approaches in achieving sustainable tourism development

• Ecotourism is a form of sustainable tourism that often takes place in natural areas that are scenic and allows tourists to experience nature
• Ecotourism aims: to conserve the natural environment while maximising benefits to local community, thus ensuring economic, social and environmental sustainability.
• Ecotourism often involves many stakeholder(s)? depending on the project undertaken
• Strategies of ecotourism:

  1. Educate and increase tourists appreciation of nature
  2. Put in place measures to minimise damage to environment
• Limitations of ecotourism:

  1. Uncertainty over continuity of efforts in conserving nature
  2. Uncertainty over involving local communities
• Uncertainty over continuity of efforts to conserve nature:

  • Ecotourism won’t work if there are overwhelming numbers of tourists participating in ecotours
  • The presence of so many tourists interacting with nature may destroy the very environment they seek to protect
  • There may be a strong desire to earn profits from ecotourism which may lead to some aims of ecotourism being compromised, and nature may not be conserved.
• Uncertainty over involving local communities:

  • Demand for manpower to meet tourist demands may cause some tourism related businesses to hire non-locals
  • This is especially so when locals are ill-equipped and lack the necessary skills required, and authorities/businesses did not put in place measures to train locals
  • this leads to economic leakages for the local communities
• What is community based tourism (CBT)?

  A type of innovative small-scale tourism experience managed by local communities
• CBT involves home stays and agricultural tourism.
• CBT aims to: maximise local communities involvement in tourism and the benefits to them, ensuring ECONOMIC and SOCIAL sustainability
• Strategies of CBT:

  1. Encourage the local community to participate in decision making on tourism development in the community
  2. put in place measures to increase economic and social benefits of locals
  3. educate and increase tourists’ appreciation of local cultures and protection of the environment
• limitations of CBT:

  1. Loss of culture (commodification may occur when local communities offer tourism experiences out of their cultures)
  2. Competition with large-scale tourism developments (local communities often lack the necessary skills and finances to further develop the local tourism industry)
• What is pro-poor tourism?

  approach that focuses on improving the livelihoods of the poor through training and access to micro-finance
• Pro-poor tourism aims to: generate net benefits (economic, social and environmental) and improve the livelihoods and well-being of the poor
• Strategies of pro-poor tourism:

  1. Training (skill training)
  2. Increasing access to micro-finance
• Any type of tourism such as CBT and ecotourism can be classified as PPT as long as they improve livelihoods of the poor and reduce poverty
• Limitations of PPT:

  1. Inability to significantly reduce poverty compared to direct investment in social services (many of the poor are reluctant to participate or may lack the skills, finances and knowledge to sustain a business)
  2. The economic benefits are highly unevenly distributed, with most of it going to non-poor locals