Tourist food consumption and its arable land requirements in a popular tourist destination

Abstract

Determining the resource intensity and environmental impacts of tourist food consumption is important for the design of sustainable development strategies for tourist destinations. Yet, studies aiming to accurately quantify the environmental repercussions of tourist food consumption for specific destinations are rare and take limited account of temporal changes in food consumption patterns among tourists. This study contributes to knowledge by calculating the impact of temporal changes in tourist food consumption on arable land requirements (ALR) in a popular tourist destination of Lhasa, Tibet. It finds that tourist food consumption per meal has increased by 8% within the period of 2013–15 which translates into over 50% increase in ALR. The study further pinpoints that 84% of the ALR increase is attributed to the animal-based food consumption of tourist. Lastly, the study shows that, in 2015, nearly 62% of the arable land area of the Lhasa region was required to meet the growing tourist demand for food.