Børge Heggen Johansen

Tourism transport may lead to significant air emissions and congestion problems on road networks. This is particularly troublesome for nature-based tourism destinations, as they often are in rural areas with low transportation capacities and vulnerable nature. Tourism transport systems are poorly understood, especially multi-modal systems with land and sea dynamics. In this article, we propose a multi-modal transport model that integrates traffic both at land and sea generated by tourism. The model was built on data from an in-situ questionnaire and validated with traffic counts and video recordings for the Geiranger fjord UNESCO world heritage site in Norway. Following a parliament decision to eliminate emissions from sea traffic, four emission reduction scenarios were explored. Results show that cruise-generated tourist buses may significantly contribute to air emissions and the formation of road congestion and emphasize the necessity of having a holistic approach in analyzing consequences of emission reduction policies for tourism transport. The model may be used in transportation planning and policymaking to assess alternative pathways to sustainable tourism transport.

Balancing the positive and negative impacts of cruise tourism is a challenging task for port operators. Necessary information for cruise port planning and decision making may be laborious to acquire and further combine for holistic decision support. The current study applies a system-oriented sustainability scoring model to the port of Geiranger, Norway. The aim is to provide a practical and low-threshold approach for appraising sustainability aspects in cruise port planning and decision making. The scoring model provides an estimate of performance on sustainability indicators based on cruise call itinerary information and readily available ship data. Results demonstrate how using the scoring model can prove useful for both port management, planning, stakeholder communication and scenario evaluation.