TOURISM

PLANNING
(updated March 2015)
Sourced from the Lesson Plan for Principles of Tourism II
OBJECTIVES
Explain the major steps involved in the tourism
planning and development process
 Discuss the importance of integrated tourism
planning and development and development
planning layers
 Identify characteristics of the tourism product
that have implications for tourism planning and
development
UNIT TOPICS
 Integrated Planning and Development
 Tourism and Development
Development Planning Layers
The Tourism Development Planning Process
 The Development Plan Team
Tourism Development Planning: When It Goes
Wrong
Integrated Planning and Development
• The proactive approach requires deep and through
understanding of not only the local economy and its structure,
limitations and strengths, but also the probable effects of
external factors, how they may impinge on he local
development process and what form these external effects
are likely to take
• The reactive approach is based upon the premise that here
are too man variables, internally and externally, to be able to
plan
 Tourism and Development
• Tourism product characteristics

• Tourism as means of wealth redistribution

• Tourism as a labor-intensive industry

• Tourism and on-the-job training

• The structure of tourism

• Protectionism
• Multitude of industry

• Price flexibility

• Price competitive
• Seasonality
• High operating leverage/fixed costs
Development Planning Layers

• International tourism planning

• National tourism planning
• Regional/local tourism planning
The Tourism Development Planning Process

•Study recognition and preparation

•Setting of objectives or goal for the strategy
•Survey of existing date
•Implementation of new surveys
•Analyses
•Policy and plan formulation
•Recommendations
•Implementation of the plan
•Monitoring and reformulation
THE DEVELOPMENT PLAN TEAM
The development plan team will consist of four groups
of specialists, falling into the broad categories of
technical services, marketing specialists, planners and
economists.
 THE DEVELOPMENT PLAN HAS FIVE DISTINCT
PHASES:
• Identification and inventory of the existing
situation
• Forecasts for the future
• Plan formulation
• Specific project development
• Implementation
TOURISM DEVELOPMENTAL PLANNING:
WHEN IT GOES WRONG
• Design stage plan failure
• Implementation stage plan failure
• The successful development of tourism requires the
construction of a development plan or strategy that is
flexible and thorough
• Flexibility is required in order to adjust and
reformulate in response to internal and external
changes
Thoroughness is required because of the complexity of the tourism
industry and the economic, environmental and social consequences
of its development.
Although the process of tourism development planning will be specific
from destination there are processes that need to be followed at
national and sub-national levels and these processes provide the
framework for tourism development planning.
Tourism development plan failure is likely to be attributable to failures
at either the design stage (inadequate planning structure) or the
implement stage.
It is important that authorities have contingency plans in place to deal
to deal with unexpected events that may knock the tourism strategy
off course.
CARRYING CAPACITY

“the maximum number of people who can use a

site without an unacceptable alteration in the
physical environment and without an
unacceptable decline in the quality of
experience gained by visitors”
(Mathieson and Wall,1982)
 When attempting to identify the levels of carrying capacity, to
weigh the absolute numbers of tourist arrivals to take account of
a number of factors as follows:
• The average length of stay;
• The characteristics of tourist and hosts;
• The geographical concentration of tourist;
• The degree of seasonality;
• The type of tourism activity;
• The accessibility of specific sites;
• The level of infrastructure use and its spare capacity;
• The extent of spare capacity among the various productive sectors of the
economy.
 The determinants and influences of carrying capacity
Local Factors Alien Factos

Planning prcoess

Management of development
The interaction between local and alien
factors, directed and governed by the
Technology planning process, will determine the
impacts

IMPACTS ON

Society Culture Environment Economy Tourists

These
Parameters Standards T he present level of carrying capacity affect
soon becomes accepted and this level local
of acceptance influences the local and and
Current carrying alien factors at the top of the process
alien
Capacity and modifies tolerance levels
throughout in this way carrying factor
capacities can be extended overtime
THE PROCESS OF DETERMINING CARRYING CAPACITY

LOCAL FACTORS ALIEN FACTORS

 Social structure • Tourist IMPACTS
 Cultural heritage
characteristics • Parameters
Environment •Standards
Economic • Types of tourist
structure activity •Carrying capacity
Political structure • Planning, determination
Resources management ad
technology
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM PRODUCTS
• Eco-tourism is unequivocally linked to natural tourism
attractions rather than their man-made counterparts and
environmental sustainability is often to be a core component of
such a product’s definition.
• Eco-tourism demands a high level of interpretation whereas
the mass tourism product does not.
• Both eco-tourism and alternative imply small-scale,
indigenous low-key activities.
•Eco-tourism suggest that it has in place constraints that will
prevent or inhibit uncontrolled development.
• Both forms of tourism activity ca provide a temporary runway
for the take-off of the destination as it moves towards mass
tourism.
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM PRODUCTS

The Three Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Rs

Recognize, Refuse, Replace, Reduce, reuse,

The 10 Rs
Recycle, Re-engineer, Retrain, Reward,
Re-educate
 SUSTAINABILITY AS A STRATEGY
• Sustainability more than anything else involves a
process of recognition and responsibility.
• A sustainable strategy must engage all of the
stakeholders in the planning of tourism
• Economic sustainability for tourism requires
holistic planning across all industrial sectors
•The quality of the tourism product demands staff
training that is universally acceptable and the
economic environment must make environmentally
and socio-culturally sound behavior the best
economic choice.
SUSTAINABILITY AS A STRATEGY
•Environmental sustainability in tourism requires
greater awareness and knowledge about the
impacts and ways of translating those impacts into
the economic marketplace.
•The indirect and induce environmental
consequences of activities must be included in the
calculation of their market prices but it must also be
recognized that environmental and social system
change over time as a natural consequence of
development and such changes need to be
accommodated