Introduction
In recent years, tourism has increasingly become one of the most important sectors driving economic development in several countries throughout the world. As an industry, the tourism has not only created avenues for local income generation and created jobs but also stimulated the development of other sectors of the economy such as infrastructure, transportation, banking and the hospitality (National Parks UK). The result has been widespread socio-economic development and increased standards of living especially in host communities. However, tourism has also brought about many hidden costs that have been unfavorable to the host community particularly in areas where the number of tourists exceeds the ability of the host environment to cope with the tourist influx. It has resulted in an increased strain on the local resources such as natural habitats, water and food, loss of biodiversity, pressure on local flora and fauna, and levels of pollution in the area (National Parks UK). While tourism can encourage the local conservation of the socio-cultural authenticity of the host society, it can also trigger the erosion of the same values. This scenario has led to the tourism paradox – the tension between our desire to travel and explore the uniqueness of our environment and the need to meet such desires with the least possible harm. This paper, therefore, attempts to explicate how to build a culture of sustainability in the industry by defining and describing the Tourism Life Cycle (TLC). It also discusses the key indicators of sustainable tourism.
Question 1:
a) What is tourism destination’s life cycle?
While tourism can stimulate the growth of economies dependent on extractive industries such as agriculture and mining, poor planning and lack of evaluation thereof has yielded mixed results and in most cases led to detrimental socio-economic and environmental consequences. These mixed results arise from the differences in the stages of development that exists between tourism areas. The stage of development of an area determines its position within the TLC. According to Butler’s TLC model, a tourist destination can be at any stage of development of the seven-stage model. TLC, therefore, is a tourism development model that traces the development of a tourist area from its discovery or infancy to its final stage (Butler). The model assumes an S-shaped curve that depicts an evolutionary path of a tourist destination through seven distinct stages of development (Butler; Casasnovas and Rosselló). These steps include exploration, involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation, rejuvenation, and decline (West Virginia University [WVU]).
b) Butler’s tourist destination’s stages of development
Butler’s tourist destination development model states that a tourism area usually starts on a small scale in its initial stages of development and gradually grows until stagnation occurs – when the problems associated with tourism exceeds the location’s upper carrying capacity (Butler; WVU). Within the seven stages of tourist destination development, the following happen.
Exploration is the first phase and occurs when an adventurous individual or group of tourists stumble upon a place that is uniquely captivating and different in terms of its beautiful scenery, distinct culture, rich history, or captivating landscapes (WVU). These places usually lack tourism services, are unexplored, and the local activities taking place in the area are tourism unrelated. Only a handful of visitors may visit the site due to the limitation of access, facilities, and constraints of local knowledge, language, and customs.
The second stage of Involvement manifests when people in the host destination take note of the number of foreigners coming to the site (WVU). This notification is preceded by the increased number of people traveling to these destinations. The local population then starts offering support services to the foreigners such as the provision of guides to the site and transportation. They also engage in the provision of accommodation and food to the expected travelers. At this stage, the locals increasingly start to accept, recognize, and become involved with the place due to the rising popularity of the destination area to outsiders. The people living in the vicinity of such places start to participate more actively and engage in promotional activities of the site to popularize the locality.
The third stage, development, occurs when the level of involvement of the local community and the number of visitors visiting the place increase substantially (WVU). At this level of development, third-party individuals, governments, and interested organizations start to see the emerging potential of the site as a vacationer’s terminus. These parties commence investing in the place and consequently establishing it as a known tourist destination with a defined market. Most importantly, the region attracts developers who erect accommodation resorts and sell package tourist holidays that include travel tour guides, field excursions, money services, and lodging facilities (WVU). The development of the area makes the number of visiting tourists expand, which in turn leads to increased number of job opportunities as the locals secure employment in the sector and other support industries.
The next step is Consolidation and refers to a state in the TLC model where the area has become an essential component of the life of the community. It is now embedded within the socio-economic fabric of the economy affecting major activities carried out in the area (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs [DESA]). At this stage, the local economy is majorly dominated by tourism and a greater portion of the community derives their daily livelihood from activities directly linked to the sector (WVU). However, the economic rewards may attract people from other sectors of the economy such as agriculture, mining, and fishing that can, in turn, lead to the collapse of these industries. Socially, the cultural aspect of the local people becomes threatened when the socio-cultural attributes of the tourists take hold and become common. While the construction and expansion of the resorts and other tourist support facilities continue, older buildings start to crumble and become outdated and unattractive (WVU). These sites can lead to diminished quality of the client base to the area. Moreover, as more land is converted to resorts, jealousy and resentment may start to develop between the locals, tourists, and developers due to such factors as the destruction of the local sites and erosion of the indigenous socio-cultural fabric. Increased opposition to tourism from the locals leads to the Stagnation stage.
Together with other factors such as competition from other resorts, loss of the original appeal of the site, and local rowdiness and crowdedness, local opposition to tourism prevents further growth and development of the area (WVU). Other factors such as environmental consciousness awaken people to environmental destruction caused by tourism while other socio-economic problems such reduced revenue, a high cost of living, and the erosion of local cultural values prevents further growth. The persistence of these opposing elements cause the number and frequency of tourists to level off (stagnates) before starting to decline, and hence threatening the survival of local enterprises and services in the process. At this stage, however, two things can happen, the industry can either decline into oblivion or rejuvenate back to life. The decline of the tourist destination occurs when the site fails to improve its stagnating elements, losses tourist appeal and the number of visitors reduces to nothing (WVU). The decrease of tourist activities then leads to the loss of economic wealth the region generates, closure of tourist services and total deterioration of the destination. However, critical factors that can lead to tourist destination decline are primarily the failure to attract new tourists, non-revitalization of host tourist appeals, host antagonism, and cut-throat competition from other destinations (WVU).
Rejuvenation, on the other hand, occurs when the resort regrows itself, improves on its stagnating elements and maintains before eventually boosting its number and frequency of tourist visits. Rejuvenation of a tourist destination usually occurs through one or a combination of the following components; the invention of a new tourist attraction and rebranding of the tour site or external cash injection into the sector from the government or private investment (WVU). The effect of these efforts is the creation of a new desirability within the initial (original) destination to boost its popularity. Therefore, within Butlers' TALC Model, the stage of development can easily be identified, and the socio-economic performance of the destination determined (Butler).
Question 2: Indicators of sustainable tourism as identified by the World Tourism Organization (WTO)
Sustainable tourism should continuously strive towards the attainment of the following goals. First, making optimal use of the available environmental resources at the sites as these elements are crucial in the overall tourism development, maintenance of the essential ecological processes, and conservation of biodiversity and natural resources. Second, sustainable tourism should respect the social and cultural aspects of the host community by conserving their natural as well as built cultural heritage and customs. Thirdly, sustainable tourism should ensure equitable and fair distribution of economic benefits to all parties and contribute towards the alleviation of poverty in its areas of operations (WTO).
According to WTO, indicators of the development of sustainable tourism refers to measures deployed to ascertain the existence or severity of current issues related to tourism and determine risks and potential need for action to thwart such negativities for the development and management of tourism (IISD and WTO). Indicators of tourism can, therefore, measure changes in the internal structures and factors of tourism, changes in exogenous factors affecting tourism and the impacts caused by tourism activities (IISD and WTO). In the context of tourism, indicators of sustainable development are time-series pieces of information pertinent to the development of a tourist destination, the location assets, and ultimately the benefits of the sector. While these indicators can perform several functions, their lead purpose is to guide better decision-making and adoption of practical actions by clarifying, simplifying, and availing aggregated tourism-related information to policy makers. At the international level, the United Nations through its Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) developed a framework on the Indicators of Sustainable Development with broad applicability in the tourism sector (DESA). However, given the complex nature of tourism, there are an infinite number of tourism-related indicators to choose from depending on such factors as measurability, resource constraints, and type of sustainability approach adopted (Butler). WTO identifies the following five categories of sustainable tourism indicators; economic, social, cultural, environmental, and tourist indicators (Jovicici and Ilic).
Economic indicators are those measures that reflect the monetary contribution tourism activities is making to the local economy (IISD and WTO). These measures focus on measures of economic activities such as local macroeconomic performance (such as GDP per capita), sector employment (such as employment/population ratio and productivity of labor), and tourism contribution to the local GDP (DESA).
Social indicators of sustainable tourism focus on social integrity measured in terms of the subjective well-being of the local host community. It ascertains the state and resilience of the social wellness of the local people against interference from the tourists’ way of social conduct. Closely related to social measures, cultural indicators measures the cultural integrity of the host community in terms of diversity, uniqueness, beauty, and individuality of both the built and living cultural heritage (Jovicici and Ilic).
Environmental indicators measure the environmental quality of the tourist site based on pressure (stresses) on the available resources, the state of the natural resource base and level of extraction, and impacts (Biological and physical) on the environment due to tourism (IISD and WTO). It, therefore, measures such variables as levels of pollution in different environmental media (water, air, land, biodiversity, and landscape), changing expectations on local resource demand, and the level of strain on shared resources. Lastly, indicators related to tourist attraction focuses on the tourist perception, value judgments of the visitor, and the level of satisfaction of the tourist on the destination. Money values of tourist perception depend on the number of site visits (Jovicici and Ilic). This indicator also measures the tourist’s perception of such elements as resort facilities, environmental quality (air, water, pollution levels, congestion, and crowdedness), the socio-cultural setting of the site (crime levels, local people-friendliness, cultural interest, and diversity).
The above indicators play significant roles in the clarification of issues in tourism sustainability and in supporting better decisions and actions of policy makers (WTO). They are progressively becoming fundamental components in the overall planning and management of sustainability at all levels of tourism. The stimulus for tourism sustainability stems from the realization that most tourist destinations are facing imminent risk due to insufficient attention to the negative impacts of tourism, increased incidences of site pollution and contamination, damaged socio-cultural and ecological assets, and hostilities in site areas. These indicators help alleviate such issues by providing decision-makers in the sector with the means to comprehend the correlation between tourism and the natural and socio-cultural environments. Adequate information from these indicators allows better decision-making, identification of impacts and other emerging issues, reduced risk of planning mistakes, greater accountability, and evaluation of performance progress in the sustainable tourism development.
Conclusion
The discussion presented above emphasizes, at least, three relevant points. Firstly, while tourism contributes positively to the socio-economic development of our societies, it also presents several challenges to our socio-cultural and environmental well-being. Secondly, Butler’s TALC tourist destination evolutionary path can help show an apparent understanding of the development of tourist destinations. Thirdly, sustainable tourism is crucial to preserving and conserving both the environmental as well as the socio-cultural integrity of our tourism sites. There is, therefore, need to adopt and implement conservatory measures to preserve our species, natural landscape, biodiversity, and attractiveness of our local sites for future use.
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