12.3 - P3, M2 & D2

I will be examining strategies used to manage responsible tourism in destinations through a poster. I will then be assessing the effectiveness’s of strategies used to manage responsible tourism in a selected destination. I will then finally suggest improvements to strategies used to manage responsible tourism in a selected destination.

P3: (This is meant to be in a poster layout, but I just copied the text so I could paste it in here)

Retention of Visitor Spending
This is when money is spent by the tourists and gets put into the local economy and doesn't leave the country . Another way of keeping the tourists money is by using produce and  supplies which are produced locally (these are food items and other things).

The UK does this by making sure a certain percentage of the money spent by inbound and domestic tourists goes to the government to help improve  pavements and the public transport. Kenya uses the money spent by the tourists to help protect the environment and contain preserving it .

Widening access to facilities                                                                                                                                                                                        This is by having the tourist facilities open to as many people as possible; and offering the  local people a discounted rate so they can use the facility. Another strategy is to provide disabled facilities; toilets, discounted tickets and to go on rides. More and more Merlin attractions are becoming disabled friendly by having disabled price tickets, parking spaces near the entrance, disabled toilets where the general public cannot go in and allowed to go on rides  by going on a separate queue and getting onto the rides with easy access. By making sure there is an increasing access for everyone and everyone can enjoy the facilities. Kenya has increased their disabled friendly safaris by having safaris that allow  wheelchairs onboard and meet the needs of other customer types such as families as you can hire  private safari jeep just for the family.

Community projects

Tourism often takes place for commercial reasons to benefit on individual or a company-they want money back from the tourists. However there are projects in place to help the community fight against the negative factors of the increasing tourism and campaign for the positive factors to be put in place. UK - However there are projects to help the community from tourists such as Nuture Lakeland at the Lake District, the project entails inspiring people to care and contribute to the natural environment of Cumbria and especially in the Lake District. Kenya has a responsible tourism community project which is having tourists stay in village home stays which allows visiting tourists to stay in a family’s home rather than a chain hotel where the money would leave the country straight away.

Employment and training of locals

When investing in training for the local residents preparing them for jobs within the tourism industry it will be beneficial to the company as they do not need to hire people in from other countries and the residents get a job and skills for life. The jobs could be working in a hotel, being a tour guide or working in a tourist attraction. In the UK, people living locally to a tourism related business rather than people living far away. In Kenya, they hire the local citizens because they want them to learn new skills and give money to those whom deserve it rather than bringing in staff members working at other locations globally and does not help the local government.

Education

Businesses within the tourism industry have to acknowledge the key issues regarding tourism and especially responsible tourism in order to develop and have sustainable business flourishing and succeeding. Local businesses in the host countries where responsible tourism is on the rise and even in developing countries, gain skills to improve quality and standards of life through tourists telling them ways or by being educated via authorities teaching lessons. Local residents  are educated to make the most of the opportunities tourism brings and some who make art and craft items can sell them to the visiting tourists to bring in extra income .Tourists need to be educated so they can learn how to protect the environment and support local communities and learn how not to disrespect the host country’s culture, ways of life, the inhabitants and the environment. Education in the UK is where students can learn about responsible tourism, mainly in the national parks of the UK and walks about what to do to help the environment and prevent ruining it in the future. Kenya has educational trips on the wildlife and what is happening to the animals due to the tourists negligence.

Visitor and traffic management

There are ways to control traffic flows by cars and people and they are: park and ride schemes, speed limits, a fee to pay and no entry at some places. In the UK, some little towns and mainly in seaside areas and national parks, there are park and ride schemes which are where you park in a car park away from the centre of the location and jump on a bus to save on the air pollution, car traffic/congestion and the need to build multi-level car parks. In Kenya they have only allowed a certain amount of safaris to take place daily in certain conservation parks and only a certain size safari jeeps are allowed to take tourists.

Planning control

Having a government system to help minimise the effects of building infrastructure on the environment by emitting gases. In the UK, tourism businesses need to go through a long process when wanting to build/open something new and have to provide a report on how it will bring more tourism in and the positive and negative affects it would have all round. In Kenya, you have to be building or planning to opera  business that would not affect the natural environment and wildlife.

Implementing changes as a result of environmental impact assessments

This can be changes to planes to reduce C02, increasing wildlife protect and the surrounding environment. At the Lake District National Park in the UK, changes have been made for the tourists visiting the park which are reducing the speed limit of boats on lake windermere and having fire beaters to stop fires caused by BBQ’s.In Kenya, the changes they have made to protect the environment are to reduce the amount of visitors going on safaris in jeep’s and convincing them to go via hot air balloon or by horse. 

Sustainable tourism policies

such as staying in an eco hotel you only use a certain amount of water or electric per day. In the UK,Visit England offers advice on how to be more sustainable and you can download guides and toolkits to gain tips to appeal to a wider range of customers and help give back positive effects to responsible tourism. In Kenya, tourism is on of the main incomes to the country but the mass tourism affects the environment so they have created rules which are: try to stay in more eco friendly hotels such as having different ways to produce energy and lower the negative impacts between the tourists and the wildlife

Merit part of work:

Benefits and limitations of the strategies in place for Kenya.

Retention of visitor spending

Kenya has gained many benefits and limitations due to the strategies put in place to keep tourism money within the country. The benefits are: the local economy is improving, big chain hotels know they will not get many guests so will not have a hotel in the location which benefits the local people as they can provide accommodation services to the tourists, the local people will also get more of a wage as there is no money leaving the country. By making sure locals get to keep the money given to them by locals they are less like to move away and start a new life somewhere else.

The limitations of this strategy are that branded tour operators and tourism providers do not want to create holidays and tourist attractions within Kenya so therefore making it less appealing to people who want to stay in a known chain and visit man made attractions, this may have a impact on the local economy and the only way they could bring tourists in, would be by increasing the ways of responsible tourism.

Widening access to facilities

The benefits of having a strategy to make more accessible roads for tourists and easier for the locals to get to drinking facilities. there is are more places for the tourists to visit and get to places easier to visit the places responsibly. The locals will also benefit from the access to facilities as they will not have as far to travel for water so may improve the relationship between them and the tourists.

On the down side, there are some limitations to the widening scheme and they could be: distribution or completely destroy the wildlife when building the new roads, the local council may also hire in a building company that are not a local company or using supplies which are not resourcefully made.

Community projects

The strategy is having many benefits, such as more people going out to Kenya to help and participate and help build and decorate infrastructure for them to become buildings for the community to use and benefit from having such places like hospitals and schools in the areas which are worse off.

The negatives of having community projects are that some travel agents get on board with the trend and sell package holidays combining a certain amount of time stay to help a project out and charge way more than it would if tourists planned it on their own.

Employment and training of locals

This way of maximizing this positive impact is good for responsible tourism because it means that the local people get a job rather than the companies sending current employees out to the location, this also reduces money leakage from Kenya. This is also a positive, because the guests will experience real authenticity and not be looked after from people from another ­location.

The only limitations there could be of training the locals to work in the tourism jobs are: the cost of the training courses and even transportation costs and also once the local people pass their course, they may move to a different location (country) to get a better high paid job whilst using their earned qualification.

Education

The benefits of the strategies to make tourists learn about the host destination and the culture and history. This makes tourists want to go back and carry on learning. This also promote visiting the country via word of mouth and people then want to go and learn about it.

Another kind of education that benefits from strategies is the education of locals and also combines with community projects, this is because tourists build the schools for the locals to learn and then become trained for a tourism job in the future.

However, there are also some negatives of having these strategies such as people may not want to learn about the place or will go and not pay any attention. Also some local people may not want to go to a school and learn if it’s to far away to get to.

Visitor and traffic management

The benefits of having more efficient vehicles on the road and using horses instead of jeeps are less pollution being emitted and when using horses instead of jeep when doing safaris, it is good for the wildlife as they are not disturbed by the car noises and the ground is not ruined by the tyre marks. To control visitor numbers, national parks and reserves have a created a strategy by limiting on how many people can be in the area and often ban people from going to certain areas to protect and preserve the wildlife.

The limitations of having visitor and traffic management strategies is that is may cost more to buy efficient cars and the locals may not have enough money to buy a car. Furthermore, the tourists may not want to go on an animal safari on a horse as they want a proper safari experience they have seen in brochures and some tourists may not even know how to ride a horse. Another way to go on a safari is by going on a hot air balloon overhead so tourists get a bird’s eye view without and not harming the environment

Planning control

The benefits of having planning control strategies are that negative tourism as future businesses will need to put a plan/ proposal together to say what they will provide for responsible tourism and how it will affect the surrounding area in the future. The control is there for the government to handle the country by saying what can be created and manage the supplies of the country.

The implications of having planning control strategies are: business may not want to fill out all of the paperwork involved and it may get lost in the process, another implication could be a certain business may get turned down to create an extension even though they have provided all the correct paperwork.

Implementing changes as a result of environmental impact assessments

The strategies can be beneficial as by changing the routes the planes go can have a positive impact on the wildlife and areas which need to recover from air and noise pollution, it may also benefit some of the locals as they will not be directly on the flight path.

The limitations however are that the air transport companies may not want to change the flight route as it may take longer and use more petrol meaning they will have to increase flight prices.

Sustainable tourism policies

The benefits of having strategies such as having accommodation providers to have another source of energy and limit the amount of water used as it better than burning fossil fuels and guests will be willing to only use water when needed as they are on a responsible holiday.

Another benefit is that having another renewable form of energy to maintain and keep being a responsible tourist destination.

The limitations of having solar panels for example is the cost as they are very expensive to buy and get installed and then it could cause distribution whilst the insulation is occurring.

  

Distinction work: suggestions for how Kenya could manage tourism and my suggestion are going to be realistic and backed up with evidence.

Kenya

Need to change as well

Kenya is known for its mass tourism (high amount of people visiting the country). I have some suggestions on how Kenya can manage tourism:

Kenya could make restrictions to be put in place in the national parks and reserve areas to reduce the speed limits of the safari jeeps and boats, this could be done by the Kenyan government and the national park authorities to sign a contract agreeing the speed limits. An example of national parks reducing the speed limits for vehicles is the Lake District, in the UK  have made restrictions on the speed limit the boats can go in the lakes and where the speed limit it 5 boat miles per hour, this strategy is having a positive effect on the wildlife in the Lake Windermere and the pollution levels are decreasing.

Another suggestion is that there can be more conservation parks because this will be helped by tourists supplying the income to set up the national parks and the conservation areas which protect the wildlife. Even though Kenya has many national parks, they need to put some conservation areas to protect the wildlife and terrain for future generations to enjoy. This suggestion is realistic as many places around the world have already done and created conservation areas within their national parks and over time the areas will grow and be protected for life.

Tourism can generate jobs, improve the living standards for local communities. This will help Kenya manage responsible tourism because it means that local people will get jobs and earn an income and help tourists with whatever they need (hotel or tour guiding as an example)  I have suggested that the local people should get a job within the tourism industry as it decreases the amount of money leakage in Kenya, it will also help the local people and tourists get along.

Evidence of this is in the Lake District, UK where local people are encouraged to have local businesses, one couple have a café near the national park and use supplies produced by local people, this also attracts tourists to visit as they want to try locally produced and traditional food without having to go somewhere they are faking the cultural identity  

 Kenya could have a scheme where they have to pay to enter the national parks/ reserves.  Some of the national parks in Kenya already have a fee entry scheme