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By Jay Khounlabvisaed Akhom, on November 25th, 2011
This literature review is written by Soutchay Khounlabvisaed Akhom as part of his NHTV Master in Tourism Destination Management.
Tourism is a global phenomenon with its characteristic as a large and complex business industry. Therefore, planning, developing and managing the tourism industry for a long-term success is a very difficult task. In order to achieve long-term success of tourism development, however, sustainable principles are required and necessary applied to strategic planning of tourism development processes. This involves various participations of all kinds of stakeholders from global to national and local levels respectively. To encourage the best practices of sustainable tourism development, voluntary initiative and codes of conduct are considerably as an effective tool on preventing or reducing negative impacts caused by tourists. This aims to influent tourists’ behavior in a more responsible way.
Based on this, the article focused mainly on the implementation of voluntary initiatives and codes of conduct in the process of achieving sustainable tourism development in ecotourism context. The introduction of these measures aims to protect tourism resources in terms of natural, cultural, historical and other resources from the increasing numbers of tourists in a tourist destination. Consequently, the negative impacts of tourists on the destination can be minimized by the way of educating and changing their behavior with sustainable approach. To carry out these tasks more effectively in the planning tourism development, among all parties actively involved in tourism such as investors, local authorities and tourists, marketing plays a significant role of not only attracting tourists to the destination, but also delivering a appropriate message to potential tourists on raising their awareness of sustainability before, during and after their visits in a tourist destination. The creation of the rules of conduct is particularly for tour operators, hotels and tourists who are directly participated in tourism industry. As the result, tourism industry can be kept as a main driver for economic growth of a country, the destination competitiveness is enhanced and other positive benefits are maximized while the negative impacts are minimized. The article also exemplified Croatia as an empirical case study in which these rules of conduct are existing and using as an integrated part in the process of the tourist destination management of Croatia to protect national parks and other nature protected areas such as ‘Regulation on Compensation for Damages Caused by Unlawful Actions on Protected Animal Species’ as a regulated legal document and codes of conduct for tourists.
Continue reading Code of conduct in tourism and their impact on sustainable tourism
By Mink Sasiwan, on November 25th, 2011
This literature review is written by Mink Sasiwan as part of her NHTV Master in Tourism Destination Management.
Bhutan is a small land-locked kingdom situating in the Himalayan Mountains between India and China. This tiny country has enjoyed the reputation as one of the most pristine and exclusive travel destinations in the world – the “last Shangri-La”. The number of inbound tourists has increased each year despite its controlled tourism policy imposing an over-priced daily tariff of US$ 200 on each tourist. This daily tariff is a result of the high-value, low-volume strategy based on the “Gross National Happiness” (GNH) philosophy – a formula to measure the country’s progress considering equitable economic development, environmental conservation, cultural promotion and good governance rather than Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (Tourism Council of Bhutan, 2011). The objectives of this high-value, low-volume policy are to earn the foreign currency and to limit the number of arrivals in order to prevent the negative impacts of tourism on its cultural heritage and natural environment (Department of Tourism, 2005). However, a growing number of tourists could jeopardize the intended objective of safeguarding Bhutan’s culture and nature which it is known for.
Many studies agree that the “High Value, Low Volume policy had been successful. The tourism had the potential to both stimulate private sector growth and transform the rural economy, without having a negative impact on its culture and environment (Brunet, Bauer, Lacy, & Tshering, 2001; Gurung & Seeland, 2008; Reinfeld, 2003; Rinzin, Vermeulen & Glasbergen 2007).
However, there are some arguments against this policy especially in regard of tourism causing the environmental issues (Dorji, 2001). The increasing number of uncontrolled Indian tourists who don’t have to pay the daily tariff which according to Nyaupane & Timothy (2010), threatening the policy and country’s cultural and natural resources.
The goal of this literature review is to provide insight in the positive as well as the negative impacts of Bhutan’s controlled tourism policy on its economy, culture and environment. The research question will therefore be:
What are the positive and negative impacts of Bhutan’s controlled tourism policy on its economy, culture and environment?
The research question will be answered by a synthesis of relevant articles and journals related to Bhutan’s tourism policy and its impacts. Using a thematic approach, both the published and unpublished government documents focusing on this topic will also be analyzed.
The first part of this literature review will explain a theory of tourism impacts, a concept of Bhutan’s controlled tourism policy and why it has been chosen. The second part will emphasize on positive impacts of the policy while the third part will discuss the negative impacts. Finally the conclusion will be drawn.
Continue reading Impacts of Bhutan’s controlled tourism policy
By Jessica Peelen, on November 25th, 2011
This literature review is written by Jessica Peelen as part of her NHTV Master in Tourism Destination Management.
Diving is becoming more popular. It started as a recreational activity and diving is now developing into a booming sector of travel industry all over the world. The Professional Association of Dive Instructors (PADI) measure the increasing participation in diving activity, from 2.5 million certified divers in 1988 to 17.5 million in 2008 (PADI Diver Statistics, 2008). One the world’s most popular diving destination is the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Actually it’s not possible to leave Australia without diving here, or at least snorkel. But also new diving destinations as Myanmar and Mozambique will be developed and this stimulates the development of diving tourism worldwide. More new tour operators and travel agencies specialized in diving holidays are started the last years (T.F. Ong and G. Musa, 2011).
It’s useful to find out what influence diving has on the environment and if divers’ attitude can make a difference.
Diving is often related with damaging and fracturing of coral. This will be examined from different perspectives with case studies of three dive destinations as Malaysia Sipadan, Cayman Island in the Caribbean and a Marine National Park inThailand, called Surin.
Continue reading Impacts of diving: To dive or not to dive?
By Wendy Yang, on November 25th, 2011
This literature review is written by Wendy Yang as part of her NHTV Master in Tourism Destination Management.
Urban tourism has become one of main stream in tourism research since more and more urban areas promoted themselves as the most “charming”, ”sparkling” or ”touching” place on earth. In Asia, since so-called ‘tiger’ cities rose, city promotion combined with urban tourism has been view as a stage on which the state exhibits the success of economic success and modernized (Ward, 2005).Southeast Asia became a popular tourism destination to international visitors around 1970.From the beginning, tourism in Asia which consists of beach, sex, drugs, food and shopping has been based on urban. After two decades of development, in 1990s, East Asia pacific region received 16 percent of international tourists and 46 percent of them travelled to Southeast Asia (Mullins, 1999). According to UNWTO (2011), the average annual growth of international tourist arrivals in Southeast from 1995 to 2010 is 6.8 percent, second to Middle East.Hong Kong and Singapore, with spectacular growth, has been the best model for other Asian city states to imitate.In addition, Bangkok is also a good example to explain how being as a tourist gateway bring rapid growth to a city.The instant and obvious economic benefits and glory of “modern” have already driven more and more city authorities in Asia to develop tourism enthusiastically as the priority of policy. However, what if every city tries to attract tourists by using similar strategies and elements, like shopping, food and Skyscrapers (Leiper& Park, 2010). Furthermore these cities are all located in Asia, possibly modernized to different degree, but move to the same direction which early successful tourism Asian cities once went on.How do these cities make themselves to be more recognized? And do their efforts work? Is there any stakeholder without or within power but in urgency due to fast growth of urban tourism? Environmental issues about tourism in rural area have been discussed a lot, how about urban tourism? What kind of environmental impact could urban tourism cause?The ignored danger of urban tourism is the core of this literature review concerns about. Continue reading Danger of Urban Tourism in Asia
By Master TDM, on November 14th, 2011
Our NHTV Master in Tourism Destination Management programme has received excellent feedback during the latest accreditation round. [...]
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