Antarctic Tourism – Its Impacts and Benefits  

In April 1977 I arrived in Darwin, fresh from my second Antarctic field season and ready to matriculate as a PhD student.  I duly signed the matriculation book in the Dean’s office and waited while Reg Goodwin called the Board of Graduate Studies (BoGS) to discuss a technical point.  From my one-sided view, it was clear that the conversation was not going well – BoGS was concerned about my out-of-sequence matriculation.  The conversation ended with the normally affable Dean’s parting shot, “He’s been in the Antarctic you know – it’s not just past bloody Royston.”  This left me with two legacies: first, an inability to pass through Royston without hearing Reg’s voice and, second, the growing realisation that most people did not know much about Antarctica. 

When I first worked in the Antarctic, it was the preserve of national Antarctic programs, run by the Antarctic Treaty system, and a successful example of international collaboration.  The continent had no permanent residents and the scattered research stations’ total population was about 4,000 in summer and 1,500 in winter, barely enough people to make a small English village, scattered across a continent the size of the US and Canada combined.  It was ‘A Continent for Science’ and those of us lucky enough to work there were a tiny minority of our national populations.  Tourism was all but unknown, with one ship, Linblad Explorer, bringing a few hundred visitors to the Antarctic every year.  

Since the 1970s, visitor numbers have climbed exponentially, passing 5,000 in 1992-93, overtaking research personnel for the first time.  By 2007-2008, there were more than 30,000 visitors but the financial crisis reined the numbers back for almost 10 years.  In 2019-20 the total number of visitors was almost 74,000 and the rise seemed unstoppable, until the pandemic hit.  In the last full field season (2020-21) there were 23,023 visitors who went ashore in the Antarctic, back to levels last seen in 2004-05.  These figures make two points: firstly, visitor numbers are strongly correlated to world economic activity, and secondly, all other things being equal, there is a significant upward pressure on numbers.  This is facilitated by a vastly increased passenger capacity – there are now 65 vessels registered to take tourists to the Antarctic – and a much more affordable cost thanks to inflation (about USD 10,000 in 1975, and USD 10,000 today).  There has also been significant expansion into new markets, with a huge increase in tourism from China.   

At first sight, these numbers are horrifying and a quick Google search supports this view: headlines such as “Antarctic Tourism - Human Impact Threats to the Environment” abound.  However, I now have a more positive view on the threats and benefits of Antarctic tourism, partly because people I admire worked in Antarctic tourism, and partly because I realised that my previous views were hopelessly elitist and would doom the Antarctic to be a truly unknown land to most of the population.   

Mainly, my conversion was down to working in the industry as an onboard lecturer and expedition guide and actually meeting people who truly wanted to visit Antarctica, and were excited and knowledgeable about a continent that has excited me for more than 40 years.  There are threats caused by these large numbers of visitors, but they are manageable, as I hope to show. 

Mostly, this is a story about exposed rock – a rare commodity in the Antarctic, comprising about 3% of the land area of the continent.  Exposed rock is concentrated around the coasts, particularly in the Antarctic Peninsula area.  Almost all Antarctic research stations are built on rock, by the sea to make resupply easier.  These areas are also prime nesting sites for penguins, who also like to be beside the seaside, to make their own resupply easier.  The concentration of penguins to a relatively few coastal sites concentrates the areas where cruise ships want to land guests, because everyone wants to see penguins.  This concentration of the “visual resource” could lead to an unsightly free-for-all, but the tourism sector is now managed. 

The International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO) has strict regulations for visits and maintains a ship scheduler which minimises sightings of other expedition cruise ships and ensures only one ship per half day at any site.   

The IAATO rules are governed by the Antarctic Treaty and its conventions, so only ships with 200 or fewer guests can land at any site and they can only have 100 people ashore at a time; ships with 200-500 guests can only land people at a very few sites and are still restricted to 100 guests ashore at once; the few ships that carry more than 500 passengers are not allowed to land anywhere.  

There are huge restrictions on activities south of the 60^th parallel: no ships that burn heavy fuel oil; no waste discharges; drone flying is restricted; nothing can be removed from any landing site – no pebble, no bone, no feather; and every landing must be fully documented – including details of anything that went wrong.  In particular, distances from wildlife are strictly maintained: 5 m from penguins, 25 m from giant petrels, and 100 m from whales. 

It is my belief that the cruise industry’s adherence to these strict guidelines has had a beneficial effect on the national operators, particularly in the field of waste management.  In 1991, the year of IAATO’s foundation, the US McMurdo Station was an environmental disgrace; its beach was a gigantic rubbish dump and most other research stations were no better, albeit on a smaller scale. The advent of visitors in large numbers has prompted a clean-up of most of these stations.   

The tourist industry has also had a beneficial effect on the employment of women.  Antarctic research was a male-only enterprise in the 1970s, with a few women edging in during the 1980s, but the tour industry was an equal-opportunity employer from the start.  The sight of large numbers of extremely capable women driving boats, paddling kayaks, and lecturing probably accelerated the employment of women by national operators. 

There are threats posed by tourism, particularly by late summer visits, when the snow has gone and paths have been created at some of the most popular landing sites.  We always have to be vigilant about litter, but most of the beach debris comes from fishing vessels rather than cruise ships.  Most of the other threats to Antarctica area originate externally to the continent: the ongoing ozone hole (a problem created in the northern hemisphere); microplastic pollution; overfishing (a political problem generated by two countries); and, above all, human-induced climate change.  The tourist industry has taken hundreds of thousands of people to Antarctica who have witnessed these problems and can act as Antarctic Ambassadors on a scale unimagined 40 years ago.  On balance, it is a good thing. 

Acknowledgements 

I am indebted to Albatros Expeditions for the opportunity to work in the Antarctic again, and to all my fellow guides for education, entertainment and fellowship.  I am particularly grateful to my friends Hannah Lawson, Susan Adie and Emily Kay McGriff for sharing their incredible experiences.