Cover page image from University of Manitoba.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 3

METHODOLOGY 5

INTERVIEW METHOD 6

THE CYCLE OF INFLUENCES 7

SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS 9

CORE SET OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS 10

TOURISM CARRYING CAPACITY ASSESSMENT 13

THE TOURISM CARRYING CAPACITY ASSESSMENT OF RHODES ISLAND 17

INTERVIEW FROM BO IMMERSEN OF VISIT NORDJYLLAND 19

INTERVIEW ANALYSIS 19

CONCLUSIONS 31

BIBLIOGRAPHY 36

ANNEX 1 37

INTRODUCTION

The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) which is known also as the Brundtland Commission named after its, then chairman Gro Harlem Brundtland with the publication of the report about development and international economic co-operation on August 4 1987 Our Common Future introduced the term Sustainability and defined sustainable development by the statement that “Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987: 24). “The ‘Sustainable Tourism’ concept derives from the concept of ‘sustainable Development’ applied to the tourism sector” (European Communities 2006: 31). Moreover according to the European Communities (2006: 31):

Sustainable development, thus, implies a balanced relationship among human beings, economic development and environment. It means to integrate the economic, social and environmental dimension at the same level of consideration. The implementation of this concept implies thinking about the future of humankind; it is about creating a vision.

Many development patterns applied on modern economies aim on the coverage of economical needs that provide the conditions, services and products demanded for not only the preservation of life but also the way of life that is dictated from our societies. Until now human development causes major changes that degrade our physical environment. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007: 2) which is a scientific intergovernmental body set up by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years (…) The global increases in carbon dioxide concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and land use change, while those of methane and nitrous oxide are primarily due to agriculture.

However there are industries within our economies that their existence is greatly related and depended on the preservation of our environment, such an example is the tourism industry that in many of its various forms the actual product is the environmental quality and unique characteristics of a destination. Moreover it is considered as a very profitable one also! According to Eurostat (2007):

tourism accounts for 4% of the Community’s GDP, with about 2 million enterprises employing some 4% of the total labor force (representing approximately 8 million jobs).when the connections with other sectors are taken into account, tourism's contribution to GDP is estimated to be around 11% and it provides employment for more than 12% of the labor force (24 million jobs)

Still, in the context of tourism which is an industry heavily motivated to advance environmental equilibrium and at the same time economically sustainable enough to attract entrepreneurial attention, development and planning tends to show characteristics demonstrated by unsustainable sectors of human development. Since the IPCC has proved that human development is evolving through planning (or through chaos) that it is unsustainable, then, what happened? Somebody failed to reach short term objectives and was simply allowed to continue or somebody failed to place the right long term objectives and simply got lost somewhere in the way? Or maybe there is an issue about awareness on sustainable development?

Explicit example of tourism development and planning that lacks awareness is the trend of boosterism which “has long been the dominant tradition towards tourism development and planning since mass tourism began” (Hall 2000: 21). Boosterism demonstrates no consideration at all to the limit of a destinations carrying capacity given that the necessary consideration to the management of resources and experience quality is not implemented resulting in the establishment of the provocative slogan that Bigger is better.

Plans about sustainable development that lack awareness, could easily be regarded as utopia and even of ritualistic nature. The pitfall is serving what everybody acknowledges and nobody can follow. In order to follow “a journey towards sustainability” (Kernel 2004) there is a need for awareness in order to influence also those involved.

PROBLEM FORMULATION

How can we become more aware of our quest as explorers in the journey towards sustainable tourism development in order to infuse influence to all others involved and finally get them onboard this journey?

METHODOLOGY

CONTENT VALIDITY

This study is developing existing scientifically documented knowledge which is retrieved by research conducted to academically credible sources and literature in relevance with the researched subjects that includes: academic research journals, articles and books, online resources and second hand statistical research retrieved from credible statistical agencies.

The proposals developed through this study, proceed carefully in order to exclude biased personal views on the subjects analyzed, and the relevant conclusions produced. The use of scientifically inadequately supported sources and material has been avoided and a significant effort has been made in order to ensure that all sources used for the development of this study are properly acknowledged.

The literature review conducted for this study emphasized in topics about sustainability in the context of tourism and in particular about sustainable development indicators, (an approach that could be characterized as quantitative) awareness and influence.

The reason behind the establishment of indicators as a focal point at first, is that in the vast literature about Sustainable tourism development, indicators stand out due to the specific suggestions that they provide to a topic that despite that it is exhaustively researched, the interest is kept vibrant because of the difficulties that sustainable development encounters to the actual implementation, and this is also the reason that the interview research of this paper establishes awareness and initiation on sustainable development as a focal point. Theory is being deducted to the research area through an effort to understand rather than only to explain the findings since there is a constant feedback between the phenomena that are to be researched and social actors.

INTERVIEW METHOD

According to Biber et al. (2006: 119) “In-depth interview uses individuals as the point of departure for the research process and assumes that individuals have a unique and important knowledge about the social world that is ascertainable through verbal communication.” Biber et al. (2006: 125-126) distinguishes three kinds of in-depth interview:

  1. Structured interview means that “the interviewer will ask each participant the same series of questions”.
  1. Semi-structured interviews “rely on a certain set of questions and try to guide the conversation to remain, more loosely, on those questions”.
  1. In low-structure or even open-ended interviews “this is taken even further. While the researcher has a particular topic for the study, he or she allows the conversation to go wherever the research participant takes it and each interview becomes highly individual.”

For the purpose of this study the knowledge of an individual with significance experience on the matter researched is very important. A quantitative analysis is not necessary for this study and consequently the interview doesn’t have to be structured, however because there are a lot of questions to be answered, the Biographic character of an open-ended interview is not ideal either, even though that this interview doesn’t need to retain a structure in order to be quantified, making the character of the research qualitative and a semi structured design under these circumstances is ideal.

The interview data analysis strategy proceeds through analytic induction that “begins with a rough definition of a research question, proceeds to a hypothetical explanation of that problem, and then continues on to the collection of data” (Bryman 2008: 539). The Interview content analysis is progressing through coding which according to Bibber et al. (2006) proceeds through the identification of segments on the interview text and assignment of a label or code.

The qualitative data after the initial preparation which, in this case is the creation of a transcript out of the 44 minutes digitally recorded phone interview which took place in 22/4/2008 will be transferred word by word with minor reductions and the necessary corrections and then organized on a table in order to be coded, meaning that assigning a code will be the first step, followed by formation into concepts and finally categories.

THE CYCLE OF INFLUENCES

Economic sustainability can be elaborated as the Human production activity of both services and goods triggered by various resource exploiting entities and entrepreneurs in the prospect of gaining more commodity, fiat, credit monetary units than the estimated equivalent of the resources consumed by the production process and the partiallyreinvestment of the produced profit with the prospect of advancing shorter either longer investment plans.

Social sustainability is the integration of the social factor into the economical development and planning process by taking into account the various social parameters and mostly those that receive the most impact from development processes. The social impact of development if neglected by the actors that are being involved in the development process, results in a solipsistic approach from the actor’s part to the process that will be proven weak to stand up to the social challenges that will arise sooner or later since development takes place more or less inside our societies.

Environmental equilibrium may be described as the striving to recreate the resources that human activity consumes at least on the equal rate of their consumption before their depletion occurs in order to make the impact of our activity a reversible intervention.

Hall (2000) refers to the three dimensions of sustainability (social, economic, environmental) as prerequisites for the discussion of sustainability goals. Each dimension represents challenges for the realization of sustainable development that have to be met simultaneously. However the influences that exist between these dimensions are still obscure. At an effort to identify these influences, the existence of three philosophies can be hypothesized as depicted on figure 1 and elaborated below:

  1. Collectivism in relevance to our case is the mentality of the whole into which development has to aim and this is achieved through propensities to the social and environmental goals often neglecting economical needs. This philosophy is easily realized through the initial steps towards development due to the simple and not so competitive character of the field, and the need to join forces in order to initiate development
  1. Solipsism in this context is the tendency to develop by taking for granted the stability of the physical environment and pursuing development in terms of mostly economic and social prosperity, thus establishing the perception of the sole self. This is a philosophy that often develops until consequences appear.
  1. Realism as a concept in that case emerges as a reaction to possible consequences caused by preexisting development patterns and stresses the importance of environmental and economical considerations in terms of development, and may occur as an initial movement towards sustainability.

The hypothesis made is that there is an in-motion cycle of prevailing influences (collectivism, solipsism, realism) that is set in-motion by impacts emerging from the environmental, social and economical dimensions, that everyone involved is experiencing and primary are responds to applied development patterns. This constant mobility is achieved by mental shifts that in the same way that they become an influence, they can be influenced as well.

A graphical representation of the above concept exists on figure 1 of the next page.

SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS

According to Eurostat (2006a) there are specific indicator sets developed from organizations already active on the process of establishing tourism sustainable development indicators, among them the European Environment Agency (EEA) the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Tourism Organization (WTO) as well as countries like Spain. Eurostat in cooperation with these organizations and countries in order to cover the need for the creation of a core set of tourism sustainable development indicators in an applicable way for European countries and to guide future demands on specialized data in a greater regional and local level has proposed the DPSIR[1] framework:

One tool to select relevant indicators to the core set is the integrated assessment structure for analyses of data on human activities and the environment, the DPSIR framework, advocated by the Environment Agency (based on the OECD Pressure State Response (PSR) model). Using the DPSIR framework, principal interactions between tourism and the environment can be identified e.g. different types of natural resources (energy resources, biological resources, media/land resources etc). (Eurostat 2006a: 8)

Based on the DPSIR framework which is depicted on figure 2 Eurostat (2008a) produced the core set of tourism sustainable development indicators. This is a set of 20 indicators that measure aspects of the three major dimensions of tourism sustainable development namely environmental, economical and social. A difficulty in the integration of the social dimension on this framework is acknowledged by Eurostat with the suggestion of six more indicators with social orientation that may be included in the future. The Core set of Sustainable Development Indicators for Tourism is presented below:

Figure 2 Source: Eurostat 2006a

CORE SET OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS

Driving Forces

1. Number of beds in hotels and similar establishments

2. Number of trips by means of transport

3. Tourism-related employment (% of total employment)

4. Household consumption expenditure on tourism

5. Tourism share of GDP

Pressure

6. Number of tourist overnight stays in various types of accommodation

7. CO2-emissions from energy use in tourism facilities

8. Water use by tourists, per person and day in relation to use by residential population

9. Generation of municipal waste by tourists

10. Discharge of sewage water due to tourism

State

11. Areas used for specific leisure activities, e.g.: marinas, golf courses, ski areas etc., time series