Kwanini Carrying Capacity Assessment June - September 2014 Investors Government Guests Kwanini People Workforce Prepared for Ministry of Information, Culture, Tourism and Sports Hon. Said Ali Mbarouk By Denise Bretlaender & Pavol Toth Table of Contents KWANINI CARRYING CAPACITY ASSESSMENT ................................................................................................................. 1 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................... 3 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................................................................... 3 2.1 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM ....................................................................................................................................... 3 2.2 MANAGEMENT TOOLS FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM .................................................................................................. 4 3. CARRYING CAPACITY EXERCISE ........................................................................................................................ 5 4. METHODOLOGY .............................................................................................................................................. 8 5. ANALYSES ...................................................................................................................................................... 10 5. 1 CURRENT STATE OF TOURISM ............................................................................................................................. 11 5.2 ZONING ......................................................................................................................................................... 13 6. CASE STUDY .................................................................................................................................................. 15 6.1 CASE STUDY 1: SEYCHELLES ................................................................................................................................ 15 6.2 CASE STUDY 2: MAURITIUS ................................................................................................................................ 19 6.3 CASE STUDY 3: MALDIVES ................................................................................................................................. 20 7. INDICATOR ANALYSES ................................................................................................................................... 22 8. SURVEYS ....................................................................................................................................................... 24 8.1 VISITOR EXIT SURVEY ........................................................................................................................................ 24 8.2 HOTEL MANAGEMENT SURVEY ............................................................................................................................ 28 8.3 HOTEL STAFF SURVEY ........................................................................................................................................ 30 8.4 LOCAL COMMUNITY LEADER SURVEY .................................................................................................................... 32 9. DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................................................. 35 10. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH .......................................................................................... 37 11. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 38 APPENDIX I: LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................................... 44 1.1. JAFARI’S FOUR PLATFORMS ........................................................................................................................... 44 1.2. MICRO- AND MACRO- LEVEL MANAGEMENT TOOL DESCRIPTION .......................................................................... 44 2 1. Introduction Pemba’s attractiveness as a tourism location is mainly due to its natural resources such as world- class diving and beautiful beaches. The tourism industry on the island has an interest in developing a sustainable and economically profitable business without damaging neither the environment nor the local population. Based on the structured interviews with stakeholders, an indicator analyses, three case studies, literature review and four surveys as well as the framework developed by Kurhade (2013) a tourism strategy for Pemba was recommended in this paper and presented to the Ministry for Information, Culture, Tourism and Sports of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar. The variety of characteristics that should be managed sustainably makes it difficult to choose one specific form of protection. Management must take into consideration the traditional way of life of its indigenous citizens, the wildlife, the recreational areas (e.g. coral reefs as dive sites) and different forms of landscape. All these aspects must be considered when developing a strategy on how to handle future tourism on Pemba without sacrificing the island’s character through overcrowding. This paper commences with a literature review concerning Tourism Carrying Capacity Assessment (TCCA), which includes changes in expert mindset and limitations of TCCAs. 2. Literature Review Tourism constitutes a valuable source of revenue especially for resource-poor countries (Brown et al., 1997). However, there exists a crucial trade-off between generated benefits and economic costs in the tourism sector (Brown et al., 1997). 2.1 Sustainable Tourism This paper will use MacIntosh and Goeldner’s (1986) definition of tourism as a foundation. They define tourism as “the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the interaction of tourists, business suppliers, host governments and host communities in the process of attracting and hosting these tourists and other visitors” (p.18). Mathieson and Walls established the most commonly used definition in 1982. According to the authors, tourism is explained as a “temporary movement of people to destinations outside their normal places of work and residence, the activities undertaken during their stay in those destinations, and the facilities created to cater to their needs” (p. 29). This paper uses the first definition as it includes the importance of relationships between different stakeholders. Moreover, it also allows for different non-locals being present on Pemba (i.e. visitors and tourists). More importantly it includes marketing activities, which have a tremendous impact concerning destination decision-making process and expectation management. 3 The discussion of different tourism definitions is important as it showcases that experts and academic literature have not come to a consensus on the extent tourism has in the context of the community. Many models have been published in regards to the evolution of tourism. Jafari’s (2001) influential platform stage model identified a gradual change from tourism as a platform for advocacy (1950’s- 1960’s) to cautionary (1970’s) to ada ptancy and finally knowledge-based (1990’s).1 This model was expanded upon to include the ethics and finally sustainability stage (McBeth, 2005). He defines the latter as a limited growth concept based on political considerations. Pemba Island is an African tourism destination and as of 2013 relatively unknown as a travel location. As such it has not experienced the different mentalities of tourists and leapfrogged all this stages. As such the only negative association the local population has is the example of Unguja. The lack of the first four stages in Pemba’s development as a tourist location increases measurement difficulties but also explains the current pristine stages of the natural landscape. The government has the unique opportunity to leapfrog certain tourism management stages and develop a sustainable tourism environment that aims to avoid the negative impacts, that have occurred in other locations due to mass market tourism (especially on Unguja). Saarinen (2006) states three alternative perspectives on how to view sustainability limits. The first perspective is resource based and founded upon a positivist ecological point-of-view. According to this tradition limits to growth are imposed to protect the resources in the holiday location. The second perspective is activity based and defines limits as flexible and adaptive to new situations. Butler’s (2006) tourism area life cycle is deeply interwoven with this line of argumentation. According to Butler’s theory once a tourism area enters the stagnation stage the management can use activities such as marketing to revive growth and avoid the normally occurring decline stage due saturation. This developmental approach has strong support amongst international organizations, including World Tourism Organization. The last perspective is based on the stakeholder community empowerment. If local communities contribute through information or knowledge sharing relationships are build. On the basis of these valuable social networks limits can be negotiated and often upwardly adjusted. Thus, this theory