Unit 7 Sustainable Tourism Development Assignment Sample

Introduction

Tourism is the fastest growing industry and have large impact on the economy of host country. This is the reason that several new ideas are emerging in the field of tourism. One such idea is of sustainable tourism. It is the type of tourism which takes care of current needs and also ensure that the future generation will be able to fulfil the requirements. In this essay there will several other details which will be discussed about the tourism and the sustainable tourism. There will be discussion about the stakeholders and impact on them, then there will discussion on the tourism planning and also steps involved in tourism planning(Lyon et al, 2012). One section of the essay will also talk about the partnership between the public and the private players and also the advantages and the disadvantages of PPP. Then there will discussion on the ways through which the impact of tourism could be calculated.
The last section will talk about the tourism and its impact both positive and negative on developing countries. There will also be discussion about the concept on conclave tourism.

Task 1 you work as a business consultant to a local authority which is considering bidding to host an international sporting event. You have been asked to consider the tourism impact of such sporting events.  Prepare a consultation paper

A.  Discuss how stakeholders can benefit from planning of tourism developments with reference to the forthcoming sporting events in a destination of your choice (e.g. The Qatar football cup, Olympic Games in …..). Base your reflection on past similar events (e.g. London 2012, Sochi 2014 Olympic Games, South Africa world championship of football etc.)

Travel and Tourism is a sector in which different stakeholders with various goals and objectives come together for a same purpose. A tourism planning will involve all these parties and make them to work in collaboration. The various stakeholders involved in tourism business are Government, Local Community, Tourism Industry, Tourists, International agencies, various organizations, Educational institutions.
There is no doubt in the fact that tourism brings in a lot of economic benefits for the host country. Tourism is emerging as one of the fastest growing industries and hence countries are more and more interested and inclined towards it. Among various categories of tourism, sustainable tourism is the one which is drawing attention of most of the countries. A sustainable tourism is the one in which someone visits a place as a tourist and leaves some positive impression on the environment, people and the economy. National and International events are one such type of sustainable tourism which is becoming very common these days (Barthel, 2012).
Sports event are the most liked events and have also got the capacity to attract maximum number of tourists along with the media too. This is the reason why most of countries come forward and want to host sport events. So definitely the upcoming sports event like The Qatar football cup is going to help the stakeholders. This can be proved from the past experiences. From the researches it is found that the London Olympics 2012 has enhanced the economy of UK by about 9.9 Billion pounds(Barthel, 2012). 

B. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of public/private sector tourism planning partnerships drawing on an example such as the Olympic Games

Public and private partnerships (PPP) are mostly encouraged by the Government. As mentioned earlier the stakeholders in the company are government which will come under public sector, tourism industry which will come under private sector and there are local communities and the tourists. Partnership is usually supported as it is believed that due to partnership the tourist destination could gain some competitive advantage due to the knowledge and expertise from various stakeholders(Bramwell, 2011).
The various advantages of public and private partnership are distribution of power among all the partners equally which avoids any kind of dictatorship.All the stakeholders involved either public or private will have a direct impact of any issue or hence they all will work more effectively solve any particular issue. This will bring more cooperation and collaboration among the members. Also the members will work with more commitment level.Involvement of more parties will bring in more knowledge and ore expertise within the industry.
Usually the public and the private collaborations are done in order to develop the areaand attract more and more tourists. The collaborations are advantageous in the sense that theybring a lot of development and improvement in the region (Bramwell, 2011). For example, the Winter Olympic games 2014 at Sochi, Russia were conducted by Russian government in collaboration with the private players so as to make sure that the picture of the city will change in the given time period. There will be long roads and bridges, nice rail tracks, enhancement in the telecommunication and renovation of the airport. With the help of these developments and advancements, the destination is now aninternational tourist destination for many of the tourists. The benefits of this will surely be reaped by both the private as well as the public sectors. In short, the advantages of public-private partnership sectors in tourism are cost reduction as it is being shared by many partners, risk sharing again because it is being shared by many players, improvement in the services and better implementation of the services.
On the other hand there are some disadvantages too of such partnership.First and most common disadvantage is that the partners have already a perception about each other which hinder the work largely. Also since all involved parties have different objectives and goals, so clash of interests takes place. Moreover sometimes the accountability and responsibilities are not clear for different parties.
For example, the government loses its control i.e. since the private partners have invested a lot in the event and they will claim their involvement in taking important decisions too.There could be clash of responsibilities (Buckley, 2012). Since everyone will be working in collaboration there will no sense of competition and it is a known fact that competition leads to novelty and greater proficiency.

C.  Analyse the features of tourism development planning at different levels and evaluate the significanceof interactive planning systems and processes in these developments with particular reference to the sporting events

Tourism planning plays a significant role in bringing all the stakeholders together and work in collaboration. There are primarily three areas which needs to be considered while tourism planning.
• Economic: There are direct and indirect impact of tourism. The direct impact would be on the spending in the hotel and restaurants. The indirect impact would be on the wages and the salaries of the employees.
• Environmental: it is very important to keep in mind about the impact of tourism on environment which could be positive as well as negative. The positive are like taking care of monuments and the cultural heritage, maintaining the parks, national parks and forests etc. The negative impacts are camp fires which can harm the forests, diving and other sports activity damages the corals etc.
• Social: The social impact could be on culture, dress, lifestyle etc. 
Tourism planning has now become one of the most important feature for the government of various countries. In the initial days, travel and tourism planning was mostly based on the economies as it was the easiest method to calculate success. But now with the change in the meaning of tourism, there are other factors like social and environmentalwhich need to be taken care while planning tourism. Government plays the most important role in tourism planning but it allows many of the private players for the betterment of tourism. For example in case of recent winter Olympics 2014 at Sochi itself, the initiative was taken by Russian Government but then it took help of many private players in order to make sure that all the required constructions for the development are done on time (Chen et al, 2010).
In tourism, interactive planning plays a significant role as this kind of planning believes in creating a future by making the required changes in the present. In interactive planning the planners believe in the fact that their future will depend on all the actions that they will take between today and the future. As mentioned earlier, during the game events all the step need to be taken between today and the event date so as to create a nice tourism spot. Hence interactive planning is best for tourism planning (Chhabra, 2010). It is also believed that lot of serious impact on environment and economy could be avoided with the help of interactive planning.

D.  Evaluate different methods available to measure the tourist impact

There are various techniques which are used to measure the tourist impact. The primary three techniques are as following:
EIA: EIA is environment impact assessment which could measure the impact of certain developments on environment.With the help of this process the various things are examined like the environmental auditing process, limitation to the natural resources, environmental problem and the conflicts that may arise due to it and the possible damaging impacts on people, soil, air water etc. Since these are examined on time with this method, it would be easier to lessen the harmful effects of it(Lee, 2013).
Cambridge Economic Impact Model: With the help of Cambridge Economic Impact Model, the companies can get an idea of economic impact of tourism on a tourist destination. This model has mainly got two stages. At first stage it calculates the volume and the value of the day and the visitor and at second stage it calculates the economic impact of the visitor on the local economy. This model make use of government reports and statics in order to get the information on the visitors.
Carrying capacity: Carrying capacity is the measurement with the help of which the maximum number of people which could be occupied without having any negative impact on the environment as well as the quality of the services. There are some specific points which are taken into consideration while calculating the carrying capacity(Timothy, 2011). The points are average duration of the stay, features of tourist and the host, geographical concentration of the tourist, type of tourism activity etc.
So these are some of the methods with the help of which the impact of the tourists on any destination could be measured.

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Task 2 Select a type of tourism (i.e. medical tourism, eco-tourism, cultural tourism etc.) and prepare a supplement to the consultation paper

A.  Justify the introduction of the concept of sustainability in tourism development for the type of tourism you selected

Sustainable development is defined as the concept in which the needs of the present generation are met without compromising on the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Hence under sustainable development it is necessary that there should be certain rules which could be imposed to make sure that current as well as the future needs are met. Similarly the concept of sustainable tourism states that the needs of the current tourists should be met but not at the cost of the requirements of future generation. If there will be unsustainable tourism there will be overcrowding, commercialization of industry, low quality of services, destruction of culture and environment.
A sustainable tourism is the one which will help in maximizing the social and economic benefits for the host country, will minimize the negative impacts on the environment, and get the best for the community, visitors and local heritage. 
Sustainable tourism is the one in which minimum cost is required and the maximum benefit is provided to the local societies and the environment.The resources which are used can be used forever without causing harm to them. There is no question about the fact that tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in today’s scenario but on other hand one cannot ignore that many a timesa lot of natural habitat, culture, and environment are damaged in developing tourism. Also, in the traditional tourism style it is seen that the financial benefits do not reach to the local communities and societies. The sustainable tourism is specially designed with the motive to benefit the local groups from tourism that too without causing any harm to the natural habitat and the environment (Lee, 2013). Hence most of the governments along with the private players are encouraging sustainable tourism.
Cultural heritage and tourism have a very old relationship. The cultural heritage of the city or the country has got the power to attract tourist in large numbers and in return tourism brings in funds for conservation of such heritages. But in order to make this possible it is important that the culture heritage sustains its value and importance. Hence the role of sustainable tourism comes in here which will try to protect the cultural heritage so that more tourists are fascinated to visit the place. Hence cultural tourism is a kind of sustainable tourism as without a sustained management tourism will not be able to grow (Loulanski&Loulanski, 2011). With the help of sustainable tourism, the small locations whose main attractions are their cultural heritage could be developed and they can get benefits of travel and tourism. Sustainable tourism will also take of poor infrastructure, poverty, unemployment etc. at these locations which mainly consists of all the developing nations.

B. Analyse factors that may prevent/hinder sustainable tourism development for the type of tourism you selected

It is true that cultural tourism is being appreciated as a part of sustainable tourism but still there are many issues which prevent or hinder this kind of tourism. The most common and prominent issue is with the renovation of the monuments and the heritage buildings. In order to maintain their authenticity, not much changes could be done in them. Also, if a part or side is damaged, it is very difficult to build it in the same fashion as the artists and labors now are not capable enough to rebuild the things (Lozano et al, 2012). The other issue is that in order to make the place feasible for tourism, there are many other problems like pollution, congestion, increase in the cost of things etc. takes place. These issues causes problems to the local people.
One of the other major factor which hinders the sustainable tourism development for cultural tourism is that in order to accommodate the tourists, many new constructions and developments are done in the area. The hotels are made, roads are constructed, and restaurants are made due to which the place starts losing its beauty and identity. The old heritage buildings lose their identity in between these newly constructed hotels and buildings. Due to all these constructions the price of the land increases and hence the local people sell their lands to people from outside community and leave the place (Lyon et al, 2012). Due to this the place which was once famous for its cultural heritage has now people from diverse population and hence there is no one culture which could remain the highlight of the area and attract the tourists.Hence in order to make sure that sustainable tourism proves to be successful for cultural heritage proper guidelines and rules should be followed.

C.Analyse different stages in planning for sustainability for the type of tourism you selected

A sustainable tourism for cultural tourism needs planning. Following are the steps which should be followed to achieve a successful tourism plan.
The Study Recognition: In step two the involved stakeholders need to be decided. It is very important to have a prior list of people who will be involved in the planning and also the time when they will be introduced with the plan. The stakeholders could be tourism organization, local people, cultural heritage agencies etc.
Setting Objectives:This is the step where the aim or the objcetives of the plan is decided. A distinct aim will be helpful in the progression of the work. The short term as well as the long term goals must be decided. One must analyze the possible results from the area chosen for cultural heritage. Also the features should be decided which needs to be chosen for the attraction. For example either it could be museums, heritage buildings or the local traditional folks or the culture (Lyon et al, 2012).The objectives could be like:

• High quality tourism at lowest cost
• Equally distribute the benefits
• Preserve cultural and natural resources
• Maxis foreign exchanges
• Increase employment opportunities

Survey of existing data: At this stage one must try to collect all the related information about the selected place. All the details with respect to culture, heritage, local people etc. should be studied in detail.One must know about the specialty of the place which is decided. This will help in marketing and advertising about the place. The specialty should be highlighted and marketed in a way so that it attracts maximum tourists (Miller et al, 2010).
Implementation on new surveys:There will be the requirement of new data for the tourism planning which will need some new surveys which could get some details about the features of the tourists, tourist attractions, accommodations and other facilities.
Resource Analysis:There are various factors which have either positive or the negative impact on the region. All those factors must be identified and analysed properly. These resources which needs to be analysed could be primarily categorized in 4 parts: the first one is assets evaluation which help to know about the current position of resources available like roads, airports etc. This helps in calculating the amount of investment required. The second one is market analysis which focusses on the target tourists and tries to know about them. The third one is development planning and the fourth is impact analysis.
Policy and plan formulation: As seen earlier in the essay that cultural tourism have both advantages and disadvantage hence in order to make sure that the plan turns out to be beneficial, it is important that there should be proper guidelines and rules for the action. This will minimize the negative issues and hence the benefits will be maximized (Miller et al, 2010). All the options of achieving the objective should be analysed and evaluated there could be many ways to reach to a particular goal.
Recommendation:The authority and the development team must give feedbacks and recommendation to each other in order to make sure that they both are on same track.
Implementation of Plan:Implementation of plan is the key to success and hence it should be done very carefully. The plan of action should be logical and feasible. By this time all the important legal issues should be taken care.
Monitoring:There should be methods for the continuous monitoring and evaluation of the plan so that the mistakes or the deviations could be known immediately.

Conclusion

The various stakeholders involved in the tourism business are government, tourist companies, local community and the tourists. From the above discussion it is very clear that sustainable tourism is gaining up its popularity and it also benefits the stakeholders. Partnership is very important for the tourism and has got lots of advantages like the partners are more involved in the work, there is democracy i.e. no single power rules everything etc. Similarly there are disadvantages too like the powerful section actually loses the control, the partners already have perception about each other etc. The different features like environment, society etc. should be kept in mind while planning tourism (Lee, 2013). There are several methods like EIA, Cambridge calculation method etc. with the help of which the impact of tourism could be calculated.
Enclave tourism has got its’ own positives and negatives. If it is planned and implemented properly, it could be of great help for the developing countries. The developing countries need to be more careful about their tourism as there are many leakages through which the money could flow out of the country. 

References

Barthel-Bouchier, D. (2012). Cultural heritage and the challenge of sustainability. Left Coast Press
Bramwell, B. (2011). Governance, the state and sustainable tourism: A political economy approach. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 19(4-5), 459-477
Buckley, R. (2012). Sustainable tourism: Research and reality. Annals of Tourism Research, 39(2), 528-546
Chen, C. F., & Chen, F. S. (2010). Experience quality, perceived value, satisfaction and behavioral intentions for heritage tourists. Tourism management, 31(1), 29-35.
Chhabra, D. (2010). Sustainable marketing of cultural and heritage tourism. Routledge, Taylor & Francis
Jamal, T., & Camargo, B. A. (2014). Sustainable tourism, justice and an ethic of care: Toward the just destination. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 22(1)
Lee, T. H. (2013). Influence analysis of community resident support for sustainable tourism development. Tourism Management, 34, 37-46
Loulanski, T., &Loulanski, V. (2011). The sustainable integration of cultural heritage and tourism: a meta-study. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 19(7), 837-862