Fostering tourism in UNESCO Biosphere Reserves: a means to achieve multiple sustainability goals?

Fostering sustainable development is an increasingly stated goal of protected areas, especially of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves (BR) that work at the interplay of conservation and development. Promoting tourism is thereby one of the most often chosen measure to contribute to the economic pillar of sustainability: By attracting visitors BRs hope to increase spendings and to create added revenues for local people, local businesses or the BR-management. While visitor counts and surveys are frequently used to assess the economic impact of tourism in BRs, it is generally unclear if attracted visitors indeed contribute or rather, through their externalities, counteract sustainable development goals overall. In this study characteristics of ‘BR-visitors’ (visitors that came to the BR-area because of the BR) are compared to those of ‘other visitors’ (visitors for which the BR did not play a role in the decision to visit the BR-area) in the Entlebuch UNESCO Biosphere Reserve allowing to assess if touristic measures induced a form of tourism that simultaneously contributed to all pillars of sustainability. The results show that many reported attributes of BR-visitors’ journeys can be judged more sustainable than those of other visitors, however, not systematically and not equally over both the summer and winter season. It is concluded that if designed appropriately touristic offers hold a potential for BRs to contribute to local sustainability transitions and hence, using the size and diversity of geographical contexts of the BR-network, create sustainability impacts worldwide. A key pathway in tapping this potential is understanding and implementing tourism as a process that relies on regular evaluation and iterative refinement considering all aspects of sustainability.

Florian Knaus is an environmental scientist working on subjects ranging from nature conservation to rural development at the interface of research, education and practice. His goals are to generate and translate scientific insights to practice, to introduce limitations imposed by practical truths to science and to pass on insights and experiences from both sides to the next generation. The ultimate goal of these inter- to transdisciplinary activities is to contribute towards safeguarding the natural and cultural Heritage. Florian currently works as Senior lecturer and deputy of the chair of Ecosystem Management (60%) at the Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, ETH Zurich but is also coordinator for research and nature conservation in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Entlebuch.