Sir, – The fact that Sunday, June 5th was World Environment Day probably went unnoticed by a lot of people especially those working in the Irish tourism sector.
As the influx of tourists begin to arrive back in their thousands over the summer months, after nearly two years of relative calm due to the pandemic, a city like Galway comes literally to a standstill.
Thanks to budget airlines like Ryanair, we’ve has seen a huge increase in tourist traffic over the past 10 years especially. The growth in Airbnb accommodation has also seen tourist numbers swell.
This increase in tourist numbers on a city the size of Galway has led to traffic jams, packed buses and trains, overcrowding on main access streets, pubs and restaurants.
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Tourism sustains a low-wage economy and also creates environmental pollution. As a nation we are made aware of the impacts climate change is causing to our planet. Yet, as a nation, we seem to see this as a problem for other parts of the world. Climate change has a bigger impact on poorer nations so it’s not really a concern for our economic growth model.
However, the impact of climate change is creating difficult questions for our economy particularly the tourism industry.
Nowhere is that felt more than by the low-wage, low-skilled workers who make up a large portion of this industry. Trying to find accommodation to rent at a reasonable price [in tourist areas] is beyond most of these workers due mainly to low supply caused by the Airbnb sector.
There is no benefit to the economy in having an industry like tourism which has no real sustainable benefit long term, except only to raise government revenue, and which only makes a small percentage wealthy.
Mass tourism gives little back in reward to its workers and to the environmental and climate pollution it creates more and more each year. We must as a nation look for a more sustainable tourism model as well as lifting people out of the minimum-wage employment that tourism creates.
By investing in better skilled and rewarding jobs we can create a more vibrant society rather than having people trying to survive on a minimum wage with no proper job security or even affordable accommodation.
Tourism, as we’ve seen from the pandemic, is an industry that is very shortsighted in its aims.
Governments have created little in the way of fostering innovation that can steer us away from relying so heavily on this mass tourism environmental crisis. They are too reliant on the tax-raising benefits tourism brings, but give little regard to the real sustainability tourism has as an economic model going forward, especially from its environmental impact on our society and on our island.
It is time, I believe, for a real serious debate about the future sustainability of tourism to this country as a real viable economic model, one that will make a difference to reducing the effects of climate change on this planet.
– Yours, etc,
BRIAN CLANCY,
Cuan Glas,
Galway.