of responsible tourism is to consider tourism’s impacts on the economy, environment, and society, and to commit to providing tourism activities with minimal negative influences. The key to the success of responsible tourism is a sense of responsibility, which means that the planning, policy, and development processes of tourism should promote sustainable resource management and the optimized distribution of benefits (Goodwin, 2011) in order to minimize the negative environmental impacts of tourism activities (Lee et al., 2013) and create better places to visit (ICRT, 2014). This system focuses on reducing the negative impacts of tourist activities and tourism development on glacier changes. Tourism companies should be encouraged to provide responsible tourism products and services, tourists should choose responsible tourism products and services and consume responsible tourism, local governments should manage and guide coordination between the regional tourism industry and glacier protection, tourism associations should create an environment for energy savings for tourism companies and tourists, and the central government of the People’s Republic of China should establish a long-term operational mechanism between tourism economy and natural tourism resource protection.

3 Responsible tourism measures

Confronted with threats to the sustainable development of the Yulong and Hailuogou glacial tourism sites, it is necessary to respond to a series of existing problems and encourage stakeholders to adopt responsible tourism measures in order to reduce the anthropogenic heat release that is induced by energy consumption and realize sustainable glacial development. The key to reducing the impacts of glacier tourism activities is to decrease energy consumption and increase energy efficiency.

3.1 Continuously improve the energy efficiency of the supply of tourism products and services

As the major suppliers of tourism products and services, tourism companies are important for promoting the tourism industry in a sustainable way. The supply of responsible tourism products and services and efforts to continuously improve energy efficiency will also contribute to the reduction of the anthropogenic heat release. Specific measures to be adopted are as follows.
(1) Innovate tourism products and services that promote energy conservation and consumption reductions. For example, hotels and restaurants should provide more vegetables and reduce the amount of meat products because, compared with meat products such as beef, lamb, chicken, and pork, vegetable processing requires less energy. Cooking processes could be simplified and use more energy-efficient processing methods, food and beverages should be prepared in smaller portions to avoid the excessive energy consumption that is caused by food waste (Gössling et al., 2011), tourism souvenir packaging could be simplified to reduce the energy consumption in the packaging process, and tourism companies could innovate their tourism products and types of services and develop energy-saving tourism products and services, such as popular science and museum tours.
(2) Continuously improve energy utilization and management capacities (Tang et al., 2018a). To promote waste heat recovery and utilization, tourism energy recycling systems and devices could be installed to recover wasted heat from hotels, restaurants, shopping centers and entertainment venues. Tourism enterprises can cultivate a low-energy development culture and establish a scientific and standardized management system for low energy consumption in the supply of tourism products and services in order to improve the energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption.
(3) Improve the energy utilization structure. It is necessary to fully employ solar energy, such as maximizing the superior daylight conditions at tourism sites (e.g., the annual sunlight is between 2321 and 2554 hours in Lijiang). Solar hot water systems, lighting systems, and heating systems could be installed in hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, and entertainment venues to gradually reduce the demand for thermal energy from electricity, gasoline, and diesel.

3.2 Promote the consumption of low-energy tourism products and services

Responsible consumption by tourists is of great importance for reducing the anthropogenic heat release at glacier tourism sites and promoting sustainable development. The specific measures that should be adopted are as follows.
(1) Change consumption habits. Tourists can reduce their meat consumption, increase their vegetable consumption, and order moderate amounts of food when dining. It is necessary to encourage tourists to use energy-saving products, gradually reduce their use of disposable chopsticks and bowls, and facilitate their choice of environmentally friendly modes of travel, such as walking for a short distance (0 to 2 km), bicycling for a medium distance (2 to 5 km), and taking public transportation for a long distance (more than 5 km). Tourists may also consider shortening their stays in tourist destinations, because longer stays result in increased energy consumption. Reducing the length of the visit will help in reducing energy consumption.
(2) Change the tourism consumption structure. An example is encouraging the transformation from five-star hotels to residential houses. According to Wang et al. (2019), the average energy consumption per night of a residential house is approximately one-third of that of a five-star hotel. Thus, this transformation will help to reduce the energy consumption.
(3) Change the transportation structure. The results show that compared with small cars (248.6 MJ per tourist in Yulong and 123.4 MJ in Hailuogou), buses (122.1 MJ per tourist in Yulong and 72.1 MJ in Hailuogou) have higher energy efficiency. Specifically, energy consumption per person by bus is half that of a small car. Therefore, encouraging tourists to use larger vehicles will contribute to reducing the anthropogenic heat release. These sites have significant potential for this type of transformation, because currently more than half of the tourists (54.15%) use small vehicles such as privately owned and rental cars.

3.3 Strengthen the local supervision and management of low-energy consumption tourism development

The environmental problems that are caused by tourism are the results of market failures. The reason that market measures are ineffective is that they create limited sustainable tourism needs (Miller et al., 2010). The governments have significant roles in correcting the market failures, and regulators frequently employ measures to reduce the negative impacts (D’Antonio et al., 2013). Local government departments focus on the function, layout, and planning of the glacial tourism destinations and emphasize the building of a tourism resource management system that shares the responsibility with the stakeholders. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously improve the responsible tourism management capabilities and skills of the government departments in Yulong and Hailuogou, and further develop their guidance, supervision and regulatory roles in the sustainable development of glacial tourism. The specific measures that should be adopted are as follows.
(1) Local governments should establish a responsible tourism behavior standard system to institutionalize the promotion, encouragement, prevention, prohibition, reward, and punishment of various behaviors, procedures, and operations in glacier tourism destinations; establish glacier protection and development funds to promote the sustainable development of glacier tourism along with tourism companies; and prioritize the application of a building-integrated thermal solar system to serve as an example.
(2) Improve tourism transportation services. Compared with small vehicles such as privately owned and rental cars, public transportation that relies primarily on buses is more energy efficient. Therefore, constructing a well-developed public tourism transportation system (Tang et al., 2015) in Yulong and Hailuogou using buses will make tourists more likely to choose public transportation. Additionally, local governments can promote the construction of tourism dedicated roads and bus lines between glacier scenic locations, tourist distribution centers, and areas with a concentration of hotels.
(3) Coordinate glacier protection and economic benefits. By clarifying glacier resource stakeholders’ rights, obligations, and interests, and by establishing pricing that matches the intensity of glacier protection efforts, tourism companies will be incentivized to improve glacier protection while pursuing economic benefits. Local governments can promote the coordinated development of the regional economy and glacier protection by formulating local glacier protection laws and regulations, and improving glacier protection standards.
(4) It is necessary to provide supervision and management by stipulating and implementing specific energy consumption standards for the tourism industry, providing incentives to guide tourism companies to engage in responsible tourism, formulating local glacier protection rules and laws, and facilitating the coordinated development of the tourism industry and glacier resource protection.

3.4 Create an environment for energy savings and consumption reduction

Tourists’ and tourism companies’ awareness of environmental changes is especially important for climate-sensitive tourism destinations (Gössling et al., 2012). Their attitudes and behaviors will eventually affect the relationship between tourism and the environment (Holden, 2009; Tang et al., 2018b). As the ultimate implementers of responsible tourism consumption, the attitudes and behaviors of tourists and tourism companies determine whether glacial tourism sites can realize sustainable development. Therefore, tourism associations should improve tourists’ and tourism companies’ understanding of environmental changes by creating an environment for energy savings and consumption reduction. The specific measures that should be adopted are as follows.
(1) Restrained by various factors such as price, quality, and convenience, the enthusiasm for responsible tourism among tourists may not translate into action. Some consumers claim to be environmentalists, but they are not willing to reduce their environmental impacts by changing the ways they travel. Therefore, it is necessary to create a consumption environment that is conducive to responsible tourism and incentivize tourists to change their human-centered values and realize responsible tourism consumption. Tourists’ environmental values, attitudes, and behaviors can be cultivated through exhibitions, education and guidance so that they can fully understand the impacts of their tourism activities on changes in the glaciers, identify with the concept of responsible tourism consumption, and translate that concept into responsible practices in their activities.
(2) It is necessary to form an energy conservation and consumption reduction consensus among tourism enterprises by strengthening training for tourism practitioners, organizing energy conservation and consumption reduction training for professionals in various positions and at all levels (i.e., entrepreneurs, middle and senior management personnel, professional personnel and technical personnel), and providing special training for small and medium-sized enterprises on key topics including energy performance contracting, clean production, and energy auditing. These actions will create a good environment for energy conservation and consumption reduction, improve policy makers’ and entrepreneurs’ low-carbon strategic decision-making abilities, promote the concept of energy saving, and launch additional energy saving products and services.

3.5 Establish a long-term operational mechanism for responsible tourism management

Given the condition of global climate warming, every country should take comprehensive measures to implement “The Paris Agreement”, and achieve carbon neutrality early. Building a responsible tourism system is an important means to accomplish that goal. Therefore, the central government of the People’s Republic of China should play an important role in tourism sustainable development by establishing an institutional framework and long-term operational mechanism for responsible tourism management. The specific measures that should be adopted are as follows.
(1) It is necessary to follow a green development model. Technological innovation and improvements in management capabilities could help solve the environmental problems that are caused by tourism (Buckley, 2009; Buckley, 2012). In this model, energy-saving technologies are widely adopted, and high-energy consuming tourism vehicles, catering processing equipment, HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) facilities, lighting systems, and entertainment equipment are replaced. Energy efficiency could be improved through technological transformation and equipment upgrades. The goal is to construct a low-energy consumption tourism infrastructure and service systems, and to build and operate hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues, and shopping centers according to minimum energy consumption standards.
(2) It is necessary to encourage tourism enterprises to formulate plans for upgrading and improving their energy utilization efficiency by establishing a comprehensive energy consumption measuring, monitoring, and auditing system for the tourism industry and supervising the energy utilization efficiency by conducting clean production auditing of tourism enterprises.
(3) It is necessary to establish a green building identification and evaluation system to conduct energy consumption assessments of existing buildings and assign different green label levels based on the assessment and evaluation. It is also necessary to adopt a responsible tourism certification system to facilitate tourists’ responsible consumption behavior and tourism companies’ responsible production and supply activities.
(4) Actions guide tourists in improving their energy- saving awareness and paying attention to the promotion, publicity, and implementation of responsible tourism consumption. By displaying posters and establishing educational sites in tourist areas, such as hotels and scenic locations, tourists can be educated and encouraged to engage in responsible tourism consumption.

4 Discussion

In recent years, the issue of the sustainable development of tourism destinations with natural tourism resources has attracted extensive attention (Hall, 2009). Determining ways to balance environmental protection and tourism development has become a worldwide challenge (Parolo et al., 2009). On the one hand, tourism increases regional employment, tax revenues, and economic development, and has become an effective method for regional economic and social development. Therefore, it is necessary for tourism to grow continuously and rapidly. On the other hand, the expansion of tourism activities has brought risks to local environmental protection and threatens the sustainable development of tourism sites. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain the tourism industry at an appropriate scale and reduce the environmental impacts of tourism activities through various means. This problem is particularly prominent in Yulong and Hailuogou Glacier Parks. Glacier tourism has become a pillar industry of these two regions and is important for promoting employment, tax revenues, and regional economic and social development. Meanwhile, the anthropogenic heat release that is caused by the large-scale and increasing tourism activities has a significant impact on the glaciers against the backdrop of climate change (Wang et al., 2019), which is reflected in accelerated glacier retreat. Thus, it is both necessary and urgent to coordinate and properly address this dilemma and realize the sustainable development of glacial tourism. Achieving sustainable development is of significance for the protection of glacier resources and the social and economic development of the Yulong and Hailuogou areas.
The most direct measure to eliminate the impacts of tourism on changes in the glaciers is to reduce the number of tourists. However, while a sharp decrease in the number of tourists would help to protect the glaciers, it would be likely to cause conflicts among stakeholders such as tourism companies, local governments, and local residents. For example, in 2007, the closure of Pastoruri Glacier Park in Peru caused a series of community conflicts (Bury et al., 2011). Therefore, from the stakeholders’ perspective, their interests should be carefully considered before implementing any measures in order to avoid the adverse impacts of major conflicts on tourism sites. The best solution may not be to simply limit the number of tourists to 10000 per day in Yulong Park. This measure faces some challenges. Tourism in Yulong and Hailuogou Glacier Parks has distinct peak and off seasons. Visits are primarily concentrated between the Labor Day (May 1) and National Day (October 1) holidays, special in the summer vacations. During the peak season, the strong tourism demand conflicts with tourist capacity limits; however, during the off season, the tourism infrastructure and service facilities stand idle due to the small numbers of visitors. In addition, the number of tourists to Yulong and Hailuogou Glacier Parks will continue to rapidly grow in the future. For example, according to the “Lijiang City’s ‘Thirteenth Five-Year’ Tourism Development Plan”, between 2015 and 2020, the number of domestic tourists visiting Lijiang will grow at a rate of 10%, which will further aggravate the imbalance between the tourism demand and supply during the peak season. Hence, comprehensive management and control measures must be implemented using prices, taxation, and tourist volume limits to balance the temporal distribution of tourists and ease the imbalance between the supply and demand during the peak tourism season while avoiding the drawbacks of any single measure.
Improving energy efficiency and reducing energy consumption through various methods are direct ways to reduce the anthropogenic heat release. In addition, changing the types of energy that are used is another option. Thermal energy sources, such as electricity, gasoline, diesel, and natural gas, discharge thermal energy into the external environment during use, which adds to the anthropogenic heat release at the Yulong and Hailuogou glacier tourism sites. As a type of natural thermal resource, solar energy does not increase the flow of thermal energy during use, which can help to reduce the thermal footprint at glacier tourism sites. Therefore, we should capitalize on solar energy at the Yulong and Hailuogou glacier tourism sites and promote the substitution of solar energy for the other types of energy. It should be noted that the goal of reducing thermal energy emissions due to tourism activities through anthropogenic heat release management is done to realize sustainable development, although it also has both similarities and differences with the concept of a tourism carbon footprint, which focuses on carbon dioxide-based greenhouse gas emissions. What these concepts have in common is that both can reduce the impacts of tourism on the environment by improving energy efficiency and reducing total energy consumption. The difference is that the anthropogenic heat release and greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by substituting different types of energy sources. Solar energy can replace other types of energy to reduce the anthropogenic heat release because it does not increase the total amount of thermal energy that is released into the environment. In contrast, a variety of sources such as solar, wind, bio and water energy can replace the conventional carbon dioxide-emitting energy sources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Previous studies have shown that there is a wide range of tourism stakeholders, including tourists, communities, management departments, villages, local residents, natural resources managers, tourism companies, media, NGOs (Non- Governmental Organizations), and online service platforms (Schaltegger and Csutora, 2012; Ernst and van Riemsdijk, 2013; Pearce and Schänzel, 2013; Grimwood et al., 2015; Gössling and Buckley, 2016; Vila et al., 2016). Actually, tourism stakeholders vary across regions, and these stakeholders have different objectives. Our investigation shows that the major stakeholders for Yulong and Hailuogou Parks include mainly tourism companies, local governments, tourists, tourism associations, and central government. They play an important role in improving the sustainability of glacial tourism. However, other stakeholders, such as villages, local residents, and communities, play an extremely limited role in the sustainability of glacial tourism. They are usually influenced by local governmental attitudes and plans.
The stakeholders in Yulong and Hailuogou Parks do not have a strong sense of responsible tourism. They usually only pursue their own interests and goals. With the exception of a few companies, tourism companies are more concerned with economic gains than environmental and other impacts. Local government departments often emphasize the realization of tourism’s economic goals. Through relevant policies, they attempt to increase the number of tourists to obtain increased economic benefits, which often leads to the marginalization of environmental supervision and management. Tourists pay more attention to the convenience and comfort of the tours and are not always able to recognize, understand, or be concerned about the impacts of tourism activities (Caruana et al., 2014; Gao et al., 2017). Few tourists intentionally choose sustainable tourism products (Bohringer and Jochem, 2007). Most are not yet aware that by changing the ways in which they spend their vacations, they could make tourism activities more environmentally friendly (Cohen and Higham, 2011). Some studies have shown that environmental protection requires managers and policy makers to use effective measures to manage resources, evaluate plans and decisions, avoid conflicts, and reduce adverse impacts (Parolo et al., 2009; Kim and Weiler, 2013) while navigating significant differences among the stakeholders’ attitudes toward the environment (Imran et al., 2014). Local governments should find an equilibrium among tourists, the tourism industry, and glacier protection, and encourage tourism companies and tourists to constrain their behaviors by complying with tourism’s ethical norms and codes of conduct. This approach would allow them to internalize the sustainable development goals into their intrinsic self-discipline and work together to fulfill the public responsibility of realizing the sustainable development of the tourism sites.
In general, the sustainable development of tourism sites continues to face a significant number of problems. Many factors affect the sustainable development of tourism, including economic interests, awareness and information, top-down supervision, and resource use rights (Imran et al., 2014). The pace of tourism development has exceeded the speed at which tourism adopts sustainable measures (Sharpley, 2009; Buckley, 2012). It is difficult to achieve sustainable tourism development goals when confronted with the apparently inadequate implementation of sustainable tourism practices (Casagrandi and Rinaldi, 2002). However, efforts to achieve the sustainable development of tourism should not be abandoned. Thus, it is necessary to build an appropriate joint management system (Amaru and Chhetri, 2013) to encourage tourism companies, local governments, and tourists to implement responsible tourism. Actually, when properly managed, tourism development could contribute to environmental protection and motivate stakeholders to participate in environmental protection (Nyaupane and Poudel, 2011). From the glacier tourism stakeholders’ (i.e., tourism companies, tourists, and local governments) perspective of responsible tourism, this paper proposes measures to improve energy efficiency, reduce energy consumption and anthropogenic heat release, and promote the coordinated development of glacier tourism and glacier protection with respect to the three aspects of the supply of responsible tourism products and services, tourists’ responsible tourism consumption, and the supervision and management of local governments in Yulong and Hailuogou Glacier Parks. However, the relationship between tourism development and environmental protection is dynamic and complex (Nyaupane and Poudel, 2011). Thus, these measures should be dynamically adjusted according to the actual conditions. In addition, it is necessary to improve the data and observations and comprehensively consider various factors in determining the environmental capacity of glacier tourism sites, reduce the impacts of large-scale tourism activities on changes in the glaciers, and alleviate the conflicts between tourism demand and glacier protection.

5 Conclusions

Increasing changes in glaciers have influenced glacier tourism activities, and large-scale tourism activities have caused changes in the glaciers. The sustainability of glacier tourism is being threatened. Taking two glacier tourism destinations as examples, we build a responsible tourism system to reduce the impacts of tourism activities on glaciers. This study determines the main stakeholders of glacial tourism, including tourism companies, local governments, and tourists, and discusses the strategies and measures of responsible tourism at glacial tourism sites. These strategies mainly include improving the energy efficiency of the supply of tourism products and services, promoting the consumption of low-energy tourism products and services, strengthening the supervision and management of low-energy consumption tourism development, creating an environment for energy savings and consumption reduction, and establishing a long-term operational mechanism for responsible tourism management. The responsible tourism system would allow stakeholders to properly address the dilemma, internalize the sustainable development goals and use their self-discipline, and work together to fulfill the public responsibility of realizing the sustainable development of tourism sites. This study is of great significance for the protection of glacier resources, and for the social and economic development in the Yulong and Hailuogou areas. In addition, it also provides sustainable suggestions for other glacier tourism sites.

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