Continuing our Contested Landscape series, Martin Hesp has been pondering the impact mass tourism can have on the region’s wonderful scenery

TOURISM is the vital ingredient of this region's economy, with overall visitor spending reckoned to be somewhere over £9 billion per annum. But can our precious and much-pressured landscapes keep playing host to ever-increasing numbers of visitors, or could this massive industry one day become a victim of its own success?

Heritage sites across the UK are actively in the process of considering steps that will deter visitors – places as diverse as Highgate Cemetery to the remote Isle of St Kilda are suffering because of human overload – and it is a problem which undoubtedly faces some of the most popular parts of the Westcountry.

Go to places like the Lake District on a summer bank holiday, or to cities like Venice on just about any day of the year, and you will see what tourism can do to a location. There are times in the Lakes when the madding crowd makes it difficult for visitors to admire the view they've travelled so far to see. In Venice, the wonders of St Mark's Square are rarely visible because of the crush.

This killing of the goose that laid the golden egg could – and arguably sometimes does – happen here. We certainly have our tourism hot spots – to the extent that most locals simply avoid certain famous seaside resorts in July or August. Let's not even talk about driving on Westcountry roads in high season.

However, our precious wild countryside is also under threat from increasingly large and regular invasions of people. Ironically, of course, it is the emptiness and peacefulness – the very essence of the countryside experience – that so many visitors come to enjoy, and by their very numbers, destroy.

Having said that, it is a well-documented fact the large majority of visitors do not wander far from their cars or coaches when they stop in beauty spots. One survey carried out by a national park team suggests fewer than 10 per cent walk more than 500 metres.

Nevertheless, they are all most welcome whether they walk and explore or not. It is difficult to imagine how many of our more rural communities would survive without the tourist pound.

There is, though, the question of how we manage influxes of visitors, especially with society's rapidly increasing interest in spending "quality time" in a "quality environment".

Thankfully, the days when the knee-jerk reaction was to simply knock-up more hotels, and build straighter, wider roads and bigger car parks have long gone. But the question of what to do instead is taxing the minds of many people and organisations across the region at present.

The peninsula boasts two of the most beautiful national parks in the country, as well as a fabulous handful of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), not to mention all those long and magnificent miles of unspoilt coastline. All these places could be under threat to some extent if the trend towards visiting open countryside continues at the same rate as it has done over the past few decades.

From my own experience I can recall growing up on the fringes of Exmoor and visiting the central moors with my father 40 years ago. We'd not see a single living soul all day, save for perhaps a shepherd or two. And that would be on a sunny summer day.

Recently I went for a walk in the moors above Malmsead on a cold grey end-of-winter morning and came across numerous hikers and people enjoying a day out on the moors.

Last week a major conference posing some of the vital questions over the future of rural tourism was staged on Exmoor, and the thoughts and theories aired were as varied as they were interesting. The Exmoor Society's annual spring conference was themed Enjoy Exmoor and it set out to explore what options there were for a wider more sustainable access to the national park. Some of the views expressed represent a blueprint for beautiful areas across the South West.

Setting the scene, society chairman Rachel Thomas claimed the tourism industry needed to adopt a "more sustainable environmentally friendly way of working in order to secure its long-term future".

She explained Exmoor was the first English national park to achieve European Charter status for sustainable tourism. "We need to be proud of the internationally rare assets found here and confident they can lead to a vibrant tourist industry and help towards the socio-economic development of this unique but fragile area," said Mrs Thomas.

Such thoughts beg the question: what is tourism? Once you know the answer you can begin to consider how it should be approached.

It was a question I put to the man who perhaps should know the answer best. Malcolm Bell is director of South West Tourism and after addressing the conference he said: "Traditionally there's been a tourism development strategy that, first of all, you find out what the customers want, then you change what you've got so you can deliver.

"You then put up with the consequences of that, whatever those changes may be. But my view is that we should find out what we need to keep all that is unique to the South West, and improve on that. To find out what communities need in terms of things like culture events and then, in tourism terms, find out who would be interested in coming to see or experience it.

"Tourism is a tool, not a conflict. But equally, in that process of discovery, you've got to know your carrying capacity. There is a limit to the number of people you can cater for. Those who've ever been to the Lake District or Venice or Florence will know that. In the latter two cases they are actually ruined and what's ruined them is tourism.

"Tourism can be like fishing – you can destroy the very asset you live off.

"You have to be prepared to take a lower yield over a long period, rather than grab a quick burst and then blow it.

"Carrying capacity in the high summer period is pretty full [in the region at present] – you do not want to build much more on that. But through events like festivals, you can build on the lull periods where there is capacity. And you can do it without impacting badly or negatively on the local community.

"Basically," said Mr Bell, "you have to be smarter. In low season, tourism generally runs at 50 per cent capacity – probably in rural areas it's less than that – so there's lots of capacity at certain times.

"Picking up on what is best in an area like this is important – we've just heard about the wonderful idea of a 'rutting weekend' [staged at Porlock during the autumnal red deer mating season]. That's just right for Exmoor. You shouldn't do artificial things – a festival can't just be there for no reason."

One person who knows all about organising festivals to draw in out-of-season tourists is the organiser of that rutting weekend Denise Sage, the dynamic manager of Porlock's visitor centre. The West Somerset village has become well known for its energetic drive in staging all manner of events, including the rutting weekends and a programme which gets people out onto the moors to enjoy the national park's exceptionally dark, but star-lit skies.

"The themed events are proving to be more and more successful," said Mrs Sage, after making a speech in which she called for Exmoor to become better known internationally as well as countrywide.

"People are coming down because things are happening in Porlock – and these events bring in masses of people. So it can be done. What we believe in is working with everyone else – we are looking for a united front when we organise events.

"Things like our 'dark skies' and our 'rutting weekend' are promoting the very best of Exmoor," said Mrs Sage. "And it's high spending, low impact, tourism. Everything on offer is local – it really does bring money into the economy. A rutting weekend will bring in more than £8000."

In her conference address, Mrs Sage mentioned the Lake District and warned there was a danger Exmoor could become overdeveloped. I asked her if she really had such fears.

"We will never be a Lake District, which is surrounded by human development – by cities," she replied. "I don't think we get enough people coming here. In fact, we've never really recovered from the foot and mouth epidemic.

"But it's how we manage people when they get here that's the real issue. One thing's for sure – people who do know about Exmoor return again and again. And the word is now spreading – this year we've even had six requests for information from Russia."

Another person who thinks there's room for more tourism is Nigel Stone, chief executive of the Exmoor National Park Authority. Asked if he thought Exmoor could ever become a Westcountry version of the overly popular Lake District, Dr Stone replied: "It won't happen – one reason is because we're little bit more difficult to get to from the motorway. Also, we are surrounded by other beautiful countryside areas – which helps spread the load.

"I am confident Exmoor visitor numbers could go up substantially and we wouldn't notice. We do have quite an extended season now, but the more we can extend that the better.

"People are coming here for what the landscape has to offer – and, interestingly, the more visitors you have, the easier it actually becomes to manage things. Take Dunster or Tarr Steps as an example – if we knew that,throughout August, they were going to be very busy we could organise park-and-ride shuttle buses from Minehead, and so on. The bigger economics make it easier to provide for more visitors.

"But we are going to have to work a bit harder in putting together things like travel, accommodation, activities," said Dr Stone.

"We must work together to make it easier for people to come to Exmoor. And, ultimately it's about local communities pulling together to organise what they have to offer."

So is tourism on the increase in the region, or is the economic recession going to reduce the numbers arriving and therefore negate any pressure there might be on the landscape?

"Lots of things are coming out of the recession," said Mr Bell. "People are rethinking their spending decisions. People want more out of their holidays.

"There are emotional and creative considerations. You want to feel you're getting real value for money – and you probably won't get that if you go to somewhere like Prague for a quick two day break.

"Here, on Exmoor, there's a lot that can help people cope with a challenging world. It's a deep, quality, experience rather than just a distraction."

He is right. Sit by the banks of the Barle even just half a mile above a popular tourist honey-trap like Tarr Steps, and you can find yourself being absorbed into a primeval world of pure, physical, unchanging beauty. That's as good a cure as you can get if you are looking for something to salve a soul battered by the rat-race.

If ever such places were to echo with the beat of the ghetto blaster – if ever they were to become overly-interpreted by sign-boards on every fence and stile, and all too easily reached by well laid concrete paths – that essential magical peace and tranquillity would be lost at once.

Few of the contested aspects of our landscape need to be more thoughtfully approached than the question of how we deal with tourism. We must share our beautiful landscapes: a) because it would be unfair not to, and b) because our local economy desperately needs visitor input – but the act of sharing must never be allowed to destroy the very things we all love.