Sustainable Tourism Development: Is Achieving Balance an Impossible Dream?

1
Sustainable Tourism Development Is Achieving
Balance an Impossible Dream?

• Dr. Steve Burr
• Director, Institute for Outdoor Recreation and
  Tourism
• College of Natural Resources
• Utah State University
• Presentation for REDTT Annual Meeting 2000
• Socorro, New Mexico
• October 17, 2000

2
Utah State Universitys Institute for
Outdoor
Recreation and Tourism

• In 1998, Utah State Legislature approved
  Senate Bill 35.
• To provide continuing funding to Utah
  State University...
• To establish and support an interdisciplinary
  program of research, extension, and teaching...

3
A Better Understanding...

• To better understand the
  relationships between
• outdoor recreation and tourism
• natural resources management
• community economic vitality
• quality of life issues
  for the citizens of Utah.

4
The Mission of the Institute

• The Institute for Outdoor Recreation and Tourism
  (IORT) conducts a program of research, extension,
  and teaching for the benefit of the people of
  Utah, our country, and the world, directed at
  improving our understanding of the relationships
  between outdoor recreation and tourism, natural
  resources management, community economic
  vitality, and quality of life.

5
Sustainable Tourism Development Is Achieving
Balance an Impossible Dream?

• Tourism
• Economic Impact
• As a Development Industry
• Sustainability
  and Sustainable Development
• Ideal and Reality
• Goal or Process?

6
Sustainable Tourism Development Is Achieving
Balance an Impossible Dream?

• Sustainable Tourism Development
• Criteria
• Tenets
• Operationalizing
• Problems and Obstacles
• Best Chances for Success

7
Tourism...the worlds biggest industry?

• Tourism accounts for 10 of global gross domestic
  product.
• Estimated that tourism employs up to 10 of the
  worlds workforce. (World Tourism
  Organization, 1999)

8
Utah Tourism at a Glance--1999

• Tourism is among Utahs Top 5
  economic activities.
  (manufacturing, trade, services, government)
• 4.2 billion in traveler spending for
  Utahs economy
• Over 7 of Utahs Gross State Product

9
Utah Tourism at a Glance--1999

• 336 million generated in
  state and local taxes
• 158 per Utah resident generated by
  out-of-state tourists
• These taxes help pay for services and
  infrastructure that residents enjoy.

10
Utah Tourism at a Glance--1999

• 119,500 total jobs in travel and
  tourism related industries
• 67,000 direct jobs
• 52,500 indirect and induced jobs
• 11.4 of total non-agricultural employment

11
True for New Mexico too!

• Tourism is one of the most successful industries
  in the state, generating more than 3 billion in
  revenues each year and creating more than 50,000
  jobs statewide.
• From Impact--Making a Difference,
  Rural Economic Development Through Tourism
  November 1999

12
Tourism as a Development Industry

• Tourism relies on the development and utilization
  of natural, historical, cultural, and human
  resources in the local environment as tourist
  attractions and destinations.
• Creates recreational uses for natural and
  human-made amenity resources and converts
  these into income producing assets. (Siehl 1990
  Willits 1992)

13
Tourism DevelopmentEconomic Benefits versus
Potential Costs

• Economic Benefits, but
  Potential Costs to the
  Environment and Local Society
• Potentially Exploitive Tendency
• Being Approached with a
  Sense of Caution

14
Tourism DevelopmentEconomic Benefits versus
Potential Costs

• Ill-conceived and poorly planned tourism
  development can erode the very qualities of the
  natural and human environments that attract
  visitors in the first place.
  (Inskeep, 1991)

15
Sustainability and Sustainable Development

• Concept of sustainability recently associated
  with tourism development initiatives and efforts.
  
  (French, 1992 Long Nuckolls, 1992)
• Development that meets the needs of the present
  without compromising the ability of future
  generations to meet their own needs.
  (World Commission on Environment and
  Development, 1987)

16
Sustainable Development

• All development paths that are either
  environmentally benign or beneficial.
• Tied to sustainable use-- careful and
  sensitive economic development is possible
  without degrading or depleting natural resources
  needed by present and future generations.

17
Sustainable Development

• Meets the needs of the present without
  compromising the ability of future generations
  to meet their own needs.
• Promotes intergenerational responsibility.

18
Sustainable Tourism Development

• Involves management of all resources in such a
  way that economic, social, and aesthetic needs
  are fulfilled while maintaining cultural
  integrity, essential ecological processes,
  biological diversity, and life support systems.
  (Inskeep, 1991)

19
Sustainable Tourism Development

• Remains viable over an indefinite period and
  does not degrade nor alter the environment (human
  and physical) in which it exists to such a degree
  that it prohibits the successful development and
  well-being of other activities and processes.
  (Butler, 1993)

20
Sustainable Tourism Development

• Should follow ethical principles that respect
  the culture and environment of the host area, the
  economy and traditional way of life, the
  indigenous behavior, and the local leadership and
  political patterns. (Cronin, 1990)

21
Sustainable Tourism Development

• Interest in protecting, using carefully and
  benefiting the human and cultural, as well as the
  natural heritage of an area, implying active
  participation and leadership by local people,
  organizations, and government. (Inskeep, 1991)

22
Can Tourism Development Really Be Sustainable?
Policy Endorsement
Policy Implementation
(the Ideal)
(the Reality)
23
Is it possible to prove sustainability?

• Difficult to prove sustainability
• Easier to prove unsustainability

24
SustainabilityAn Ideal Balance of Capacities
in Three Systems
Economic
Environmental
Socio-Cultural
25
SustainabilityAn Ideal Balance of Capacities
in Three Systems

• Maximize Goal Achievement across the three
  systems at one and the same time through an
  Adaptive Process of Trade-Offs.
• The more the three systems and goals converge,
  the more sustainable development becomes.

26
The Reality
Environmental
Economic
Socio-Cultural
Political-Legal System
27
The Reality
Economic
Environmental
Socio-Cultural
Political-Legal System
28
The Reality
Environmental
Economic
Socio-Cultural
Political-Legal System
29
The Reality

• Not possible to maximize all goals at the same
  time through an adaptive process of trade-offs.
• Conflict may exist between and among inter- and
  intra-system goals.

30
The Reality

• As a result of values, choices are made as to
  which goals are more valuable and which should
  receive higher priority.
• As a result, different development strategies
  assign different priorities to the systems and
  their goals.

31
The Reality

• Process of trade-offs among goals must be
  adaptive since relative priorities assigned to
  various goals change over time.
• Interactions among the different system goals
  change as the scale of the systems is extended
  from local to regional to national and to global.

32
Sustainable Development

• Concept of sustainable development provokes
  groups at different levels to set a wide spectrum
  of goals and then to reconcile them.

33
Sustainable Development

• It is this reconciliation or trade-offs implicit
  in sustainable development that has inspired much
  useful work since the early 1980s amounting
  to a new renaissance in thinking in social
  welfare and development issues. (Holmberg
  Sandbrook, 1992)

34
Four Real Dilemmas or
Disagreements

• The world cannot go on making economic growth the
  unquestionable objective of development policy.
• Factors that make up sustainable development
  differ from those involved in conventional
  economic development.

35
Four Real Dilemmas or
Disagreements

• How do we answer the question for whom is
  development, and what is to be conserved by
  making it sustainable?
• Relationship between sustainable development and
  democratic government.

36
There is no shortcut to sustainability!

• Patterns of sustainable development must be built
  from the bottom up, showing what can be achieved
  at local levels and then working to disseminate
  positive experiences.
  (Holmberg Sandbrook, 1992)

37
Sustainability Goal or Process?

• Most often viewed as a goal, an
  end-point, a destination...
• Instead, more of an ongoing process taking
  more of a dynamic perspective
• An on-going, adaptive learning process

38
Sustainability Goal or Process?

• Transition to sustainability must involve
  harnessing science and technology to provide
  direction, examine alternative pathways, measure
  success--or lack of it--along the way, and
  produce information and incentives for changing
  course.
• (National Research Council, National Academies,
  1999)

39
Sustainable Development

• Today, most policy documents recognize and claim
  adherence to the principle of sustainable
  development indicating its evolution into
  full-scale institutionalization. (Frazier, 1997)

40
Sustainable Development

• Major problem with sustainable development is its
  ambiguity and subsequent vulnerability to
  interpretation and employment on ideological
  grounds.
  (Weaver Lawton, 1999)
• Ideal of Policy Endorsement versus
  Reality
  of Policy Implementation

41
Sustainable Tourism Development

• Increased emphasis is being placed on those
  forms of tourism that are particularly sensitive
  to promoting and retaining the integrity of
  natural and socio-cultural environments.
  (Swinnerton Hinch, 1994)

42
Sustainable Tourism Development

• There must be a balance between a degree or
  type of development that will bring economic and
  other benefits to a community and the point at
  which that development starts to feed on rather
  than sustain the very elements at its basis.
  (Cronin, 1990)

43
Criteria for Sustainable Development

• Follow ethical principles
• Involve the local population
• Give the local population an
  element of control
• Be undertaken with equity in mind

44
Tenets of Sustainable Tourism Development

• Low impact and small in scale
• Careful in progress
• Appropriate and sensitive to the local natural
  and socio-cultural environment
• Readily integrated into the existing social and
  economic life of the community

45
Operationalizing Sustainable Tourism Development
(STD)

• Define goals of STD for a destination.
• Establish appropriate planning and
  management framework.
• Select relevant indicators from a
  candidate list of economic, environmental, and
  socio-cultural criteria.

46
Candidate Sustainable Tourism Indicators

• Environmental
• Destruction or alteration of natural habitat by
  tourism construction
• Amount of litter associated with tourism
  activities
• Resource consumption associated with tourism

47
Candidate Sustainable Tourism Indicators

• Economic
• Revenues earned directly from tourism
• Proportion of destination employment associated
  with tourism
• Profitability of individual operations

48
Candidate Sustainable Tourism Indicators

• Socio-Cultural
• Number of resident complaints against tourism
• Amount of crime directed against tourists and the
  tourism industry
• Number and condition of heritage structures
  and sites
• Integrity of the local culture

49
Operationalizing Sustainable Tourism Development
(STD)

• Measure and monitor these indicators.
• Periodically analyze and assess indicator
  performance.
• Determine whether original goals are being
  achieved.
• Implement remedial action, if
  necessary. (Weaver Lawton, 1999)

50
Problems Encountered in All of These Steps

• Sustainable tourism development goals influenced
  by ideological considerations--lack of common
  ground often evident.
• Assuming goal consensus, necessary to define
  temporal, spatial, political, and inter-sectoral
  parameters within which to assess sustainable
  tourism.

51
All Problematic!

• Long-term planning discouraged by short-term
  budget allocations.
• A narrow, politically-defined spatial planning
  unit cannot take into account all the influences
  and effects affecting sustainability of the
  sector.
• Tourism cannot be isolated from other resource
  uses.

52
For Sustainability Indicators...

• Potential number of indicators within any
  particular destination is enormous.
• Strategically difficult to monitor more than a
  few.
• No definitive guidelines available to inform
  destinations as to which ones are most important.

53
For Sustainability Indicators...

• Decision to include or exclude particular
  indicators is ultimately a subjective exercise,
  highly sensitive to context.
• Little known about critical thresholds of
  sustainability that apply to each criterion, how
  they can be measured, and how often they should
  be monitored.

54
Spatial and Temporal Discontinuities Between
Cause and Effect

• Many of the impacts identified within a
  destination and/or within a specific time period
  actually have their causes in other areas or time
  periods.
• Events within destinations may have consequences
  in other destinations and time periods.

55
Many Obstacles to Achieving Sustainable Tourism
Development

• Is achieving STD even possible and/or
  worthwhile?
• If no effort is made at all, unsustainable
  outcomes are virtually guaranteed.
• Sustainability indicators are just that, an
  indication, rather than an absolute confirmation,
  of sustainability.
• New information on sustainable practices in
  tourism is continually being generated.

56
Given All These Problems with STD...

• It is more appropriate to describe destinations
  as being indicative of sustainable tourism
  development than to state they are definitely
  sustainable.
• An accurate judgment as to sustainability is
  still too difficult to make.

57
Focus on Achieving Equity
and Balance

• Sustainable tourism development is
  determined largely by what stakeholders want it
  to be.
• An informed, open participatory process for
  decision-making
• Creates empowerment and
  involvement
• Cooperative and collaborative action

58
Best Chances for Success

• From professionals and volunteers working in
  tourism development.
• Following an approach that focuses on the tenets
  of sustainable development in all development
  efforts and initiatives.
• Facilitates resident involvement, participation
  in decision-making, and local control in
  development.

59
Best Chances for Success

• Cooperative interaction can create
• networks both within and outside the community
• roles for involved community members
• shared experiences
• opportunities for further community development
• contributions to the general quality of
  life in a community

60
Sustainable Tourism Development Is Achieving
Balance an Impossible Dream?

• Dr. Steve Burr
• Associate Professor of Recreation Resources
• Director, Institute for Outdoor Recreation and
  Tourism
• Extension Specialist in Outdoor Recreation and
  Tourism
• Institute for Outdoor Recreation and Tourism
• Utah State University
• 5220 Old Main Hill
• Logan, Utah 84322-5220
• Office [phone]
• FAX [phone]
• E-mail swburr_at_cc.usu.edu
• IORT Website under Interdisciplinary Programs
  at www.cnr.usu.edu

61
Sustainable Tourism Development

• Planned and managed for the protection of the
  natural environment for future generations
• Planned in an integrated manner with other
  economic sectors and social systems
• Assessed on an ongoing basis to evaluate impacts
  and permit action to counter any negative effects

62
Focus Achieving Equity and
Balance

• Involves mutual learning and adaptation among
  all concerned parties in the context of shared
  responsibility and equity. (Nelson, 1993)

63
Primary Environmental Care(PEC)

• Local groups or communities organize themselves
  with varying degrees of outside support to apply
  their skills and knowledge for the care of their
  natural resources and environment while
  satisfying livelihood needs

64
Primary Environmental Care(PEC)

• Three Goals
• Economic goal of meeting and satisfying basic
  needs
• Environmental goal of protection and optimal
  utilization of the environment
• Social goal of empowering groups and communities

65
Primary Environmental Care(PEC)

• Success of PEC is dependent on local groups and
  communities who can
• Organize, participate, and influence development
  priorities
• Access natural, human, and financial resources
• Select and help develop productive and
  environmentally sensitive technologies.

66
Primary Environmental Care(PEC)

• Outside institutions must empower the local
  community by way of political support and open
  access to information, and take an adaptive and
  flexible approach if resources are provided.