Biosecurity, tourism and mobility: institutional arrangements for managing tourism-related biological invasions

Biological invasion, the unintentional introduction of non-native alien plants, animals and disease into a country, has become a major health, economic and environmental issue. Tourism is widely regarded as a major contributor to the dispersal of invasive species. Measures to control biological invasion therefore may have a substantial effect on tourism mobility. The paper therefore examined the international institutional arrangements that surround tourism mobility and identifies several main components including the International Health Regulations, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. It is concluded that the complex set of institutional arrangements that these and other related measures form with respect to biosecurity has substantial gaps with respect to its capacity to control and restrict biological invasions, particularly with respect to tourism. Furthermore, these gaps are not just one of focus but also relate to their notion of what constitutes the global good as well as the application of the precautionary principle with respect to the effect of biological invasion. It is also concluded that these issues reflect wider tensions in the sustainability of tourism.