Tourism Policy, Planning, and Development on Kangaroo Island - Case Study Example

Tourism Policy, Planning and Development on Kangaroo Island Name Course Name and Code Instructor’s Name Code Date Acronyms TOMM: Tourism Optimization Management Model KIDB: Kangaroo Island Development Board TKI: Tourism Kangaroo Island DEH: Department for Environment and Heritage KI: Kangaroo Island SATC: South Australian Tourism Commission KIA: Kangaroo Island Authority 1. Identification of stakeholders The kangaroo island is one of the pristine wildernesses located in Australia. It is a place in Australia that has given the native animals in Australia habitation; it is a place of beauty as well as one of the escape places. The area is well surrounded by rich waters and fertile land hence making it one of the Australian places that produces gourmet finest foods. There are a number of stakeholders who are involved in tourism. A stakeholder refers to a group, person and organization with the only indirect or direct stake in a certain organization simply because it is affecting or being affected by some of the actions, policies and objectives and from where the business acquires some of the resources from. This is because as part of the tourism sector it seeks to contribute and expertise some wide range of organism and individuals. Another reason for having partners and stakeholders is to ensure that the goals and objectives of tourism are met appropriately, effectively and efficiently. Even though the issue of stake-holding is self-legitimizing in the sense that they judges for themselves to be stakeholders , all the stakeholders will never be the same no matter what and that is why different stakeholders are entitled to different type of considerations (Mowforth & Munt, 2003). An example is a royal customer who is entitled to fair trading kind of practices but still they are not entitled to the same consideration like the company or business. In this particular business of Kangaroo Island, some of the stakeholders who are involved in the tourism as follow. The government of Australia is one of the main stakeholders of the development and sustainability of tourism in the kangaroo island. The community is another very important stakeholder for the Kangaroo Island, the employees, the directors, the customers, the creditors, unions, owners and finally many tourism related business are stakeholders (Peter, 2007). 2. The nature of their interests and concerns with tourism development on KI In most businesses the nature of the stakeholders is investment. Some of the stakeholder’s roles are beyond the interest in investments. The board of directors in the Kangaroos Island is mainly involved in the role of decision making. These comprises of the executives and some occasional outsiders who are the owners of large companies. They have the powers to introduce new ideas and disrupt decisions of the business or the organization. It is the board of governors who have power to make appointments for all the level of senior management like the chief executive officer. It is in the interest of the members of the board to dictate all the future of the business and the company and that is why they are involved in the decision making of all the major decisions in the business, company or organization. These are the stakeholders like the executive managers of the organization who assumes the roles of management for the company. The managers of the businesses that are involved in the Kangaroo Island are all in the forefront in the role of direct management of the businesses in the island. The employees and all the human resources are important in the development and success of the business. There are many other business owners and especially in the tourism sector that are stakeholders and their role is mainly in the investment. They are stakeholder whose role is to increase the businesses financial status of the businesses. They are the guardian angels in the area of investment because they are involved in the investment of shares in the form of finances, they also get involved in poring of the over financial report and also putting pressure in the management to make changes in the tactics of its business management where need be. The government has the role of ensuring that they enable the state decision maker to prioritize the issue of addressing the issues which are uncertain and on the extreme. The government is also involved in supporting all the projects that are of high capital cost as well as those that involves the application of the new technology. The communities as the stakeholders are involved in the environmental protection, maintenance of the heritage and also in the provision of labour (Miller & Twining-Ward, 2005). Most of the casual employees in the kangaroo island are from the surrounding community. 3. Identification of key government agencies in particular that impact on tourism policy, planning & development on KI (at all levels) The government of Australia is very keen in taking part in the process of planning, development and policy making that involves tourism. The development of Kangaroo Island envisages development of the tourism in a diverse range of zones in the Island. There are so many development projects that are involved in the island to make it one of the most sorts after tourist destination. The activities are all geared towards the development of tourism, formulation of governing policies and finally for the purpose of economic growth and advancement. The current policies governing the development of tourism in the place are aimed at protecting the value that is in the tourist attractions in the destination. It not only takes care of the wildlife but also all other tourist attractions in the scenario to ensure they are sustained (Higham & Maher, 2007). The role of government in the planning of tourism at the level of national and the sub-national level are many and that is why the different agencies of government are involved. Some of these roles include planning, coordinating, legislation and regulation, protection of the public interest, social tourism, promotion, stimulation and entrepreneurship. The kangaroo council which is part of the government is involved in the process of policy formulation and development in the sense that it is involved in the states sovereignty in exerting forces of the political, cultural and economic globalization hence changing tourism as well as all of its policies and the planning (Weaver, 2001). Also it is involved directly in the introduction of any left out details in the policies especially for the provision of the guidance on the issues of sitting, location and design. It is also involved in the compilation of the lists to ensure all the unwanted barriers are eliminated or minimized for the purposes of developing a sustainable tourism development. Government Agency/partners and supporters Roles TKI, SATC Implementation of the marketing plan Private sectors, KIDB, KIA council, SATC Identification of the opportunities for the purpose of providing products of high quality TKI Preparing of the web self driven based touring itineration as well as the promotion through the process of monitoring associations and hiring of the companies associated car. KIDB, DEH, KI council, SATC Encouragements of the investors to commit to provision of high quality kind of design processes as well as outcomes to ensure all potential are explored. SATC, DEH Establishment of projects for the purposes of developing investment plans TKI, KIDB Identification of the prospective providers of the motor and home facilities TOMM, KIDB, TKI Identification of the best ways to give feedback that is collected by the TOMM survey visitors DEH , KI council Identification of the opportunities for the purposes of delivering environmental benefits off and on-site KIDB Promotion of businesses that are of sustainable practice initiatives as well as the participants. Also they encourage the tourism operators to also take part. 4. Identification of the planning context-relevant history, statistics on KI, nature of tourism on KI, economic context, social context, transport links & infrastructure and any other relevant contextual information In the year 2005 the Kangaroo Island had experienced one of its greatest blow economically when it was reported a decline in the visitation of tourists in that particular region and basically in the southern part of Australia. It was due to that issue that a plan was developed to deal with the decline in the rate of tourist visitors and the economic steady growth. The kangaroo island had to do something to ensure it reaches it vision which is to build a swell as sustain a very enduring industry of tourism that will provide exceptional experiences to the visitors as well as protect and respect the cultural, natural and community values (Hall, 2008). Strategic planning is a very important component of the success of an organization either profit earning or non profit earning organization. It is the means by which the organization uses as its framework for making decisions as well as securing its approval and support, it provides the means by which an organization gets a detailed plan to run its activities, it acts as a way of advertising the business to the world for the purposes of informing, involving and motivating. It is a way of assisting in performance monitoring and benchmarking, it is also the means by which the organization stimulates change as well as it is the building block used for initiating the next needed plan for the organization. In the very competitive environment in terms of business, a business must have a strategic plan so that it can be able to stand in the platform of competition. According to Hall (2008), the following are the five processes that are involved in the process of formulating a business strategy; objectives and mission formulation, environmental scanning, formulation of the strategy, implementation of the strategy and finally the control and the evaluation of the strategy. It is the mission that describes the vision of the company, values, goals and the objectives in order for the business to pursue its future opportunities in terms of the market share. The environmental scanning entails external analysis and internal analysis helpful in understanding the weaknesses, strength, threats and opportunities of the business (Thompson & Martin, 2005). The formulation of the strategy entails the process of matching all the information gotten from the environmental scanning in terms of weakness and strengths as well as the threats and opportunities. The importance for this is to give the business a platform for competition as well as superiority in the area of profitability. The implementation of the strategy refers to the process of putting into actions all the programs, procedures and budgets. It is the process that fully involves the organizations resources like the human resource as well as the finances. Also at this stage there is the aspect of motivating the staff to ensure they are aggressive in trying to achieve the company’s objectives and goals (Stilwell, 2002). Finally, the control and evaluation stage involves the process of monitoring and adjusting the implemented strategies through defining the parameters that needs to be measured, defining the values targeted as far as these parameters are concerned, setting the measurement of the performance, comparing the results measured with al predefined standards and finally making any changes that are necessary in the strategy. The plan was in a way that the stakeholder namely the community would contribute to the well being of the island through its actions economically by 5-8% as well as in the jobs that are tourism related and business in nature by 5%. The plan took care of ensuring the visitors are increased by 5-7% per annum. The plan has also taken a great role in the identification of infrastructure areas in need of facilities and services development or upgrading for the purposes of boasting tourism (Miller & Twining-Ward, 2005). It has also high lightened the great need for an approach of partnership to provide as well as maintain the amenities for the visitors like the public toilets, picnic facilities and camp grounds. The customer services are extremely good in the sense that the quality of very high. Kangaroo Island offers different accommodation services and facilities. There are wide ranges of hotels for the tourist to choose from. Some o the hotels are in the surrounding sites and others in the island tourist destination like the national parks. There are many motels, which have emerged in the area and especially with the development of the railway stations and the improvement of the roads. The parks and other sites also offer camping facilities and sites for the tourist who want to camp during their tour. Travelling to Kangaroo Island is much easier because apart from the development of airstrip and railways line, there are very good roads to the different tourist sites. Many tour companies have been put up and they are responsible to picking the tourists from different arrival. This is whereby cabs and taxi are available at the railway stations, bus stops and the airport to pick the tourists and drop them to the destinations. At the different site, the tourists are offered transportation by the management (Weaver & Lawton, 2010). This is whereby part of their fee caters for their tour transportation. They are given a tour vehicle and a guide. 5. Identification of relevant policies, plans and precedents There are a number of approaches, relevant policies, plans and precedents that have been adopted by the Kangaroo Island in its effect to achieve sustainability (SATC. 2008). According to the assessment that has been done some contributed to a clearer understanding of organizational performance through the systematic integration of factors relating to sustainability while others did not (Broekhuis, 2003). One of the approaches that many organizations use is partnership. Many organizations start a partnership to join effort to achieve sustainability. However, not all of then achieve it. One of the reasons being the size and strength differences of the partnering organizations in terms of resources both finances and human resource. Another complication that is brought about by the partnership approach is the issue of changes in leadership. After the partnership, the two organizations need to get new leadership for running the partnership. This issue causes some difficulties for the people especially the employees that will work under a new leadership not used to (Dredge & Jenkins, 2007). The culture change and the working style change is another approach of sustainability. This is whereby innovations and technologies are introduced in the organization; this is one of the approaches that many organizations are also using to achieve sustainability (William, 2009). This approach demands for some extra finances to purchase new machineries or install new technology as well as hire new work force (SATC. 2008). It could be such an expensive approach to the organization especially if the organization is very small in terms of its finances. This may even lead the organization to face some financial crises. The third approach is the quality. This is whereby the organization aims at delivering quality products by striking a balance between social issues, economic prosperity and achieving a healthy ecologic environment (William, 2009). The following four aspects must be considered very carefully as far as the issue of quality is concerned. Quality control, quality inspection, total quality management and quality assurance). 6. Analysis using a key course theory or concept The solutions that are involved in the planning formulation and management of policies for sustaining high level of services in tourism are governed by some concepts and theories. To achieve sustainability there is need for the maintenance of economic development that must balance the local communities’ needs culturally, environmentally. The term organizational sustainability refers to the ability of a group of people to be able to endure the external as well as the internal pressure of a certain culture especially through the change in innovations and technology on the process of innovation as the organizations tries to deliver the products they specialize in production. This means that for any organization to achieve that there is a need for a lens to look through and a path to follow. This is whereby many organizations both profit making and non-profit making apply the principle of sustainability, which is a model of Leskar. This kind of model contains a number of very important principles, which must be followed to achieve all the goals of the organization. Development of the organizational team a process that entails the conversion of the most committed group of people into the cohesive unit is one of the principles. The second principle is the organizational process of management. This entails the process of redirecting the steps and actions that are being taken by the management to yield more fruits. Organizational mapping of the product is the next principle. This involves the process of capturing the essential leader’s part of the vision. It involves graphical representation, important phases, concepts, milestones and stages that are represented in such a way that they will capture the audiences. Through this kind of method, illustrations of the best methods tasks and activities are revealed to show the team members the way to achieve their goals. All of the above principles have been the governing concepts in achieving sustainability and success of tourism in the Kangaroo Island. Reference Broekhuis, M., 2003. Improving organizational sustainability using a quality perspective. Oxford University: oxford university press. Dennis, A. 2001. Marketing: principles and practice, 4th Ed. Financial Times, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Dredge, D & Jenkins, J 2007, Tourism Planning & Policy, John Wiley & Sons, Milton, QLD. Finlay, P. 2000. Strategic management: an introduction to business and corporate strategy. New York: Pearson Education. Hall, M. 2008. Tourism Planning: Policies, processes and relationships. Harlow, UK: Pearson. Higham, J & Maher, H. 2007. Protected lands. In D. Dredge & J Jenkins (Eds.) Tourism planning and policy. Milton, QLD: John Wiley. Miller, G & Twining-Ward, L 2005. ‘Tourism Optimization Management Model’, in Monitoring for a sustainable tourism transition: The challenge of developing and using indicators, CABI, Wallingford, UK, pp. 201-232. Mowforth, M. & Munt, I. 2003, Tourism & sustainability. London: Routledge. Peter, F., 2007. The practice of management. New York: John Wiley & sons. SATC. 2008. Tourism implementation plan. See: http://www.tourism.sa.gov.au/Tourism/Plan/South_Australian_Strategic_Plan_070408.pdf Stilwell, F. 2002. Political economy: The contest of economic ideas, Oxford University Press, Melbourne. Thompson, J. & Martin, F., 2005. Strategic management: awareness and change (5th Ed.). California: Cengage Learning EMEA. Weaver, D. 2001. Ecotourism. Milton, Qld: John Wiley and Sons Weaver, D. & Lawton, L. 2010. Tourism management. Queensland: John Wiley & Sons. William, R., 2009. Knowledge management and organizational learning. Canada: prentice Hall. Read More