Caring For Antarctica’s Environment May Mean Lessening Tourists
Despite Antarctica’s ice, snow, isolation, high winds and raging seas and for hardy types, precisely for these reasons, the continent will be visited by an estimated 11,200 people this tourist season, all but about 130 of them on cruise ships. This total is still seventy percent higher than the 6,585 seasons before it even as this is only 400 times more visitors than last year’s tourist season, slated from mid November up until February. Antarctica’s many watchers are growing worried towards its environment and warned that Antarctic visitors could grow by the thousands annually.
On average, an Antarctic cruise can go up to twenty thousand dollars for each individual, while the average 14-day cruise costs a heavy six to seven thousand dollars and this does not include round trip air fare to Ushuaia, Argentina, specifically in Tierra del Fuego which has become the most known common departing point, used 90 percent of the time. But even as Antarctica seems to be insulated from tourist throngs due to the price and its tough climate and geography, most environmentalists aver that it may already have saturated in terms of tourists and this is tantamount to ecological harm.