ARTICLE

Inspiring Community Engagement to Ensure a Sustainable Local Tourism Product

December 12, 2017 – Christopher Visentin

In an earlier article, I explored the various types of sustainable tourism, and the potential benefits destination communities stand to gain from ecotourism and cultural tourism over the more common mass tourism product.

Sustainable tourism prioritizes community well being and heightens community involvement in its delivery. Vital to its success, however, is an engaged local community.

In a short research paper entitled “Community Engagement in Sustainable Development for Local Products,” Chris Stone of Manchester Metropolitan University notes that for modern sustainable tourism models to succeed, it is imperative “to foster local community involvement.” This means that sustainable tourism relies on the destination’s culture, its surroundings, and its people. By ensuring that all community members are “stakeholders” in the tourism industry, the tourism product improves both for visitors and residents.

It is worth looking at approaches for involving community members, as well as tangible examples of what that involvement might look like.

Chris Stone notes that there exists a “range of roles” for involved community members. Groups and individuals can become “key actors in… tourism policy and planning,” and can help guide policy decisions based on how the community chooses to present itself to visitors:

• Community members, therefore, should be encouraged to help determine the “messages” the tourism industry promotes about the area in advertising initiatives and materials.
• Likewise, tourism officials and businesses can seek input from locals to help shape the themes that local visitor centers and museums explore.
• Finally, community officials can recognize and promote businesses that best “conserve cultural heritage and traditional values,” set out reliable sources of information, and promote and maintain the “integrity of the locality.” This can encourage more efforts on the part of community members and businesses to create a sense of place and contribute to shaping the tourism product.

Local residents, not just industry leaders and local government, shape the themes and offerings of the final tourism product, so destinations should emphasize their impact. Stone notes that those moments that help to make a tourism experience successful—what he calls the “moments of truth”—are largely shaped by community members. Encouraging community to have a say ensures a cohesive, consistent, and ultimately honest experience for visitors.

Another way to ensure community buy in is to prioritize locally made goods and local resources.

One approach, Stone suggests, is to promote the hiring of local architects who can integrate local design features into architectural plans. Another is to promote construction using indigenous materials. Community enterprises can similarly prioritize local resources, offerings and showcase local influences according to their specific business focus. Opportunity exists in food products, clothing and product designs, artwork and locally themed household products.
This “collaborative approach” between the tourism industry and local residents can inform how the local community responds to its tourism offering. As the community becomes more involved devising ways to promote and showcase what it collectively values, it begins taking greater pride in local culture and natural environment, leading to more successful tourist attractions and products.

Such engagement fosters a neighborly relationship between locals and tourists, which in turn adds to a more definite and distinctive “sense of place.” This collaboration benefits more members of the community and in the process considerably enhances the tourism product.

In her University of Minnesota Extension article “Get the Whole Town Involved,” Mary Vitcenda advocates community initiatives to prevent negative local feeling against tourism. It is critically important that community leaders communicate to residents the importance of the tourism industry—not only its financial benefits, but also the positive effects that come from a more sustainable and community-centric tourism product.

Destinations must realize and recognize the important role community members can play in creating an inviting tourist destination.

Vitcenda cites the small ski resort town of Aspen, Colorado for its success in this regard, leading to a community that is especially engaged in promoting the tourism product.

Through the “Faces of Aspen Snowmass” campaign, the Aspen Ski Company publishes stories, videos, and profiles introducing community members to visitors. These stories not only make visitors feel welcome, but it also emphasizes to community members their role in the success of the local tourism industry. Tourism in Aspen is not a matter only for select businesses, but for the community itself.

Doubtless visitors first come to Aspen for the skiing, but thanks to their welcoming community environment, Aspen boasted a 74% visitor return rate in 2010. A member of the Aspen Chamber of Commerce credited this success to “an entire community consciously work[ing] together to deliver outstanding guest service.”

Vitcenda writes that even if locations don’t have the same resources for a campaign similar to Aspen’s, there are still other ways to encourage community engagement. Initiatives such as “community clean up days” and “volunteer and resident appreciation days,” among others, can do wonders to improve how a community views tourism, and as a result how it works to ensure the industry’s success.

Any effort to inspire community engagement requires constant and open communication and patience. Community education initiatives can lead to a change in business practices, but this takes time for these changes to set in. Once achieved, however, a collective shift toward engagement engenders a lasting exchange between the community and the local tourism industry.

As difficult and time-intensive as the process may be, positive gains offer benefits to all parties involved—community members, business owners, and tourists alike.

http://www.vicapitalresources.com/2017/11/04/ecotourism-promoting-sustainability-in-the-tourism-product/
http://www.palermo.edu/economicas/PDF_2012/PBR6/PBR-edicion-especial-21.pdf