"Historically, tourism has contributed to increasing the scarcity of water resources in many regions of the world," which has "required key investments" to increase the availability of water and sanitation and purification infrastructures. This is reflected in the study Fundamentals for measuring the sustainability of tourism, prepared by the two public universities of the Canary Islands.
This research states that the increase in the value of water, induced by tourism, "can contribute" to "displacing" other economic activities, especially in the primary sector, as well as "generating problems of rivalry and social conflicts."
The text indicates that "adequate co-governance", in which the rights of access to water between sectors and regions are guaranteed, can address these differences. However, climate change and the increasing scarcity of this fundamental resource "call into question these institutional agreements, especially in intensely tourist regions" such as the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands.
The proposed alternative to solve this situation is collaboration between the tourism industry, local communities, the various public administrations and environmental organizations.
Thus, at this point it denounces "the lack of reliable information" on water consumption in the tourism industry. It even adds that most activities "are invisible in the municipal service networks of supply, sanitation and purification" of water or in the network of collection and transport of waste" and that this hinders "the measurement of their environmental impacts."
Large tourist flows "tend to be concentrated in time and space in traditionally arid and dry regions", that is, in sun and beach destinations. This leads to an "overexploitation of local resources" and an intensification of water consumption. It is here that the impacts of climate change aggravate the problems of scarcity and "the deterioration of ecosystems" due to pollution.
The study emphasizes that other investigations have already warned of the "high water footprint" that tourism activity has due to the "large volume of food waste", the "large volume of protein foods in the diet of tourists, mainly the volume of meat, which generates the largest water footprint" and the energy consumption derived from the air transport of food "from remote places" and its impact "on the water footprint of the regions, especially island regions."
The research highlights that "currently there is no official statistical information" that reflects the consumption and needs of water in the tourism sector. There are studies that show "that consumption ranges between 361 and 600 liters per day in four and five star hotels" and, in the case of recreational activities, highlights the consumption of golf courses and large infrastructures for events and conventions.