PUBLIC / PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DELIVERING A SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY FOR TOURISM DESTINATIONS Terry De Lacy, Marion Battig, ASIA PACIFIC ECONOMIC COOPERATION Stewart Moore, Steve Noakes APEC TOURISM WORKING GROUP JULY 2002 The Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data was commissioned by APEC as part of its Tourism Working Group Program to produce this report (APEC TWG 05/2011T) Terry De Lacy, Marion Battig, Stewart Moore, Steve Noakes Public/Private Partnerships for Sustainable Tourism: Delivering a Copyright © 2002 APEC Secretariat Sustainability Strategy for Tourism Destinations Bibliography. Published for: ISBN 1 876685 89 1. APEC Secretariat 348 Alexandra Road # 14-00 Alexandra Point Singapore 119958 1. Ecotourism – Asia. 2. Ecotourism – Pacific Area. 3. Public-private sector Tel: 65-6276-1880 Fax: 6276-1775 Email: [email protected] cooperation – Asia. 4. Public-private sector cooperation – Pacific Area. 5. Sustainable development – Asia. 6. Sustainable development – Pacific By: Area. 7. Tourism – Environmental aspects – Asia. 8. Tourism – CRC for Sustainable Tourism Environmental aspects – Pacific Area. I. De Lacy, Terry. II. Cooperative Griffith University, PMB 50 Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism. GOLD COAST MC QLD 9726 338.4791 AUSTRALIA Acknowledgements APEC#202-TR-01.2 Material has been contributed by the following CRC for Sustainable Tourism Researchers; Dr Peter Daniels, Dr Diane Lee, Prof Ashley Scott, Dr The CRC for Sustainable Tourism was established under the Jim Ness, Melinda Watt, Prof Larry Dwyer, Prof Peter Forsyth, Prof Ray Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program to Spurr, Graeme Worboys, Dr Pramod Sharma and Dino Zanon. underpin the development of a dynamic, internationally competitive, and sustainable tourism industry. The CRC for Sustainable Tourism is Photos have been supplied by Tourism Queensland, CRC for Sustainable a not-for-profit company owned by its industry, government and Tourism and the Chilean Tourism Service (Photo on front cover by Tourism Queensland). university partners EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The objective of this report is to provide a framework for Since natural and cultural resources provide the the sustainable development of the travel and tourism foundation for many tourism products, tourism has the industry in the APEC region, through public / private potential and responsibility to give value to local cultures partnerships, and to deliver a sustainability strategy for and natural environments and to encourage their tourism destinations. protection. One of the most widely accepted principles in achieving this is through local community involvement in An interim report was submitted at the 19th TWG tourism planning and management. Community Meeting in Bangkok (November 2001). That meeting participation in tourism can support and uphold local agreed the report should concentrate on the development culture, tradition, knowledge and practises, maintaining of a template for tourism sustainability. Therefore, the diversity and creating pride in heritage. report has been expanded to include a new Part 2 ‘Sustainability model for tourism destinations using Sustainable tourism development involves an integrated public/private partnerships’. The model/template is whole of community approach. The most effective way to suitable to be used by economies whenever destinations approach sustainable tourism development and are investing in tourism development (marketing, management is through destinations, as Part 2 of this planning, infrastructure etc). Part 1 will remain an report outlines. Part 2 discusses the 5 Ps for sustainable overview and discussion of public/private partnerships for destination planning, development and management. sustainable development, including example case studies This includes: where appropriate. 1. Policy and planning Methods used for the development of the report include: 2. Predictive modelling i. Collect and collate secondary data within and eternal to APEC economies; 3. Performance monitoring ii. Design and conduct a survey (primary data) within 4. Performance improvement APEC economies and analyse the data; 5. Performance reporting iii. Collect and collate case studies within APEC economies; Sustainable Planning principles have been developed in response to the growing international concern over iv. Report on CRC for Sustainable Tourism research into resource degradation and the wide variety of social and the sustainability of tourism destinations; and environmental impacts being experienced in poorly planned destinations. A sustainable vision for a tourist v. Produce a publication for distribution within APEC destination is of great importance and should be about economies. minimising ecological impacts, spreading financial returns throughout the community, investing in best practice Part 1 of the report discusses how tourism is more than an environmental programs, ensuring tourism activity is economic activity and that it is inherently interrelated with responsive to and reflects community values, and ensuring culture and environment, touching all countries of the tourism respects and appropriately presents local culture. world and affecting their people, cultures and environments. Tourism’s interconnection of people and It is important that the community and industry can Predict their environment, means that its long-term survival what the environmental demands and impacts will be as a depends on sustainable tourism developments that foster result of various levels, scales and types of tourism healthy and vibrant natural and cultural environments. developments. The development of such predictive Furthermore, coordinated action between different modelling tools and their regular use is a core component of sectors (public and private) allows for more successful sustainable tourism development. There are a variety of tourism planning, management, marketing, product techniques available for examining environmental impacts development, training and education. Partnerships are at associated with tourism. This report discusses tools such as the core of sustainable development and sustainable input-output models, computable general equilibrium tourism. models, computable general and systems such as GIS. i Performance monitoring is essential to ensure environmental and social performance in travel and tourism. This can be achieved through the establishment of sustainability indicators, together with best practice performance benchmarks for these indicators. It is further evident that appropriately designed integrated systems are required to ensure continuous environmental Performance improvement throughout the travel and tourism industry. The Earth CheckTM system is one such approach that incorporates the continuous monitoring of each of 20 individual travel and tourism sector’s environmental performance together with an environmental management system (EMS) for each sector. A crucial component of achieving sustainability in destinations is Performance reporting on progress. For communities and regions that make up a destination, the best means is by using State of the Environment Reports. Individual enterprises that provide services in the destinations should undertake triple bottom line reporting. Having developed tools to assist travel and tourism enterprises and communities to monitor, improve and report their performance, it is important that this is actually put to use and implemented. One powerful means of doing this is through the Green Globe sustainability, benchmarking, certification and improvement system as detailed in this report. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1: PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS FOR SUSTAINABLE TOURISM 1 OVERVIEW .....................................................................................................................................1 1.1 The Tourism System...................................................................................................................1 1.2 The public and private sectors ...................................................................................................2 1.2.1 Public sector...................................................................................................................3 1.2.2 Private sector..................................................................................................................3 1.2.3 Public/private partnerships in tourism .............................................................................3 1.3 Sustainable development...........................................................................................................3 1.4 Sustainable tourism ...................................................................................................................4 1.5 Public and private sector roles in achieving sustainable tourism .................................................6 1.5.1 Public sector role ............................................................................................................6 1.5.2 Private sector role...........................................................................................................7 1.5.3 Public/Private Partnerships ..............................................................................................8 2 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM POLICY AND STRATEGIES.....................................................................11 2.1 Environmental