{"id":12671,"date":"2016-11-04T17:30:46","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T21:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/coral-bleaching-and\/"},"modified":"2016-11-04T17:30:46","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T21:30:46","slug":"coral-bleaching-threatens-luxury-travel-company","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/coral-bleaching-threatens-luxury-travel-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Coral Bleaching Threatens Luxury Travel Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the last six years, I have traveled around the world to scuba dive on stunning reefs from the Rainbow River in Florida to the Carribean Sea off the coast of Bonaire.<\/p>\n

\"Source:<\/a>
Source: personal photo. Rainbow River Florida, 2015.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Coral reefs offer not only the most diverse ecosystems on our planet, but also sustain a $30 billion dollar scuba diving tourism business worldwide.<\/em>1<\/sup> For instance, \u201caccording to a report by the Key West chamber of commerce, tourists visiting the Florida Keys in the US generate at least $3 billion dollars in annual income, while Australia\u2019s Great Barrier Reef generates well over $1 billion per year.\u201d1<\/sup> However, climate change threatens both the health of reefs and the tourism sustained by reefs and the accompanying wildlife. \u00a0Rising sea temperatures \u2013 measured at a 0.1-degree Celsius increase in the past decade \u2013 have led to the death of coral reefs through a process called coral bleaching.2<\/sup> The climate risk to coral reefs is correlated with a risk to diving tourism; as reef ecosystems diminish, tourists will be less likely to travel to effected diving destinations as shown in Table 1<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Table 1. Tourist Holiday Diving Preferences<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Dive Holiday Preferences<\/strong><\/td>\nTourists<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More likely to choose \u2018environmentally friendly\u2019 operation<\/td>\n90%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Plan holiday according to dive experience expected<\/td>\n79%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Importance of climate change issues in choosing an operation<\/td>\n59%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Importance of management of climate change in selecting holiday destination<\/td>\n59%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Often talk about coral reef health and fish numbers with other dive tourists<\/td>\n76%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Source: Data excerpted from Marshall, Nadine A. , Marshall, Paul A. , Abdulla, Ameer , Rouphael, Tony and Ali, Amr, \u201cPreparing for climate change: recognising its early impacts through the perceptions of dive tourists and dive operators in the Egyptian Red Sea\u201d (Current Issues in Tourism, 2010), p. 7, Table 1.<\/p>\n

Kuoni Travel is one company that will be negatively affected by coral bleaching worldwide. Kuoni Travel is a UK organization that specializes in \u201cluxury and tailor-made travel\u201d; the tourism company was voted World\u2019s Leading Luxury Touring Operator in 2014<\/em> by World Traveler awards.3 <\/sup>The company offers tourism packages to multiple scuba diving destinations in Africa, Asia, Australia and beyond. The environmental impacts of climate change on reefs\u2014including \u201cbiodiversity losses, loss of coral cover and reduced reef aesthetic\u201d\u2014 potentially lowers the destination appeal for scuba divers to effected locations.4<\/sup> The decline in destination appeal ultimately threatens Kuoni\u2019s business through diminishing tourism interest. This conclusion was supported by Kuoni\u2019s corporate responsibility assessment:<\/p>\n

\u201cA destination with a poor image for sustainability and climate friendliness could rapidly decline as a preferred destination with tourists with a strong environmental conscience. In contrast, by changing operating practices and with the support of appropriate communication activities, particular tourism businesses, destinations or sectors can actually position themselves to benefit from changes in tourist\u2019 attitudes rather than suffering negative impacts.\u201d5 <\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n

Kuoni strategically recognizes the threat of climate change, while also recognizing the potential opportunity a mitigation plan that leverages tourist attitudes presents.<\/p>\n

To blunt the impact of climate change on Kuoni\u2019s tourism business and play to environmentally conscious customers, the travel company has made a commitment to \u201cmeasuring and reducing the carbon footprint of [their] operations, building adaptive capacity in the destinations and encouraging [their] customers to reduce their climate impact by offsetting their flight emissions.\u201d5<\/sup> In 2008, Kuoni partnered with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to protect coral reefs in Egypt and the Maldives, two popular tourism diving destinations. The collaboration has completed the following steps to mitigate the effects of climate change on coral reefs5<\/sup>:<\/p>\n