Page 357 - Volcano and Geothermal Tourism

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Conclusions and

Recommendations

Patricia Erfurt-Cooper and Malcolm Cooper possible to reduce the risk and speed up recovery
of tourism through education and therefore
Concluding remarks raising the awareness of the public when spending
their holidays in a volcanic environment.
The growing interest in natural processes as well To mitigate the potential risks of volcano
as the geological heritage of interesting landforms tourism, effective warning and rescue systems and
with volcanic and geothermal features includes community awareness-raising programmes need
some high-risk areas as attractive tourist to be in place at every volcanic destination.
destinations. This interest has been fuelled by an Efficient cooperation and coordination between
increasing number of publications about volcanic the authorities in charge and tourism organizations
and geothermal areas from the early 1990s, and as well as with tour operators is important to
another surge of these sources of information in ensure that every stakeholder is aware of the
the early 2000s. However, the majority of these current state of a volcano, as far as that is possible.
are mainly guides to national parks (for example, Community awareness is, however, different from
in the USA, especially the western part of the visitor awareness; many affected areas have invested
country). The growing interest in volcanoes is in educating the communities who live in close
more likely to have been triggered by the eruption proximity to active volcanoes, because people
of Mt St Helens in the early 1980s, as this was the who live near volcanoes multiply their exposure
first time that such a catastrophic event was by 365 in contrast to tourists visiting for a day
broadcast worldwide in real time. only. BUT, while the potential risk of living near
The subsequent re-establishment of the Mt St an active volcano pertains to millions of local
Helens recreational area as a ‘safe’ tourist destination residents, it is mainly the tourists (their numbers
also took advantage of the growing interest of the are also in millions annually) who are going to see
media in this form of disaster, with the onset of active craters and lava flows up close. Local
the ‘worldwide web’ further adding to the residents do not visit their volcanoes every day;
dissemination of information. Two years after the their exposure is not as imminent as that of the
eruption the Mt St Helens National Volcanic visitors, who want to look into active craters and
Monument was established (1982) to encourage view eruptive activity from as close as possible.
research, education, interpretation and recreation Volcano tourists, even if they are aware of the
on the volcano and is administered by the Forest potential risk, often have the motive of ‘wanting to
Service (Decker and Decker, 1993). The experience see some action’. To verify this, the reader only has
of the Mt St Helens disaster and its aftermath to go to YouTube on the internet to see hair raising
shows that, while it is not possible to prevent examples of tourist behaviour close to volcanic
natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, it is and geothermal activity. Poking red hot lava flows

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