Tourism Topic 3: Sustainable Tourism Development

• Meets the needs of the present population by achieving high standards of living • Ensures the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (These need to be applied to economic, social and environmental aspects of tourism development)

• Skills training can be offered to ensure career progression and income growth & to provide seasonally employed locals with greater variety of skills for off-peak seasonal employment, ensuring stable employment & income

• Tourism revenue can fund construction of schools or clinics for the local communities —> enabling them particularly the disadvantaged, to get healthcare and education opportunities, raising their standards of living —> lets them seek better employment and higher income

• They remain significant and meaningful for local communities and tourists —> preservation by locals • Conflicts may occur between locals and tourists from disprespect, discouraging tourism • visitor attractions could be developed to showcase authentic local culture

• Exchanges between tourists and locals enables culture to be meaningful for them —> continued practice and preservation of culture • Positive experiences attracts more tourists to come while negative may lead to conflicts discouraging tourism

• Ecological processes are crucial to providing ecosystem services, such as the supply of natural resources and regulating water and air quality. • Strong processes —> environment thrives —> peoples present & future demands are met

• Establishing National Parks, sites are protected from threats eg illegal poaching of endangered species —> populations recover • Governments can control tourist numbers & waste —> ensure national beauty & biodiversity of the area

• Setting up said policies stakeholders need to adhere to, —> minimal damage to environment while maximising benefits to locals eg channelling tourism revenue to set up National parks and/or provide social services to locals

• Governments enforcing regulations on types of tourism activity and the number of tourists entering ensures that policies and plans are adhered to

• Governments which lack resources or political influence, or face corruption may not be able to ensure the regulations are adhered to

• Governments which do so, neglect the environmental and social dimensions of sustainability

• They have the knowledge, financial and technical expertise to provide assistance via consultancy services to countries, financial assistance to various stakeholders & public awareness campaigns

• They may comprise of members from various countries —> They may have differing perspectives regarding an issue, being unable to understand local context causing pushback from locals

• Many such organisations are non-profit —> hard to choose projects to provide financial assistance • Without funding —> some plans unable to be implemented

• Pursuing such development keeps businesses profitable • They have financial resources to do so • Done by: seeking advice from other stakeholders regarding such practices & participating in decison-making for such development

• Businesses see Proft > sustainability

• Businesses may end up greenwashing and market themselves as sustainable when their practices aren’t reflective of that

• Locals without the knowledge and expereience can seek advice from governments, businesses and more —> helps protect the environment and ensure sustainable tourism grows & thrives

• Locals can provide suggestions on minimising harmful impacts of tourism eg protection of flora & fauna with their local knowledge. • Done via CBT which prioritises local community participation —> benefits stay in local community

• Some may not have sufficient information / financial and technical resources to carry out plans for sustainable tourism development

• Some may pursue tourism practices simply for their own economic benefit eg supporting themselves or their family

• Tourists can choose tours / services prioritising sustainable practices or provide their revenue to environmental conservation / community projects that benefit the tourist destination

• They can read up on local practices & culture —> being mindful of their attire / behaviour to show respect to the local customs

• High costs to ensure that tourism experiences are sustainable eg environmental conservation fees may deter tourists from purchasing them

• Varied understandings of ‘sustaiable tourism‘ and the ways of measuring it —> Tourists may be confused on whether a tourist business & their practices are truly sustaimable

• These may vary across locations and stakeholders —> conflicts making reaching consensus on sustaintainable tourism development difficult

• Stakeholders with more resources —> greater control over decisions —> override perspectives of other stakeholders, hindering sustainable tourism development

• Differing priorities, resources and strategies results in economic, socio-cultural or environmental trade-offs that stakeholders must compromise on

• Takes place in natural, scenic areas —> tourists can experience nature • AIms to conserve the natural environment while benefiting the local community, ensuring environmental, economic & social sustainability • INvoleves many stakeholders depending on the project

• Smaller number of tourists • Stronger commitment to environmental conservation • Few to no services provideed —> physically challenging experience • Supplied by specialist tour operators in niche travel form / tourists make own arrangements

• Larger number of tourists • Moderate commitment to environment conservation • Heavily serviced experiences —> more comfortable experience • Supplied by mass market tour operators

• Innovative small-scale tourism experience managed by local communities including homestays & agricultural tourism • CBT aims to maximuse local communities’ involvement in tourism & benefits to them, ensuring economic & social sustainability

• Focuses on improving livlihoods of the poor through training & access to micro-finance • Aims to generate net benefits (economic, social, environment) to improve their well-being that outweigh the costs to them

A type of banking service provided to unemployed or low-income individuals who otherwise would have no access to financial services

• Ecotourism doesn’t work when ecotours are highly popular —> that many tourists interacting with nature may destroy the environment they seek to protect. • Strong desire to earn profits from said tourism —> some aims are compromised —> nature not conserved

• Manpower demand to meet tourists’ needs —> Tourism businesses hire non-locals • Caused by locals not having sufficient skills & knowledge due to authorities & businesses not training them

• Insufficient measures —> local communities may offer out of culture tourism experiences —> commodification of cultures —> loss of authenticity of their cultures

• Local communities lack some necessary skills and finances to further develop the tourism industry • DIfficulties include communication with tourists, advertising their experiences among a space with large scale tourism developments with more finances & resources to do so

• Channelling benefits to the poor may ve difficult as compared to direct investment • Poor may be reluctant / lack the skills, finances & knowledge to participate in PPT & sustain their business respectively

• Non-poor locals may have greater access to micro-financing or financial grants used to support the tourism industry due to better reputation among banks, donors & authorities —> Non-poor become wealthier while poor only marginally benefit —> no substantial improvement to lives of the poor

It refers to the use of natural, cultural or man-made resources at a destination to develop tourism products eg tourism experiences, goods, services

• Ecosystem services would be negatively affected if the opposite was true —> tourism industry affected as it is heavily dependent on ecosystem services

• If stakeholders ensure energy and water conservation, demands on ecosystem services will not exceed the supply of resources available as long as they work together

• Tourists can stay in hotels that embrace sustainability, purchase tour services from tour operators that have a low carbon footprint, make responsible decisions about use of energy, water and food. • Destination regions can limit the number of tourists —> minimising damage to environment

• Local communities involved in planning and implementing tourism policies —> addresses their and tourists’s needs equally • Done by implementing rules and regulations to protect the needs and practices of the local communities

• Tourism that doesn’t benefit all —> Tensions rise —> less support for future tourism policies and regulations • Thus, implementation of effective tourism management is important so benefits can be enjoyed by all

• Due to conflicting priorities and differing understandings of sustainability, negotiations between stakeholders on developing tourist sites may challenging