Is "Sustainable Tourism" an oxymoron in the Algarve?!

Last week on the 29th of January we attended a debate called "Sustainable Tourism - a reality or a utopia for the region of the Algarve" hosted by the association, a Teia de Impulsos, to discuss the current state and future of sustainable tourism in the region. 

After six years of bureaucracy and building to get our Montalma project on its feet and one year into running it, there has not been much time to explore the narratives and realities of the industry we have entered. Montalma was envisioned on the basis of self-sufficiency and sustainability principles that John and Maggie spent many years working on and that at the core felt right and made heart-mind sense. Its alignment with Portugal 2020's vision for tackling the geographic issue of desertification of the more rural and interior regions by supporting farmers to diversify their activity was a blessing, as it provided part of the funding that allowed the Montalma project to come to fruition. 

When I saw the event poster, I must confess I was split. As a new business owner, was I going to spend my time driving down to attend or was I going to set up those packages and promotions I desperately need to get this slow month moving? #welcome to seasonality!

I decided we could not be in this sector and not be aware of what is happening. We are a tiny initiative and have to learn from others in the industry to adopt best practices, collaborate and be well-informed for our guests seeking alternative, more sustainable travel options.

There were three speakers, all doing incredible work in the field of sustainable tourism.

• Pedro Mestre set out to tackle the questions: How can I be a maritime tour operator without polluting the environment? And how can I provide tourists with a lower footprint boating experience? After much R&D he achieved the answer with the first entirely solar powered ecological fleet of tour boats in the Algarve and founded Sunboat. Furthermore his company is one of the 45 in Portugal to make the ESG (environmental, social and governance) commitment, by working with various local entities ameliorating social inclusion and environmental education. He does routes from Portimão to Silves and the Benagil caves. https://pt.algarvesunboat.com/

• Joaquim Lourenço founder and CEO of the Salema Eco Camp in Vila do Bispo. They are one of the leaders in eco-tourism working on protecting the region's natural heritage and local products by promoting a circular economy, zero-waste and environmental regeneration. They have attained a number of certificates including the Greenkey certificate and the verified carbon standard. https://www.salemaecocamp.com/en/

• João Ministro is passionate about bird watching and hiking, and has a long career in nature tourism and local development. He has a background in environmental engineering from the University of the Algarve; worked in the Sado Estuary Nature Reserve on salt marsh restoration and waterflow conservation; and worked on a regional strategy for promoting eco and ornithological tourism in the Algarve. He coordinated the Via Algarviana for the Almargem NGO and started the Sagres Birdwatching Festival. He founded Proactivetur in 2010 and develops projects in responsible tourism. https://proactivetur.pt/

The main issues discussed were:

1. Governance in the tourism sector

There was unanimity among all three speakers regarding the absence of coherent governance across territorial scales and stakeholders.

João commented on the absence of municipal tourism plans grounded in broader regional strategic plans. Municipalities have the proximity to their residents, the resources and the enforcement capacity to take sustainability initiatives seriously, but these mechanisms are simply not in place. He was skeptical of sustainability spanning the entirety of the sector without more concerted governance efforts. He emphasised the need for synergies between municipalities to guide tourists to lower density areas to stimulate these regions' economies. Without these overarching mechanisms, visitors will continue concentrating on the coastal regions. A long-term plan needs to be implemented with governance models that integrate multiple stakeholders and can support a transition in the near future. 

Joaquim contributed with his experience of feeling unsupported by local entities throughout the various stages of his project. He identifies that local entities, primarily municipalities, don't understand the type of tourist that he caters for, nor the ambitions of his project and are therefore unequipped to support in any way. He feels that they are stuck in the old tourism paradigm. By way of example, he referred to the multiple festivals that happen every summer on Praia da Rocha and questions how the municipality can permit these events when they clearly do not take sustainability into account. The city of Portimão goes right up to the beach front and yet festivals run until the early hours of the morning, leaving a beach full of trash. What other cities in Europe would allow this? Another observation he made was the absence of surfers as a target group in the strategic tourism plan for the west coast. It does not take a specialist to realise that every second tourist on the west coast has a surfboard on the top of their car. Why therefore is this market not part of municipal plans? When questioned, the answer has been that there is no large hotel chain on the west coast to cater for the volume of these tourists. This is a problematic vision when the west coast is possibly the most democratic tourism region where gains are most equally distributed, #socialsustaintability.

Pedro’s example of poor cohesion came from the boating sector where the excess of tour boats navigating certain routes led to a necessity to reduce maritime traffic. 17 government entities were involved in deciding who got rights to navigate certain routes. In their deliberation not one of the criteria used addressed sustainability. 

When the debate was opened to the public, an academic working in the sector noted that the work has been done, strategies with the aim of increasing competitiveness within a framework of sustainability have been created and proposed to local municipalities, but have not been adopted or implemented.

The most striking evidence of lack of interest in sustainability was in the absence of any representatives of municipal tourism departments, and even more serious was the absence of The Algarve Sustainable Tourism Observatory that was supposed to attend and present their work but professed to have no-one available to do this. The panel cynically commented that perhaps they did not have many findings to present.

The major call to action truly seemed to be for governance models that integrate all the different stakeholders.

2. The sustainability of the tourism sector itself within the broader context of sustainability in the Algarve

Tourism is the largest profit generating industry in the region. As such, it has an  enormous capacity to build the local economy in other sectors. However, to do this, Pedro’s perspective is that we cannot keep positioning ourselves as the typical low-cost destination. If price competitiveness is the strategy, businesses will be driven to buy the cheapest possible products, most likely imported and not sustainably produced or manufactured. Realistically, sustainability comes at a higher price because it involves purchasing products that haven’t flown 3000 miles and been depersonalized by big brands. It involves working with people you know in your region. Therefore, tourism can play a vital role in creating local resilience in other sectors that also help move the economy away from the instability of seasonality. However, as Joaquim states, this requires businesses to value and purchase local products and services and concrete incentives are needed for entrepreneurs in these areas. Currently the offering is not big enough to sustain the demand. He also noted that the excessive rise in bureaucracy and health and safety standards has corroded at least three generations of entrepreneurial spirit that was ingrained in people. People are now scared to innovate, create and sell. He gave the sad example of a lady that had a small stall selling crocheted pieces of her own production at the annual "Feira da Batata Doce" (Sweet potato Festival) in Aljezur and was fined because she did not have a registered company. If these processes are facilitated in some way, economic prosperity will flourish for everyone.

Young people are increasingly leaving the small towns of the interior. We need to ask how we can strengthen these interior economies so that they become more attractive to young people. Locally, mass tourism is poorly perceived because the “big guys” take all the profits. If profits are diffused over a greater number of businesses, resentment at the industry is reduced and there is  a much better chance of creating social and economic cohesion and resiliency. Additionally, you diffuse the responsibility for taking sustainable action over a larger group of people, rather than concentrating it in a pool of large tourism operators that want to cut costs wherever possible. This diffusion of responsibility can raise the sustainability not only in the tourism industry but other sectors.

There are other problems that are inherent to the tourism industry that could have been discussed a little more extensively such as the pressure it puts on housing prices, the type of employment it calls for and the carbon footprint of air and sea travel.

3. Sustainability certificates

Increasingly companies work towards attaining sustainability certificates that demonstrate their commitment to environmental, social and economic performance principles. Each certification process offers a comprehensive range of frameworks to assess an organization's environmental impact, social responsibility and economic sustainability. These certificates can help consumers that prioritize sustainability and environmental stewardship in their purchasing choices.

Speakers were asked their opinions on these certification processes and there was a general consensus that these can be somewhat token particularly in the case of mass tourism chains, resorts, hotels and tour agencies that have the financial means to tick all the boxes necessary and often create CSR programs that don't necessarily deliver the impact to where it is needed. This process of greenwashing their practices simply to achieve the certificates makes one question the purpose of the exercise and the real intrinsic value these certificates can ever deliver. 

Despite this aspect the positives were also noted, namely that this certification process, allows tourism operators to structure their thinking, create goals, and consistently work towards them by methodologically measuring indicators. One can conclude that their effectiveness relies on the company's commitment to sustainability. Additionally, more and more tour operators, particularly from northern countries are starting to demand these certifications to guarantee their own products’ sustainability and satisfy their client’s requirements.

4. Incentives and investment in sustainable tourism 

Even though sustainability in tourism has been discussed for the last 30 years,  the speakers expressed some frustration at the absence of widespread incentives for adopting more sustainable practices - there are no tax breaks, there are no supporting funds. Only the recent program “Empresas de Turismo 360º” by Turismo de Portugal was referred to as one of the first initiatives that directly links companies that are integrating ESG indicators in their management with access to finance. Changes are happening but not fast enough. 

In terms of global governance, why do booking platforms like Booking.com and Airbnb charge the same commissions regardless of the sustainability of a property. If sustainability were being taken seriously, these global companies could implement a small change that would directly incentivise thousands of property owners to adopt sustainable initiatives. Instead the more amenities you offer, the better you seem to be - truth is, the less amenities you have the more eco-friendly you are! 

With the limited number of incentives it is difficult for activities wanting to be sustainable to lower their pricing to stay in line with competitor’s price points whilst making the investments required to be more sustainable.

The unfortunate truth as Pedro stated is that everyone wants a piece of innovation but it is the innovator that takes on the brunt of the challenge and needs to liaise with people who do not understand or support ideas the first time round. It takes financial resources and perseverance to make big visions come true. 

5. Opportunities

Despite these broader institutional constraints these entrepreneurs are passionate about finding more sustainable alternatives to what mass tourism has produced. As one of them states "we have to be utopic as this is what fuels our journey".

There are many Algarves within the Algarve with notable differences between the interior regions and the coastline. One of the greatest opportunities to spread tourism lies in the 40% percent of the Algarve which is natural land. There is an increased search for natural tourism options that combine time in nature with health and wellness activities. All the speakers expressed the hope that this could create changes in the sector and spread tourism to lower density regions. 

Ecological changes will impact tourism in the long run and companies will have to adapt. It was mentioned that some of the large vineyards in the area have already been bought by larger Portuguese groups, because they predict that in the future the demand will be for local wines only. It would be so positive if there were initiatives that helped local entrepreneurs sieze these opportunities. 

There are a tremendous amount of opportunities that begin with valuing and documenting the local regional heritage. João gave the example of old pathways from Roman times that are not catalogued or registered and year by year become more degraded. He refers to how municipalities could play a larger role in conserving this heritage. Universities could also play a valuable role in working with businesses in the tourism sector to be more sustainable. Joaquim shared that he is working with an engineering student on optimizing the water faucets to create more water efficiency. 

The organizer of the event added that there can also be more collaboration between sectors, where associations that naturally focus more on sustainability and social indicators collaborate with companies whose general primary focus is economic sustainability. His belief is that when we put your minds to it the opportunities are endless. 

Our take-aways

We were very happy to have attended this debate. As newcomers to the sector it was wonderful to hear other business owners who care and are taking concerted action to do their part despite the challenges of dealing with a less than cooperative patchwork of entities. It showed that you can still make leaps as private entities. We walked away feeling inspired to create more concrete sustainability benchmarks for Montalma, that we will steadily work towards. 

It is easy to forget about sustainability, because it takes commitment. It is not always the easy choice, you can’t always buy it off the shelf, it won’t always give you what you expect. Take the New Year dinner we hosted this year. There I was writing down how I wanted to enter 2025 more consciously, yet decorated Montalma with a whole bunch of balloons! What was I thinking? The guilt I felt when I was popping them all! Can you think of the R’s (recycle and reuse) around popped balloons? I don’t think so! We fell short and it won’t happen again.

This is why this event was great. It reinforced how fantastic it is to be totally off-grid. It reminded us of why we took the time to build our furniture with wood from our land, why we are not getting an expresso machine despite client’s dissatisfaction, why we will move to only serve our clients with homemade jams and juices. It helped us feel serene about accepting the things we cannot change just yet for lack of budget or time, even if this implies a slightly less amenity-packed experience for our guests. We aim to stay true to making this planet a slightly better place, with or without a sustainability certificate.