Bora Bora is close to paradise. The small island is part of French Polynesia and lies in the vast expanse of the South Pacific Ocean. The central peak rises from the green hills and the turquoise lagoon is surrounded by overwater bungalows. Beyond a shallow reef, the water extends in all directions.
That splendor has caused a problem in recent decades. As Bora Bora became one of the world’s most sought-after vacation destinations, tourists flocking there in large cruise ships overwhelmed the island. It became so overrun that Bora Bora promised in 2019 to tackle the problem by limiting the number of cruise visitors from 2022.
Then in 2021, French Polynesia made global headlines by promising to ban cruise ships carrying more than 3,500 passengers from 2022. It was later said that it would limit overall tourist numbers.
Related: Paradise Cost: The Pacific Islands are changing the future of tourism
But this year, a new government in French Polynesia abandoned that promise 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 change has created divisions within French Polynesia between those who want to grow the tourism sector and others who support a more environmentally friendly model like Bora Bora. This shift has put cruise ships – which serve island tourism but pose environmental risks – under particular scrutiny.
Island ‘invaded’ by tourists
French Polynesia consists of more than 100 islands, including Bora Bora and Tahiti.
Like many other countries in the Pacific, tourism is crucial to French Polynesia. According to Tahiti Tourism, it contributes approximately 12% of GDP and 80% of export revenues. The sector’s importance has increased significantly over the past decade, government figures show, with the number of tourists rising from around 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, president of the Bora Bora Tourism Association, remembers the days when cruise ships carrying up to 3,000 passengers each docked at the island and tourists flooded the streets of Bora Bora.
“The hotels wanted to protect the quality of their services,” says Besinau. “So when the ships arrived, the hotels closed their doors to the people outside. She [didn’t] want to be invaded.”
Instead, most cruise tourists walked several kilometers 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 end up in the pristine reef, Besinau says.
Besinau says that before the island took steps to limit arrivals, it had “two tourism models that were fighting each other.”
“A luxury model, with a very quiet 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 Bora Bora Mayor Gaston Tong Sang, and a collection of entrepreneurs – led the island’s municipal council to decide to focus on luxury tourism through the daily arrival of cruises to be limited to just 1,200 from 2022.
Environmentalists welcomed the move. “Limiting the number of tourists makes sense,” said 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 against all cruise ships. She believes smaller ships could replace hotels as she fears they will destroy the environment and hinder locals’ access to land.
But for large cruise ships, she believes that “having those big monsters coming from outside” is detrimental to the landscape and environmental ambitions. “Large cruise ships have a bad reputation. They are big emitters.”
According to a 2019 study, a cruise ship can generate a carbon footprint of more than 12,000 cars. Ships often use bunker fuel: a tar-like substance that emits air pollution and greenhouse gases when burned. Many cruise lines have pledged 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. Members are “committed to reducing the carbon intensity of the cruise fleet by an average of 40% by 2030 compared to 2008,” says Joel Katz, managing director of Clia’s Australasia, “and aiming for zero-carbon cruises by 2050.”
Katz says Clia doesn’t have data for the Pacific, but cruising brings benefits to society: “Small coastal communities benefit from the cruise industry bringing in visitors to support local travel businesses and create jobs.”
French Polynesia wants to boost the number of arrivals
While Bora Bora is reducing 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 he aims to welcome 600,000 tourists annually by 2033 – up from almost 219,000 last year. Guillaume Colombani, a tourism adviser to Brotherson’s government, confirmed to the Guardian that French Polynesia would seek to increase arrivals to 600,000 per year within a decade.
Colombani says the former government’s promises to limit arrivals were made “at a time of massive ‘cruise bashing'”. He says as part of meeting the visitor target, the government has identified abandoned hotels that may be suitable for development. It also identified public land that could be leased to investors for “new resort projects” with an emphasis on sustainability. In Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia, construction is underway on a new three-storey cruise terminal, which will open in 2024.
Many tourism operators have cautiously welcomed a plan to grow the sector, but expressed concerns about how the extra visitors would be accommodated.
Related: Private paradise: The French Polynesian island locks locals off its beaches
Alexandrine Wan, CEO of French Polynesian travel agency Nani Travels, said it may be possible to grow tourism sustainably, but warned that the strategy “must be very well thought out and in line 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 that’s the case, why not? As long as we can accommodate them and distribute them evenly,” says Tehei.
Maintaining a ‘peaceful island’
The director general of Bora Bora council, Maireraurii Leverd, told the Guardian that the island would maintain restrictions 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,” she says.
Vanizette, meanwhile, sees Brotherson’s approach as disastrous, especially when it comes to increasing tourist numbers. She calls it a “complete contradiction” to any sustainable tourism strategy.
Dr. Timothy MacNeill, director of sustainability studies at Ontario Tech University, says that “cruise tourism is very bad in almost every way.”
“If you can think of an industry that’s a good candidate for a complete shutdown, it’s probably cruise tourism,” he says.
Amid these concerns, Vanizette hopes Bora Bora’s approach to cruise tourism will once again become a model for French Polynesia. “[It] is more sustainable, more ecological and helps families get more money,” she says.
Nearly two years after restrictions on cruise tourists came into effect in Bora Bora, Besinau says the island is thriving and continues to adhere to this approach.
“We want to preserve this image of Bora Bora as a peaceful island.”