by Bora Bora is close to paradise. The small island is part of French Polynesia and is located in the enormous expanse of the South Pacific Ocean. Its central peak rises among green hills and its turquoise lagoon is surrounded by overwater bungalows. Beyond a shallow reef, the water extends in all directions.
In recent decades, that splendor has posed a problem. When Bora Bora became one of the most sought-after vacation destinations in the world, tourists flocking to it on large cruise ships overwhelmed the island. It became so overrun that in 2019, Bora Bora promised to address the problem by limiting the number of cruise ship visitors starting in 2022.
French Polynesia then made global headlines in 2021 by promising to ban cruise ships with more than 3,500 passengers starting in 2022. It later said it would limit the overall number of tourists.
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But this year, a new French Polynesian government abandoned that promise and instead set a goal of nearly doubling the number of visitors by 2033. It has also welcomed large cruise ships to some ports.
The dramatic policy change has created division within French Polynesia between those who want to grow the tourism sector and others who support a more environmentally friendly model like Bora Bora. The change has put cruise ships, which serve island tourism but pose risks to the environment, under special scrutiny.
Island ‘invaded’ by tourists
French Polynesia is made up of more than 100 islands, including Bora Bora and Tahiti.
Like many Pacific nations, tourism is vital to French Polynesia, contributing around 12% of GDP and 80% of export earnings, according to Tahiti Tourism. The importance of the industry has increased significantly over the last decade, government figures show, with tourist numbers rising from around 160,000 in 2011 to 236,000 in 2019, mainly from the United States and France.
Part of that increase was driven by the growth of cruise tourism throughout the region. Rainui Besinau, president of the Bora Bora tourism association, remembers the days when cruise ships carrying up to 3,000 passengers each docked near the island and tourists flooded the streets of Bora Bora.
“Hotels wanted to protect the quality of their service,” says Besinau. “So when the boats arrived, the hotels closed their doors to people outside. They [didn’t] “I want to be invaded.”
Instead, most cruise tourists walked several kilometers from the pier to Matira Beach, one of Bora Bora’s top attractions. With so many people in the water, large amounts of sunscreen would wash off, Besinau says, onto the pristine reef..
Besinau says that before taking measures to restrict arrivals, the island had “two tourism models that were fighting.”
“A luxury model, with a very quiet island and without too many people in the water, and mass tourism with cruises,” he says. “Those two models are not compatible.”
In 2019, frustrations from the tourism industry (led by Besinau, along with Bora Bora Mayor Gaston Tong Sang and a group of businessmen) caused the island’s local council to decide to focus on luxury tourism by limiting arrivals. daily cruises to only 1,200 from 2022.
Environmentalists welcomed the move. “Limiting the number of tourists is logical,” says Marie-Laure Vanizette, spokesperson for the environmental group Te Ora Naho, to “preserve our assets and our way of life.”
Like many in French Polynesia, Vanizette is not opposed to all cruising. She believes smaller boats can replace hotels, which she worries will devastate the environment and obstruct locals’ access to the land.
But in the case of large cruise ships, he believes that “having those big monsters coming from abroad” harms the landscape and environmental aspirations. “Large cruise ships have a bad reputation. “They are great emitters.”
According to a 2019 study, a cruise ship can generate a carbon footprint greater than that of 12,000 cars. Ships typically use bunker fuel: a tar-like substance that emits air pollution and greenhouse gases when burned. Many cruise lines have promised to switch to liquefied natural gas (LNG), but environmentalists worry that using LNG risks releasing methane, which is also harmful to the climate.
The Cruise Line Industry Association (Clia), which represents the world’s largest cruise companies, disputes this assessment. Its members are “committed to reducing carbon intensity on average across the entire cruise fleet by 40% by 2030 compared to 2008,” says Joel Katz, Clia managing director in Australasia, “and are pursuing zero-emission cruises.” net carbon emissions by 2050.
Katz says Clia doesn’t have data for the Pacific, but cruises bring benefits to societies: “Small coastal communities benefit from the cruise industry, which attracts visitors to support local travel businesses and create jobs.”
French Polynesia will boost arrivals
As Bora Bora reduces the number of cruise tourists, the rest of French Polynesia wants to take a different approach.
Moetai Brotherson, who became president of French Polynesia in May, told local media that his goal is to welcome 600,000 tourists each year by 2033 (last year there were almost 219,000). Guillaume Colombani, a tourism adviser to the Brotherson government, confirmed to The Guardian that French Polynesia would aim to increase arrivals to 600,000 a year within the decade.
Colombani says the previous government’s promises to limit arrivals were “made at a time when there were massive attacks on cruise ships.” He says that as part of meeting the visitor target, the government has identified derelict hotels that may be suitable for development. He was also identifying public land that could be leased to investors for “new tourism projects” focused on sustainability. In Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, work is underway to build a new three-level cruise terminal that will open in 2024.
Many tourism operators have cautiously welcomed a plan to grow the sector but expressed concern about how it would accommodate additional visitors.
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Alexandrine Wan, CEO of French Polynesian travel agency Nani Travels, says it is possible to grow tourism sustainably, but cautioned that the strategy must be “very well thought out and must be in accordance with the wishes of the population and the environment”. .
Tahiti-based tour operator Dominique Tehei believes that more tourists could be positive for the country.
“The problem is that we don’t have enough hotel rooms or activities for everyone, but if they are available, why not? As long as we can accommodate them and distribute them evenly,” says Tehei.
Maintain a ‘peaceful island’
Bora Bora council director general Maireraurii Leverd told The Guardian that the island would maintain its limits on cruise tourists even if the rest of French Polynesia increased tourist numbers.
“We don’t have the same strategy for Bora Bora, because we are a very small island,” he says.
Vanizette, for his part, considers Brotherson’s strategy disastrous, especially when it comes to an increase in the number of tourists. She calls it a “total contradiction” to any sustainable tourism strategy.
Dr. Timothy MacNeill, director of sustainability studies at Ontario Technological University, says “cruise tourism is very bad in basically every way.”
“If you can think of one industry that would be a good candidate for stopping completely, it would probably be cruise tourism,” he says.
Amid these concerns, Vanizette hopes that Bora Bora’s approach to cruise tourism will once again become a model for French Polynesia. “[It] It is more sustainable, more ecological and helps families make more money,” he says.
Nearly two years after Bora Bora’s limits on cruise tourists went into effect, Besinau says the island is thriving and remains committed to this approach.
“We want to maintain this image of Bora Bora as a peaceful island.”
