TOURIST CAVES IN EUROPE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY AND ASSESSMENT
Introduction
During the second half of 1986, I visited a large number of tourist caves in France, Britain, Germany, Greece and Israel. The purpose of this paper is to examine selected aspects of cave management and tourism in Europe, and to compare them with Australian practice.
Caves visited
Twenty tourist caves were visited as follows:
FRANCE: Grotte de Grande Roc, Grotte de Carpe Die Grotte de Domme, Grotte La Cave, Gouffre de Padirac,Grotte de Presque, Grotte de Clamouse, Grotte du Demoiselles, Grotte le Cocalaire, Aven Armand, Grotte de Cerdon (11 sites).
GERMANY: Nebelhohle (self guided cave).
ENGLAND: Kent's Cavern, Cheddar Caves, Wookey Hole Cave (3 sites).
GREECE: Perama Cave, St George Cave (Kilkis), Petralona Cave (3 sites).
ISRAEL: Soreq Cave.
ITALY: Grotte di Frasassi.
TURKEY: Pammukalle Karst Landscape.
An Overview
Virtually every country in Western Europe has caves open to the public. Largely, they have a number of comparative characteristics. Firstly, almost without exception they are owned and operated by private enterprise. Secondly, there tends to be only one tourist cave at each location. Thirdly, there is a wide diversity in the standards of cave management, and in all but a few cases, these standards are much lower than in Australia.
The Effects of Private Ownership
Government appears to have rarely taken an interest in cave development or conservation in Europe. Private ownership and operation has long been the norm. On the credit side, this has enabled a large number of caves to be opened. In some cases, a huge injection of capital has been needed to successfully develop some caves. Some, such as Grotte La Cave and Aven Armand have electric trains or funiculars (a cable railway with ascending and descending cars counterbalanced) extending into them at great depths, together with series of internal elevators. It is doubtful that public capital could be won for such enormous and costly engineering feats. On the debit side, the high cost of development, both initial and ongoing, has invariably precluded the opening of more than one show cave in any one location. This, combined with the high popularity and visitation of show caves (especially in France) means that great tourist pressure exists on individual caves.
In addition, private enterprise is adept at promoting itself, and the European cave industry very much so. Not only does the popularity of cave visitation allow for adequate profits, it also increasingly compounds the visitation pressure problem.
For example, the more famous French caves, such as Aven Armand or Padirac tend to receive between 500,000 to 600,000 visitors per year - or about 2,000 visitors per day. Put in comparative Australian terms, it is like having Easter Monday every day in terms of cave visitors. In Europe, the pressure is marginally offset, as caves close for their three winter months - providing them with a complete rest from tourists during this period. Of course, offsetting this is the fact that their annual visitor usage is packed into nine months. Clearly, the problems of people pressure in European tourist caves is immense. Any Australian cave manager would only have to consider for a moment the effect on any individual cave in his care, if it received half a million visitors each year.
The visitation problem is further compounded by two other related factors. The choice of which cave to develop has in many cases, it would seem, been made on economic grounds rather than on the grounds of aesthetic and environmental suitability. Not that, of course, Australia has been free of this sin in the past. Many European caves are not through caves, and the back-tracking of tour groups to the entrance lengthens the time underground of each group, and adds to the pressure.
Consider the example of Grotte di Frassasi in Central Italy. This cave has only been opened (by private enterprise) within the last ten years. It has several huge chambers linked by stream passages. The range, size and quality of its decoration is outstanding. However, it is not a through-cave on a Tuesday (a working day). The carpark, accommodating 2,000 cars, was full. Ticketing was computerised, and my entry time was 12.56pm which could have been managed without computerisation. There were at least six groups, of approximately 50 people, at various stations inside the cave at any particular time. Returning to the entrance required constant delays in the narrow sections, to allow incoming groups to pass. Perhaps a comparative, albeit hypothetical, Australian example would be to double the annual visitor usage at Jenolan, and close all caves except the River Cave. Jenolan would then be comparable to Frasassi. However, Frasassi is far from an isolated example.
On the positive side, Australia could possibly learn much in the area of cave promotion from the Europeans. Private enterprise has long been recognised as more interested, if not more able, in self-promotion. There is a need for any tourist cave system, regardless of ownership, to make a profit. Clearly, a number of Australian tourist cave locations, such as Wombeyan, are under-utilised.
Fortunately, in most Australian cases, a number of developed caves are available at tourist locations, making the balancing of visitation easy. Systems such as Wombeyan or Yarrangobilly could take considerably greater numbers of visitors, properly balanced through their caves, without any increase in adverse environmental effects. Conversely, there are some tourist systems, such as at Buchan, where more tourist caves are needed to balance visitor pressure. Of course, reducing the argument, it probably comes down to a question of whether to destroy one, or a few, caves quickly; or a number slowly. The degradation of caves can be greatly reduced by sound management, and it would seem that the Europeans have much to learn in this area. Nonetheless, there is hope in Europe. One suspects that, in the past, shareholders were much more interested in profits than in cave preservation. It would seem that in recent times, a realisation has dawned that in the longer term, profits will only come through cave preservation. Nowhere is this clearer than in France. France has five main karst areas, and over 70 individually located, and individually owned, tourist caves. The vast majority are members of the fairly recently formed 'National Association of Managers of Caves Equipped for Tourism' (ANECAT). The aim of this organisation are similar to ours, but one suspects their tasks to be far harder given the wide differences in standards exhibited in French cave management.
European Management Problems
It is of interest to examine individual management problems in Europe and compare them, where possible, with our own. I will begin with the more remarkable.
It has often been said that, in France, it is a case of every frog and his dog, and certainly there are few Frenchmen without a canine companion. Such is the French love of dogs, that some cave owners do not object to them accompanying their owners on cave inspections, usually on a lead. One suspects that most Australian cave managers would have some difficulty in equating dogs urinating on stalagmites with sound cave management. Similarly, some French caves have no objection to smoking underground. I followed one guide who managed seven cigarettes during a 45 minute inspection. One hardly needs to comment further on this gem in the annals of cave management. It must be added, however, that only a relatively small minority of French caves permit dogs and smokers to enter.
The lighting in nearly all European Caves exhibits a far lower standard than in Australia. With only two exceptions (Grotte Le Cocalaire in France, and Soreq Cave in Israel), there was no switching any European cave that I visited. Generally, all the lighting of the cave was on simultaneously and continuously throughout the day. In addition, in most cases, no thought or planning had gone into lighting. Light positions were usually obvious. On occasions, instead of seeing decoration, the visitor could only see a light shining in his eyes. The French in particular, are quite adept at draping electric cable in most obvious places, often over flowstone. In most caves, voltage is 220-240, although in a few 110 voltage was used.
One of the worst lit caves witnessed was the Perama Cave in north-western Greece. A wide stream passage cave with medium-sized caverns, it possesses a range of good quality speleothems. The lighting however, was well below standard. The main illumination was by track lights, with only the occasional major formation otherwise lit. There were 16 stopping points on the tour. At each point was a decoration of supposed interest. Each such decoration had a number on a steel plate attached to it to identify it - Decoration No. 1 to Decoration No. 16. Another out-standing feature of this cave's management was that in several cases these number plates had been partly calcified onto the decoration they indicated.
As one might readily guess, the lack of switching in European cave lighting greatly promotes light-assisted plant life in their caves. In many cases the green algae problem is horrific, and often little attempt at control would seem to be employed. In addition, there is a certain delight taken in actually growing ferns in caves, usually adjacent to lighting. Quite some luxurious growth was observed, and looking quite out of place. One of the 'finest' collection of cave ferns is to be found in the Cheddar Caves in England. While the management does regularly undertake chemical attacks on its algae problems, it also regularly waters its ferns - some of which live up-side-down in difficult ceiling crevasses.
Coloured lighting is still used in some French caves, although only a small minority. The biggest offender in this area is the massive Aven Armand - a single chamber aven cave is so big that it will take two cathedrals inside it. Its main features are massive complex stalagmites, formed by rapid dripping - evidenced by virtually no stalactite activity in the cave. Some of the stalagmites are 60 and 70 metres high. In another French Cave, La Cave, it features a series of lake chambers of the highest quality. One chamber, called 'The Black Night' used entirely ultraviolet lighting. While not generally a fan of coloured lighting, the effect was fascinating.
The use of chicken wire is largely overdone in European Caves, notably in France. Aven Armand displayed some breathtaking use of chicken wire to protect, one imagines, the stalagmites close to the tourist path. There, they are simply surrounded in chicken wire - usually attached to the speleothem, and in some cases conveniently calcified into place. The gauge of the wire was large enough to allow fingers to be easily inserted. This had obviously occurred repeatedly over the years - the wire acting like a homing beacon.
Self-guided tours appear a rarity in Europe. The only one noted was the Nebelhohle Cave in southern Germany. The quality of decoration in the cave was poor, to say the least - it was more a cave of historical interest, with its decoration badly damaged from several hundred years of use. Self-guiding here was indicated, as a self-guiding tourist could hardly damage the cave any further and a guide would probably have little to say in any case. There were, in my view, some caves visited that had self-guiding potential - but clearly, as with most areas of innovative cave management, Europe is considerably to the rear of Australia.
Positive European Management Features
There were few positive aspects of European cave management to be noted. The shortcomings listed above were mostly general throughout the 20 caves visited - that number being, in my view, a more than reasonable samnple on which to base appraisals
Clearly, the Europeans are excellent and skilled cave excavators. Several caves exhibit remarkable engineering feats in their development as tourist attractions. They lay a concrete path as well as the next man, even if it is over the top of some excellent flowstone. Generally, this sums up their cave management - it has little finesse.
Europe does possess some remarkable caves which, despite what we may perceive to be management shortcomings, should not be missed. Foremost amongst these are the remarkable Aven Armand already mentioned, and the Gouffre du (Well of) Padirac - a cave with a huge, wide aven entrance descending some 100 metres to a stream passage ending at a river. The underground river is then covered in gondolas for two kilometres to a massive series of large chambers with possibly the largest collection of flowstone in the world.
Only three caves visited merit positive discussion. The first is Grotte La Cocalaire in Central France. This cave is owned by M. Andre Marti, the founder and guru behind ANECAT. It is a straight, flat stream passage cave running some 15 kilometres - with only some two kilometres currently toured. It is full of quality decoration, skilfully lit with concealed lighting, and it has excellent switching. This cave compares well with the best in Australia, and should not be missed when in France.
Secondly, the recently developed Petralona Cave, west of Thessalonika in northern Greece, provides us with an example of thoughtful development. It's concealed lighting and raised trackwork is superb. Parts of the cave have been excavated for the remains of prehistoric men and animals. All the excavations, upon completion, have been left as they were - even down to all the strings used to mark strata. Educationally and aesthetically very interesting and well done. Lastly, the Soreq Cave in Israel is marvellously developed. A high quality cave with wide low chambers, its track work and lighting in particular were out-standing. All tracks were concrete slabs linked together on raised pylons. Thus, the track averaged about three quarters of a metre off the floor. The pylons are so placed so as not to cause any damage. Track lighting was concealed in the track railing, which was all hollow 6cm square aluminium tubing. The lighting was thus low wattage, but more than adequately lit the path, while not distracting in the slightest from the view of the cave.
Two other individual management features deserve mention. In the Cheddar Caves, wide use was made of photo-electric cells to protect decoration, as opposed to chicken wire. Large signs warned tourists of bells and prosecution should they break the circuit. The management reports that only three or four times per year are the bells 'accidently' set off. In my view, there are some caves in Australia where photo-electric cells could well be considered.
On one occasion, in the heavily used Grotte di Frasassi in Italy, I noted CO2 monitoring equipment. If nothing else it did show a sensibility to what was clearly a huge problem in this, and many other European caves. The computerisation of ticketing at this cave did give management accurate and instant information of tourist traffic. Indeed, the computer would seem to me to offer considerable cave management benefits if applied in this country.
Conclusions
It would appear quite clear that, while European cave management would have much to gain by a study of Australia methods, the reverse does not apply. In some European pockets there are some technical developments not yet utilised in Australia, but overall the standard of European management is comparatively low. Only in the area of tourism promotion is Europe apparently better placed than we, although clearly such promotion used in Australia would need to be applied selectively to balance with conservation and management objectives.
One must add, as a final point, that generally, European tourist caves are themselves of a high standard of quality and interest. To the ordinary tourist with no knowledge of, or interest in, cave management and conservation - he is likely to conclude that many European caves are qualitatively 'better' than those in Australia. Certainly, any Australian cave manager would be more than happy to have a Padirac or Aven Armand to look after.
The point is that in Europe, management has sometimes made remarkable caves appear only average, whereas in Australia the comparatively higher standard of management and development has made average caves outstanding - particularly in lighting (and Kelly Hill readily springs to mind as one example). Of course, many improvements in Australian tourist caves remain to be achieved - but largely through funding, rather than through deficiencies in management.
Nonetheless, it is as well that Australian cave management profits by the experiences and problems of their peers in other parts of the world - to ensure that their skills remain in the forefront of the international scene.