The Tourism Destinations and Markets - Essay Example

? International Sustainable Tourism Management Introduction Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world and one of the rapidly growing phenomenons in the world as a major component of most economies. Developing and designing sustainable tourism policies can be a useful tool in promoting conservation of landscape, increasing employment, and encouraging new forms of business. Community based tourism is the involvement of the of the host community in the management, planning, construction, and maintenance of all aspects of development in the tourism industry (Busch and Trexler 2002). This means that the host community is involved in the ownership and control over tourism planning and certainly the outcomes. In the vast tourism literature, community based tourism is defined in two broad ways. The first description focuses on community involvement with the affected community in the mapping of tourism industry as a land use, and the resultant enlargement of the tourism venture, in an effort to create a lasting relationship between clients and service providers. The second description focuses on development of a community through tourism. The world is ever changing and so are the tourism destinations and markets. The important of tourism monitoring cannot therefore be overemphasized right from the project level to the country level for effective evaluation and managing these changes in tourism. According to Hall (2008), monitoring in community bases tourism helps to alleviate the understanding of the contribution the tourism industry makes in regard to the sustainability objectives of the community as well as the general impacts of tourism on the community. In additions, community monitoring is vital in an effort of identifying areas in which changes are taking place and where improvements may be needed in the tourism sector. This makes management and monitoring as both interdependent and interrelated under community-based tourism. Due to the fact that tourism is an industry that is highly completive, the projects of community-based tourism ought to keep careful tabs like any other small business on their performance in every aspect. This means that the community should and in fact must have a swift reaction and understanding, that can enable them meet the needs of the customers, manage their internal operations, financial aspects, interpersonal relations as well as their ability to forge better and long term relations with various stakeholders and other external suppliers. Generally, monitoring is a term used to define the process of taking consistent measurements, using indicators to give a better understanding of the trends in performance and the current situation. It is worth mentioning that an indicator on the other hand is a tool used in evaluating and monitoring. The purpose of indicators is to help in simplifying the complex information by measuring and selecting a given element in the study as an indication or a lead to the position of a give issue at hand. Tourism indicators such as expenditure, arrival numbers, and length of stay have for a long time been used in an effort to monitor and evaluate performance of tourist destinations (Mowforth and Munt 2009). Conversely, indicators of sustainable tourism differ from those indicators of conventional tourism in terms of the linkage they create between issues of sustainability and tourism in the community. Community monitoring, therefore, entails a thoughtful piloting and selecting viable indicators, followed by collecting information and proper evaluation of that information for purposes of presenting and working on the outcomes. Although it is quite true that it could take some time to formulate a monitoring strategy, successful formulation of such strategy could result to a more effective and responsive to projects of community based tourism for sustainable tourism. There are a number of benefits that are associated with monitoring community-based tourism in relation to sustainable tourism. These benefits include; incorporating project activities in relation to the lessons learned from monitoring, giving priority to future project that are founded on areas with dare needs, monitoring also has the benefit of enabling the community to evaluate performance of different projects over time, improving project designing, development, and control, improving policy making, it can also ensure that all the social categories such as women, youth, and ethnic minorities can benefit from community based tourism, it can also increase donor confidence for more support of tourism, improving the intervention focus as well as increasing awareness of sustainable tourism amongst all the stakeholders. Community based tourism can therefore be described as a type of sustainable tourism that help in the promotion of pro- poor strategies in a setting of a particular community. The initiatives designed by community-based tourism (CBT) are geared towards involvement of the local residence or community in the management and running of small tourism projects as a way of providing an alternative source of income as well as alleviating poverty in the community Ashley and Roe (2002). Additionally, the initiative of community-based tourism encourages respect for the local natural heritage, culture, and traditions of the community. Community based tourism projects take different models; some are operated and run by one or a group of entrepreneurial families who in turn provide employment opportunities to other community members thus sharing economic benefits that accrue from the tourism industry to community as a whole. Other models of community based tourism may be operated and managed by a community group or a cooperative from the village may be supported by a Non Governmental Organization or a donor. Community based tourism projects are often than not design a system that facilitate redistribution of proceeds from the tourism industry to the community especially through health and education projects. Discussion Primarily, community based tourism as a community development outcome is aimed at providing development opportunities that are certainly beneficial to the whole community. The benefits may include empowering a community with resources and skills, economic returns to enable the community develop an enterprise of sustainable tourism. This model of community base tourism emphasizes on eliminating the obstacles that hinders involvement in tourism and developing the human capital for instance creating community employment, entrepreneur education and training for the local community, applying and diversifying a sustainable community process of development in relation to tourism planning and gender equality (Ames 2003). The approach of community development undertaken by community based tourism perceive tourism as a driver of the community economy that allows members of the community to get equitable access to an improved and better quality of life. In this sense, the core focus of the tourism industry is directed on capacity building, and the process of planning provides the local community access to important information about the tourism industry. This in turn, enables them to make informed decisions in light of tourism issues, not to mention the improved influence the they get in relation to the decision making process, as well as the skills and knowledge to engage in tourism enterprise. Quite frankly, the process of using community based tourism in evaluating; monitoring and community development is somewhat long and certainly complex. However, community based tourism has a unique aspect that differentiate it from other form of tourism and make it an effective tool in monitoring and evaluating sustainable tourism. This aspect is the nurturing of capacity as aforementioned through conducting tourism training and education, creating awareness, and also giving business advisory to alleviate the community ability, skills, and confidence to manage and control development strategies in their localities. Consequently, the community self esteem is boosted and this strengthens the relationship within the community remembers themselves, as well as the community governance. The process of developing a local capacity to monitor and evaluate projects of community based tourism is quite long and often slow. This process usually begins at school level in the community schools and later continues across the learning life of those who are members of the community in issue. The vital areas that are given priority in the education include tourism business training, tourism awareness, participation in community governance, and community control of tourism operations. According to Castellani (2010), the first step towards raising the local capacity in order to be involved in community based tourism is raising tourism awareness among the community members. This may entail designing programs that focus on a give section of the community such as the community members who are residents, school children, business entrepreneurs, and local officials. This awareness program involves the explanation of what is entailed in tourism, benefits and costs of undertaking tourism as opposed to other forms of business. There are several factors that should be considered before raising tourism awareness within the local community. These factors may include the common suspicions and misconceptions about tourism among the community members, the community perception of why the tourists come to their localities and what tourist are. Under the tourism business training, a number of varying levels may be involved which may include employee, supervisory, and operator or owner. Under the employee level, training that is skill base is more likely to be more viable. This may involve preparation of food and beverage, tour guiding, as well as work ethics the supervisory level training could involve focus on managing customers and providing training to employees. Under the operator- owner level, the most appropriate area of training needed may include business aspects that directly related to tourism such as reservations, marketing, pricing, and liaising with operators. Local capacity development is likely to be reflected in the ability of the locals’ community to control tourism operations resulting to sustainable tourism. This can be achieved thought promoting business that are managed and controlled by the local community, promoting involvement of locals to be employed in the tourism industry and promoting the amount of local investment in the tourism sector as compared to the outside sources (Reid 2003). Further, a vital outcome to improve capacity development and sustainable tourism would be through community participation in local governance as they will be able to participate in community decision making about the tourism industry. This can be monitored through diversifying the stakeholders that are involved in the decision making group. Community based tourism can also be an effective way of monitoring and evaluating sustainable tourism through monitoring social inclusion and gender equity. As a matter of fact, tourism industry does have a positive impact on alleviating poverty levels in a given community. This is achieved through providing an alternative source of income for the low income earners in the community such as women, marginalized groups for instance the unskilled youth and the indigenous minority (Castellani 2010). Actually in the community based tourism women can be given an opportunity to participate in the tourism industry and improve their income level to boost the quality of the family life. Through community based tourism there is a high possibility of alleviating the levels of poverty in the community and thus the community would be more involved in the effective monitoring and evaluating tourism to sustain their source of income. Essentially, community based tourism is reputed in fighting poverty compared to other large scale developments projects in the community. The forgoing can be attributes to requirements needed to sustain tourism industry as opposed to a large scale development project. Under tourism, the community members need not to invest heavily, they also do not require enormous of business skills or even order imports from other countries. Furthermore, the community based tourism can boost the isolated communities as they are often than not rich in their cultural and natural heritage. Monitoring sustainable tourism can therefore be effectively achieved through community based tourism as a tool that involves the local community in the tourism sector. It is worth noting however, that even though community based tourism can achieve an effective model of monitoring an evaluating sustainable tourism, there are several obstacle that may stand on the way especially in terms of active participation of the poorest groups in the community in development of sustainable tourism. Obviously, low levels of education and poor nutrition which is very common among the local community certainly lowers the levels of productivity and motivation to work. Mitchell and Ashley (2010) argue that lack of exposure and experience are very prevent among the local community which leads to misguided understanding of tourism often breeding suspicion and misconceptions about tourists. Factor may work against community based tourism as an effective model for monitoring and evaluating sustainable tourism. Designing and running an effective community based tourism model that can effectively monitor and evaluate sustainable tourism requires continuous commitment from all the stakeholders. The importance of information and the value of monitoring in relation to a specific section of stakeholders ought to be unambiguous before any program can gain the support of the community members, stakeholders, as well as attain success. The crucial requirement for creating a community based tourism model that is capable of monitoring and evaluating sustainable tourism begins with the inclusion of all the community members in the planning process. As Reid (2003) puts it, not even the greatest and best ideas in the whole universe can succeed where it is a minority section of a given community is involved. The opportunity of all the community members participating at every stage in the designing and implementation of the evaluating and monitoring cycle of community based tourism projects the more the results of the likely to be of greater success, not to mention the easy with which monitoring end evaluation sustainable tourism can be in the community. Conclusion In community based tourism effective monitoring can be achieved through designing a monitoring and evaluating program. These monitoring programs involve three main stages namely: planning and development, the second stage may involve monitoring and analysis and the third stage may involve implementation and review. The three sequences are quite general and can be implemented with ease in most destinations suit local situations. Under the planning and development stage, important decisions should be taken about the program’s aims and objectives. This stage may involve ascertaining the person who will carry out monitoring, the spatial limits of the area to be monitored and the time frame through which monitoring program should take. During the second phase of monitoring and evaluation involves the collection of data followed by an analysis of the outcomes, and finally establishment of the thresholds of the indicator. In the last phase that is implementation and review, the decision about steps to be taken in alleviating poorly performing areas, improving and reviewing the monitoring program before re-monitoring, and communicating with the community members who are the stakeholders. The first step towards designing a monitoring program in community based tourism to effectively monitor and evaluate sustainable tourism must therefore be planning and monitoring. This stage entails the involvement of community members. The issue of monitoring should, therefore, be presented and discussed at length with the members of the community at the early stages of community based tourism project planning. In addition, the project planning should be presented to the community as an integral part of effectively running a community based tourism. The best way in which stakeholders can be involved in the process of planning is through summoning a community meeting in which monitoring program can be discussed. Additionally, the community must be well represented for instance in terms of women, ethnic minorities, and other categories in the society are called upon to participate. During the meeting the key concepts of monitoring can be reviewed as aforementioned. Sustainable tourism objectives and goals are quite broad and often more complex to develop. Under the community based tourism these goal and objectives describe the vision of the local community to the contribution they make toward tourism for sustainability. Consequently, the objective may be in regard to providing social or economic benefits, the need to create jobs and to address specific environmental issues. Indeed community based tourism with effectively developed monitoring programs can be an effective model for effectively monitoring and evaluating sustainable tourism. This can be achieved through the involvement of the local community to identify their foresight of the tourism industry and how these expectations can be achieved. Ideally, community based tourism as a community development outcome is aimed at providing development opportunities that are certainly beneficial to the whole community. The benefits may include empowering a community with resources and skills, economic returns to enable the community develop an enterprise of sustainable tourism. 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SPREP and NZODA, Apia. Twining-Ward, L. (2004) ‘Gender Equity’, in UNWTO, Indicators of Sustainable Development for Tourism Destinations. World Tourism Organisation, Madrid, pp. 68-71. Twining-Ward, L. (2006) Tobago SMART Programme. Available at: www.smartourism.com[Accessed 22 December 2011] UN (1996) Indicators of Sustainable Development Framework and Methodologies. UN Department of Public Information, New York. UNEP (1997) Recommendations for a Core Set of Indicators of Biological Diversity. Liaison Group on Indicators of Biological Diversity. (ed.) Third Meeting of The Subsidiary Body On Scientific, Technical and Technological Advance, UNEP/CBD/SBSTTS/3/Inf.13, 1-5 September, Montreal. UNESCAP (2003) Poverty Alleviation through Sustainable Tourism Development. United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, New York. UNESCO (2001) Monitoring the Success and Impacts of Community-based Ecotourism. Nam Ha Eco- tourism, Luang Namtha, Laos Read More