Sustainability

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Sustainable Tourism Development

What is Sustainable Tourism Development?

Sustainable tourism development attempts to make a low impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate income, employment, and the conservation of local ecosystems. Sustainable tourism development activities have minimal impact on the environment and culture of the host community.

According to the World Tourism Organization, sustainable tourism is tourism that leads to the management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems.

Based on such definition, sustainable tourism development should involve process which meets the needs of the present tourists and host communities whilst protecting and enhancing needs in the future.

Definition of Sustainable Tourism Development according to various organizations: -
Sustainability principles refer to the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development, and a suitable balance must be established between these three dimensions to guarantee its long-term sustainability. Thus, sustainable tourism should:

1. Make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity.
   
2. Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.
   
3. Ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.

(Source: UNEP)

Sustainable Tourism refers to a level of tourism activity that can be maintained over the long term because it results in a net benefit for the social, economic, natural and cultural environments of the area in which it takes place.

(Source: ICOMOS)

The United Nations World Tourism Organisation defines sustainable tourism as tourism that meets the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future. Rather than being a type of product, it is an ethos that underpins all tourism activities. As such, it is integral to all aspects of tourism development and management rather than being an add-on component
The objective of sustainable tourism is to retain the economic and social advantages of tourism development while reducing or mitigating any undesirable impacts on the natural, historic, cultural or social environment. This is achieved by balancing the needs of tourists with those of the destination.

(Source: WTO)

Source - Global Development Research Center - GDRC

Tourism Planning in the Contexts of Malaysia

Background

The tourism planning organisation in Malaysia is complex and influenced by the three-tier form of government such as the Federal government, State governments and Local Authorities.

The National Tourism Organisation

Essentially, tourism is a Federal affair and the overall policy planning is carried out by the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Tourism (MOCAT) (Ministry of Tourism [MOTOUR] as from April 2004). Meanwhile, the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB or Tourism Malaysia) is responsible for the marketing and promotional aspects of tourism. In addition to the MOCAT/MOTOUR and Tourism Malaysia, Federal government agencies related to rural development are also involved directly in tourism development. These agencies are as follows:

• Department of Agriculture (agrotourism)

• Department of Forestry (ecotourism)

• Department of Fisheries (coastal tourism)

• Department of Wildlife and National Parks (ecotourism)

• Department of Aborigines’ Affairs (ethnic tourism)

• Department of Museums and Antiquities (heritage/cultural tourism).

State Tourism Organisation

In Malaysia, land is a State matter and the State Economic Planning Unit (SEPU) is entrusted to formulate strategies and policies related to tourism development within each state. As tourism in Malaysia is private-sector led, both the Federal and State governments are only required to provide the infrastructure to facilitate private investments. By way of practice, however, the provisions of tourism infrastructure include not only the ‘hard’ infrastructure such as roads, airports and jetties, etc. but also the ‘soft’ infrastructure in the form of the organisation of special events.

Local Tourism Organisation

At the local level, the local authorities are now required to not only ‘Think Tourism’ but also to ‘Act Tourism’ (KPKT, 2003). However, MOCAT/MOTOUR’s call for local authorities to be more proactive in the planning, management and promotion of tourism has not been well received by the local authorities, citing the lack of funding and qualified personnel as the major constraints. Moreover, local authorities do not regard tourism as their core business since their establishment under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is for the purpose of providing and maintaining public facilities such as recreational areas, landscaping and garbage disposal. Another main reason for their reluctance to be actively involved in tourism is the lack of mechanism for direct revenue capture given that almost all income from tourism are channelled back to the Federal government coffers.

Reference: -

Hamzah, Amran 2004, Policy & Planning of Tourism Industry in Malaysia, Conference Paper presented at The 6th. ADRF General Meeting, 2004 Bangkok, Thailand

Ministry of Tourism Malaysia, 2009, www.motour.gov.my, viewed on 7^th June 2010.