Bora Bora is close to paradise. The small island is part of French Polynesia and sits in the huge expanse of the south Pacific Ocean. Its central peak juts upwards from green hills and its turquoise lagoon is fringed by overwater bungalows. Beyond a shallow reef, water stretches in every direction.
In recent decades, that splendour has posed a problem. As Bora Bora became one of the world’s most sought-after holiday destinations, the tourists who flocked to it in large cruise ships overwhelmed the island. It became so overrun that in 2019, Bora Bora promised to tackle the problem by capping cruise visitor numbers from 2022.
Then, French Polynesia made global headlines in 2021 by promising to ban cruise ships with more than 3,500 passengers from 2022. It later said it would limit overall tourist numbers.
But this year, a new government in French Polynesia abandoned that pledge, and instead set a goal of nearly doubling visitor numbers by 2033. It has also welcomed large cruise ships to some ports.
The dramatic policy shift 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 shift has put cruise ships – which serve island tourism but pose risks to the environment – under particular 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 about 12% of GDP and 80% of export revenue, according to Tahiti Tourism. The industry’s importance has increased significantly over the past decade, government figures show, with tourist numbers rising from roughly 160,000 in 2011 to 236,000 in 2019 – mainly from the US and France.
Part of that increase was driven by the growth of cruise tourism across the region. Rainui Besinau, chair of Bora Bora’s tourism association, remembers days when cruise ships with up to 3,000 passengers each would dock near the island and tourists would flood the streets of Bora Bora.
“The hotels wanted to protect the quality of their service,” Besinau says. “So when the ships arrived, the hotels closed the doors to the people outside. They [didn’t] want to be invaded.”
Instead, most cruise tourists walked several kilometres from the dock to Matira beach, one of Bora Bora’s main attractions. With so many people in the water, large amounts of sunscreen would slough off, Besinau says, into the pristine reef.
Besinau says before it took steps to restrict arrivals, the island had “two tourism models that were fighting”.
“A luxury model, with a very peaceful island without too many people on the water, and mass tourism with the cruise ships,” he says. “Those two models are not compatible.”
In 2019, the frustrations of the tourism industry – led by Besinau, along with the Bora Bora mayor, Gaston Tong Sang, and a collection of business owners – saw the island’s local council decide to focus on luxury tourism by limiting daily cruise arrivals to just 1,200 from 2022.
Environmentalists welcomed the move. “Capping tourist numbers is logical,” says Marie-Laure Vanizette, spokesperson for 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 cruise ships. She believes smaller vessels can replace hotels, which she worries will devastate the environment and obstruct locals’ access to land.
But for large cruise ships, she believes “having those big monsters coming from outside” hurts the landscape and environmental aspirations. “Big cruise ships have a bad reputation. They’re big emitters.”
According to a 2019 study, a cruise ship can generate a carbon footprint greater than 12,000 cars. Vessels often use bunker fuel: a tar-like substance that emits air pollution and greenhouse gases when burned. Many cruise lines have promised to shift to liquified natural gas (LNG), but environmentalists worry that using LNG risks releasing methane, which is also damaging to the climate.
The Cruise Line Industry Association (Clia), which represents the world’s largest cruise companies, challenges that assessment. Its members are “committed to reducing carbon intensity as an average across the cruise fleet by 40% by 2030 compared to 2008”, says Joel Katz, Clia’s Australasia managing director, “and are pursuing net zero carbon cruising by 2050.”
Katz says Clia does not have data for the Pacific but cruising brings benefits to societies: “Small coastal communities benefit from the cruise industry bringing in visitors to support local travel enterprises and provide jobs.”
French Polynesia to boost arrivals
As Bora Bora scales back on cruise tourists, the rest of French Polynesia wants to take a different approach.
Moetai Brotherson, who became French Polynesia’s president in May, told local media he aims to welcome 600,000 tourists each year by 2033 – last year it had nearly 219,000. Guillaume Colombani, a tourism adviser to Brotherson’s government, confirmed to the Guardian that French Polynesia would seek to lift arrivals to 600,000 a year within the decade.
Colombani says the former government’s promises to cap arrivals were “made at a time where there was massive ‘cruise bashing’”. He says as part of reaching the visitor target, the government has identified abandoned hotels that may be suitable for development. It was also identifying public land that could be rented to investors for “new resort projects” with a focus on sustainability. In Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, work is under way to build a new three-level cruise terminal to open in 2024.
Many tourism operators have cautiously welcomed a plan to grow the sector, but expressed concern over how the additional visitors would be accommodated.
Alexandrine Wan, chief executive of French Polynesian travel agency Nani Travels, says it may be possible to grow tourism sustainably but cautioned the strategy must be “very well thought out and it needs to be in accordance with the wishes of the population and the environment”.
Tahiti-based tour operator Dominique Tehei believes 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 it’s set up then why not? As long as we can accommodate them and get them evenly spread out,” Tehei says.
Keeping a ‘peaceful island’
The director general of Bora Bora’s council, Maireraurii Leverd, told the Guardian the island would keep its limits on cruise tourists in place, even if the rest of French Polynesia boosted tourist numbers.
“We don’t have the same strategy for Bora Bora, because we are a very small island,” she says.
Vanizette, meanwhile, sees Brotherson’s approach as disastrous, particularly where it involves increasing tourist numbers. She calls it a “total contradiction” with any sustainable tourism strategy.
Dr Timothy MacNeill, director of sustainability studies at Ontario Tech University, says “cruise tourism is very bad in basically every way.”
“If you can think of an industry that’s a good candidate to be stopped altogether, it would probably be cruise tourism,” he says.
Amid these concerns, Vanizette hopes Bora Bora’s approach to cruise tourism will become a model for French Polynesia once more. “[It] is more sustainable, more ecological, and helps families to get more money,” she says.
Almost two years after Bora Bora’s limits on cruise tourists took effect, Besinau says the island is thriving it remains committed to the approach.
“We want to keep this picture of Bora Bora as a peaceful island.”
