Page 256 - Volcano and Geothermal Tourism

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Under the Volcano – Can

Sustainable Tourism

Development be Balanced

with Risk Management?

Jonathan Karkut that insufficient consideration has been given as to
Introduction where tourism fits in to the burgeoning set of
volcanic risk management plans and strategies.
At a time when global population growth is However, the natural fascination with the dramatic
exposing more and more communities to volcanic landscapes and experiences around active volcanoes
hazards, an expanding body of work is being has ensured that tourism to these sites is already a
dedicated to lessen the impacts of major eruptions. major business, with arrivals to some locations
A trend has been identified that shows a shift away expanding into millions of people annually. It
from pure Earth scientists simply attempting to consequently follows that input from a tourism
understand how and when eruptions occur, perspective somehow has to be woven into any
towards a more integrated and applied approach of emergency policy and planning, otherwise a
risk management involving volcanologists, social significant segment of the population at risk will
scientists, emergency planners, local communities be overlooked and a major social and economic
and others (Aguirre and Ahearn, 2007). The stimulus underestimated in the resulting plan.
catalyst for this shift was a series of significant This chapter therefore considers how the
eruptions in the final decades of the 20th century essential balancing act between development and
and a focusing of minds through the UN declaration risk management might occur. A brief introduction
in the 1990s of an International Decade for presents the broader concerns currently occupying
Natural Disaster Reduction (Chester et al, 2002). hazard management around volcanoes. Then
Within this context, it would at first thought drawing upon the example of Vesuvius and its
seem to be the greatest folly for destinations near surrounding municipalities in the Campania region
to active volcanoes to propose expanding tourism of Italy, a description of the specific emergency
development and thereby push further significant plan for the Vesuvius area of Italy is given and
numbers of people into an already difficult consideration offered as to the implications of
situation. As a result, it is probably not surprising bringing tourism into such an equation.

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