Antarctic Cruise Ship Tourism

The issue of Antarctic Cruise Ship Tourism has gained much attention over the last twenty years as cruise ship and passenger numbers steadily increase. Cruise ship tourism accounts for 96% of tourism to the Antarctic and is growing at twice the rate of tourism worldwide. Currently the cruise ship industry is managed through The Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), Non Governmental Organisations (NGO) (self regulation), guidelines, various treaties and a series of international laws (Bauer & Dowling 2006). Antarctica remains a land mass without a governing organisation with the requisite sovereignty and international legal personality, to enable complete enforcement of any rules, regulations and laws that may be developed to cover the region and its current/future needs. Sea borne tourism raises a number of concerns, as numbers grow the likelihood of maritime disasters and environmental impacts increases; and needs to be carefully planned for. Cruise tourism in the Antarctic is cold climate tourism that takes place without a local population, the usual tourism infrastructure and without the normal governmental involvement that comes hand in hand with the exploitation of a resource. Since the beginning of the modern Antarctic tourism industry in 1969, the number of tourists in Antarctica has grown from a few hundred to more than 30,000 each year (Bauer & Dowling 2006)