They want to make us conscious tourists

Tourism is the world’s fastest-growing business. At the same time, mass tourism threatens valuable natural and cultural environments. The issue of how tourism can be sustainably developed is one that the Tourism Science Association (Turismvetenskapliga Föreningen, or TurF) focuses on.

Linköping University has had a tourism science programme for four years. Last fall, several students there started TurF.

“Tourism is a business with great potential,” says Linnea Börjars, one of the driving forces behind it. “But there are also great risks. It’s a question of weighing them against each other.”

TurF’s first effort was casting a critical light on child sex tourism alongside ECPAT, an association that works to combat such things. Over the fall, TurF also showed a couple of films: Jamaica for Sale and Den gyllende stranden, which describe what happens to small agricultural and fishing communities when they are hit with mass tourism.

An education in tourism science deals a lot with natural and cultural environments, and how tourist destinations can be developed based on these values. The programme emphasized how tourism affects local communities, and how tourists themselves are affected.

TurF wants to go a step further and analyse the dilemmas tourism creates. They want to make us conscious tourists.

“As tourists, we have a legitimate need to get away, to enjoy, and to relax,” says Mia Glantz. “People don’t want to see and experience misery while on vacation. Travelling ethically can be a difficult balancing act.
Getting up from the beach and showing an honest, respectful interest in those who live in tourist resort towns is one way of at least diminishing the dilemma.”

Flying creates another dilemma. Can sustainable tourism really be combined with wholesale and retail flights?
TurF members smile in recognition at the question. It’s obvious that this is an issue they’ve discussed.

“The balance there, perhaps, is to fly less frequently and stay away longer. They have weekend getaways to major cities... that hasn’t been a great success,” says Ms. Börjars, adding that airlines are also working to reduce emissions by making flights more fuel-efficient. People talk of “green approaches” to airports.

This spring, TurF is focusing on culture. They’ve also invited a representative from the Swedish Institute, who will be speaking about Sweden’s image abroad on April 19.

In the picture: Linnea Börjars, Mia Glantz, and Ylva Hedman, three of the students in TurF

Text and picture: Anika Agebjörn