Measuring Sustainable Tourism Development in Remote Rural ...

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Introduction Tourism is seen as a possible and viable strategy for development in many remote rural areas, being viewed as perhaps best meeting the requirements of environmental sustainability, employment, public and private investment, infrastructure betterment and economic benefits. The development of tourist facilities and recreational opportunities has frequently been viewed as a means of redressing regional disparities in incomes and employment (Mathieson and Wall, 1982). Tourists can play an important part of community development by giving local residents the possibility of earning some additional income. It is argued that since local materials and labour are employed in local production, it represents potential for small-scale development of sustainable tourism. The economy of remote rural areas has traditionally been dependent upon a single local industry, either agriculture, fisheries or other (but mostly agriculture). Thus agriculture will, inevitably, have an influence on local tourism development, since it is still part of the local people’s daily lives. Cox and Fox (1991) illustrated the important relationship between agriculture and tourism, recognising the need to examine this further, to ensure that the potential of agriculturally based leisure attractions could be realised. “Agriculture is traditionally the economic mainstay of rural areas, there is a linkage between agriculture and tourism”. The current global tourism market is experiencing changes in tourism demand and consumption patterns as perhaps never before. The tourism consumer is changing through greater awareness of the world, wider experiences and tourism products, both domestically and internationally, and through changing consumer pressures and expectations. The current affects of change are leading to the rise in the “unmanageable” consumer, the consumer who is more knowledgeable with a wider perspective of tourism and its products and therefore increasingly demanding (Jones, 1997). This may imply that international mass tourism is no longer a homogenous phenomenon it purportedly used to be. Changing perceptions are leading to higher expectations or desired services by consumers in tourist areas. However, not only is it desirable to study the nature of tourist demand and the character of the accompanying movements of people, for the purpose of understanding the driving forces behind recent growth in tourism: it is also desirable to know something about the impact (environmental, economic, cultural etc.) of the tourists on the areas which they visit. The need for studies in this field has grown with the realisation that tourist developments do not always bring benefit to the host areas; indeed they may lead to the accentuation of the existing social and economic problems or to the creation of new problems altogether (White, 1974: 1-2) Literature Review The sustainable approach to development is not new and there have been many interpretations of what sustainable development is. But it is now generally accepted that sustainable development recognises the validity of three interests - the environment (natural and man made), the economy and socio-cultural concerns (Macgillivray & Zadek, 1995). Writers generally trace the origins of the term "sustainable development" back to a 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development report entitled "Our Common Future", also known as the Brundtland
Report. This commission, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1984, was asked to learn about the connections between the issues of environment and development. Hence, the term was first used to bring together the apparently disparate concepts of economic development and environmental conservation. The Brundtland Report defined sustainable development as: “Development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (p. 43)” Real community development must include physical development with people development; economic development with political development; increasing a community’s capacity for taking control of its own development. For this to occur, each at its own pace, an evolving process is necessary for building within the community the ability for critical thinking and planning with an increased capacity to meet future needs. Experience has provided some clear lessons about what works and what does not work in community- based development. Prominent among the failures has been attempts to achieve results on a wide scale through the infusion of external management, funds, and technology, controlled from distant places. A fundamental prerequisite of successful participatory programs at the community level is the reversal of control and accountability from central authorities to the community level; and, when the success of projects depends heavily on changes in behaviour at the community level, promoting participation in community-based programs may be the only means of meeting objectives (World Bank, 1998). It is up to individual communities to determine how they want to balance the status quo with the benefits of growth, and how effective they are going to be in mitigating the negative effects they want to avoid. In order to achieve these ends, new techniques to supplement and in some cases replace the traditional methods of land use control are required (Scott, Brower and Miner, 1975). It is suggested that the planning process needs to involve those people who live, work, own property, or own businesses in the community and includes the organisations and institutions in the planning process. This bottom-up approach empowers communities through local actors, i.e. people’s organisations, for creating important sources of action at the local level with a strong interest for promoting sustainable livelihood. In other words, it needs to include the local residents and the local stakeholders working together to promote mutual responsibility and joint problem solving. In establishing and promoting grass-roots mechanisms, capacity-building and empowerment, we are inducing a community-driven approach to sustainable development. In this context it is critical to view community economic development as a long-term process that fuses community control and direction with specific tools and outcomes (Zdenek, 1987). Empowerment does not so much mean granting or transferring power as it does increasing civic awareness of the efficacy of democratic involvement, through self-respect, mutual esteem, capacity-building, genuine responsiveness and open accountability (Schwerin, 1995). The diverse members of the community should be represented in order to, more appropriately, identify the community´s strengths and assets, needs and concerns; establish goals for community development; provide recommendations for how to reach those goals; and, influence, or possibly direct, the policy and financial decisions of local decision-makers.
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