The two faces of tourism

MADRID - Tourism is both villain and victim when it comes to climate change, World Tourist Organisation (WTO) said.

Latest WTO figures show that a record 842 million people travelled abroad in 2006 and 40 per cent of them travelled by air, contributing to the greenhouse effect and the ensuing climate change.

The two-side effects may be best represented in the economies of coastal regions and small tropical islands, such as the Maldives. Heavily dependent on tourist receipts, Maldives is now threatened by rising ocean levels and temperatures.

The WTO has backed an EU proposal to include air travel by 2011 or 2012 in forcing through limitations on emissions and creating transferable carbon accounts in a bid to limit the greenhouse effect.