Lake Baikal is no stranger to superlatives. Located in southern Siberia, Russia, the world’s largest freshwater lake by volume is also the deepest, the oldest and one of the clearest. And despite measuring 636km long, with a surface area of 31,722 sq km, the Unesco-celebrated site has fallen victim to overtourism, an unlikely outsider on the growing list of destinations under siege by sightseers. Despite its inaccessibility – dedicated travellers reach the inland sea by air, road or train only after several hours, and in some cases days, of journeying – most visitors are drawn to Lake Baikal during its ice season, from January to April, when those crystalline waters freeze, a process that results in striking patterns being formed on the solid surface. The ice can reach a thickness of 1.5 metres and is strong enough to support most vehicles. “The insistent urgent roar of snowmobiles is rarely out of earshot when tourist season is in full flow,” reported British newspaper The Telegraph , in June. Last year, Lake Baikal welcomed more than 1.6 million tourists, most of whom were domestic. However, there was a 37 per cent rise in the number of Chinese travellers flowing into the area, according to the Irkutsk Tourism Agency. At a recent congress of water resource specialists, Russia’s special representative for nature conservation, ecology and transport, Sergei Ivanov, said: “Sooner or later we will have to artificially limit the flow of tourists to Baikal, as sad as it sounds. If we want to preserve Baikal’s uniqueness and keep it clean, we need to do something.” Much like the Philippine island of Boracay, which was shuttered for six months last year in an attempt to rescue it from being what President Rodrigo Duterte called a “cesspool” , waste management is among the major issues facing Baikal. As visitor numbers have increased so too has hotel construction, and many of these newly built properties do not have adequate sewage systems or waste disposal facilities. “Rubbish is increasing at an unbelievable pace,” said Ivanov, adding that human waste was being disposed of straight into the lake. The “world’s largest freshwater lake” title is evidently under threat. Then there is the matter of who is benefiting from tourism-related businesses. In May, The New York Times reported that a Russian motel owner, Andrei Sukhanov, had taken his chainsaw to a Chinese-owned hotel that was rising to obstruct his views of Baikal and was lionised for standing up against the enemy. “If we let them, the Chinese will take over,” Sukhanov, who lives in Listvyanka, a resort town on the water’s edge also known as the Baikal Riviera, told the newspaper. He also complained that Chinese business owners did not pay taxes, adding that if they did, “we would get the infrastructure and the schools that we need”. That Beijing is closer to Lake Baikal than Moscow does little to alleviate fears of a Chinese invasion, even if the numbers aren’t quite there to back up the theory, yet; Chinese visitors accounted for 186,200 of Baikal’s 1.6 million visitors last year. According to The New York Times , locals believe that travellers from the Middle Kingdom, who often refer to Lake Baikal by its ancient Han name, the Northern Sea, are hoping to reclaim the region, which was ceded to the Russian empire in an 1858 treaty. The intentions of a Chinese couple who spoke to the American newspaper appeared to be less covetous, however. When asked what had brought them to explore the vast body of water, they played On the Shores of Lake Baikal , a heart-rending pop-folk tune by singer Li Jian, who, according to newspaper Global Times , is responsible for having transformed the Siberian destination into a holiday hotspot in the minds of the Chinese. There is an even greater peril facing Lake Baikal’s tourism industry than an inflow of those inspired by Li’s lyrics – climate breakdown. Located in one of the fastest warming regions of the planet, the water is getting hotter and the winter ice thinner, affecting the lake’s microscopic life forms and the ecosystems they support. Russian conservationists are so concerned, they have turned for support to A-list environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio, who has Russian heritage. The Hollywood star’s Instagram account has been flooded with calls for help, but it remains to be seen whether the star of Titanic will be willing or able to avert this disaster. Eight of world’s top 10 flight routes are in Asia ‘ Flygskam ’ hasn’t taken hold of Asia, yet. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) World Air Transport Statistics report, which was released last month, the Asia-Pacific region accounted for 37.1 per cent of all air passengers worldwide in 2018 and eight out of the 10 busiest flight routes are in the region, including three from Hong Kong. The route from Hong Kong to Taipei takes second spot globally (with 28,447 flights annually), behind Kuala Lumpur to Singapore; Hong Kong to Shanghai is in fourth place (20,678 flights); and Hong Kong to Seoul Incheon takes eighth place (15,770 flights). The report estimated that fuel efficiency had improved by 12 per cent from 2010 to 2018, although Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s director general and chief executive, acknowledged that the industry still had a long way to go. “We understand that sustainability is essential to our license to spread aviation’s benefits,” he said in a statement. Although true sustainability (“the avoidance of the depletion of natural resources to maintain an ecological balance”) within the aviation industry is an impossibility – however many new fuel mixes the boffins come up with – it seems likely those “benefits” will keep spreading, nonetheless. Phuket has too many beds The southern Thai island of Phuket has long been one of the most popular holiday destinations for visitors to the Southeast Asian nation, but thus far, 2019 has not proved quite so favourable. A number of factors, including safety concerns following a tragic boat disaster in July last year, the weaker yuan and the strong baht, have led to a significant decline in Chinese arrivals. According to the Bangkok Post , hotel occupancy for the second quarter was 65 per cent, “an extraordinary low”, while the number of travellers from the Middle Kingdom was down 70 per cent from the same period in 2018. There are currently 93, 941 hotel rooms on the island, excluding accommodation in villas and hostels. And hospitality consultancy firm C9 Hotelworks reported that 15,000 more will come onto the market in the next five years, which will not only be bad for business, if supply continues to outstrip demand, but also for the environment. In the meantime, the Tourism Authority of Thailand is working on attracting “quality tourists”, who spend more at restaurants, spas and attractions, and promoting “sustainable [there’s that word, again] tourism”. Presumably it will not be doing so by curbing development at a destination that doesn’t currently need it.