The Environmentalist, 20, 233247, 2000  2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Manufactured in The Netherlands. Environmental changes associated with mass urban tourism and nature tourism development in Hong Kong C. Y. JIM  Department of Geography and Geology, The Uni  ersity of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong Summary. Hong Kong’s tourism is overwhelmingly urban-focused. There is a heavy concentration of tourist and ancillary facilities in a small core urban area. A well-defined tourist business district has evolved with imprints on urban morphology. Hotels and the travel industry have limited direct environ- mental impacts; recent efforts have reduced energy and water consumption and waste generation. Changing preferences and market diversification call for countryside and resort types of tourism. The mainly young visitors are increasingly interested in the scenic countryside with a well-established country-park system, the tourist potential of which has been neglected. Hitherto rural excursions have been confined to ‘honeypots’ with little penetration away from main roads. The varied possibilities of nature tourism with ecotourism ingredients can be tapped as an adjunct to the city-based counterpart. New tourist nodes such as scattered resorts and a resort island can bring visitors close to nature. The changing patterns of consumption and the increase in rural visitorship demand measures to forestall environmental degradation. Keywords: tourism, environmental impacts, landscape changes, Hong Kong Introduction The influence of tourism on destination areas, in terms of economic and socio-cultural multiplier effects, has long been subject to detailed studies. From the 1970s environmental impacts began to attract the attention of relevant organizations Ž OECD, 1980; WTO, 1980; 1983; Shackleford, . Ž 1985 and researchers Budowski, 1976; Tangi, . 1977; Cohen, 1978 . The fact that the environ- ment, both natural and cultural, is the very re- source base upon which tourism is founded, is widely recognized. With increasing popularity of Ž . mass and social tourism Haulot, 1985 and the Ž . rising adoption of the leisure ethic Butler, 1991 , a powerful force of change is permeating the world. Whilst tourism can bring positive environmen- Ž tal changes Mathieson and Wall, 1982; Pigram, . 1983; Ryan, 1991; Inskeep, 1991 , the spread and * Professor C. Y. Jim is Head of the Department of Geogra- phy and Geology at the University of Hong Kong. intensification of deleterious impacts could back- lash and dampen the industry. With recent envi- ronmental awareness, many vacationers empha- size the quality of natural and cultural heritage in Ž . destination selections Romeril, 1985 . Some pop- ular sites beset by pollution have declining visitor- ship. Increased urbanization and growing ecologi- cal concerns will convert more people to nature tourism, inducing penetration into farmlands, Ž countryside and wilderness e. g . Grant, 1989; Place, 1991; Wearing and Parsonson, 1991; Davies . and Gilbert, 1992; Ruschmann, 1992 . Such alter- native tourism activities, if not properly under- stood and managed, could usher habitat degrada- tion beyond existing ‘honeypots’. The principles and practice of sustainable tourism need to be Ž nurtured World Travel and Tourism Council, . 1995; Hunter, 1997 to conserve its resource base. The present international tourist movement, Ž . reaching 612 million visitors in 1997 WTO, 1999 , Ž . will attain 1.6 billion in 2020 WTO, 1997 . Tradi- tionally, most travels are generated by affluent