Is it possible to balance growth with sustainable tourism? | Sustainability Insights Live

[Music] good evening everyone um thank you so much for coming my name is Craig nickel I am the communications and engagement lead for the University of glasgow's School of Social and environmental sustainability based here in Dume for 25 years the University's had a presence here in dumre and we actually have our campus right here on the kryon grounds and thank you for joining us tonight as we kick off the first in a series of events where we're going to bring together Academia with industry partners and explore research topics and live topics that are impacting our society both here in Scotland and around the world um our campus and our school here in dri covers a number of different subject areas from education and environment through to sustainable development and tonight's topic of conversation which is tourism so I'm going to pass over now to my colleague Amy who is going to intr our panel this event is interactive we do want questions from the audience so please um think up what you want to ask our panelist as we get to the Q&A session later on in the hour but you're welcome to ask anything you like of our panel um and we will have some moderated questions for them as well so I'll pass over Amy but just welcome once again on behalf of the university and thanks for [Applause] coming good evening everybody thank you so much for joining our event this evening I'm delighted to welcome our panel starting off with Dr Anna Deon Anna diong is a senior lecturer in tourism at the University of Glasgow and director of research within the School of Social and environmental sustainability Anna is an interdisciplinary social scientist who researches spatial Justice in tourism development processes Guided by wider concerns of Resident inequalities and accessibilities she is principal investigator on the just tour project which aims to identify the value that tour ISM development brings us to places as well as determine place-based solutions to the challenges encountered by residents living in tourism destinations welcome Anna thank you so much next I'd like to welcome Leslie judge Leslie judge has been a driving force in the tourism sector for over two decades empowering organizations to develop digital and datadriven strategies she managed private and public sector projects via her own consultancy before joining interface in 2018 to build strategic Partnerships between industry and Academia and help organizations to innovate in 2020 she co-founded the travel tech for Scotland cluster part of the Edinburgh Futures in Institute and set up and continues to chair the digital working group of Scotland's visitor management strategy Steering group chaired by visit Scotland she is a graduate of the destination leaders program and a director of women in tourism and finally I would like to introduce Professor Sandra carnelli Sandra is a professor of Tourism and leisure studies and the deputy director of the [Laughter] center deputy director of the center for culture Sport and events at the University of the west of Scotland he is a member of the international academy for the development of Tourism research in Brazil and former co-chair of the Royal Society of EDM young Academy of Scotland Sandra is the editor-in-chief of the world Leisure journal and Associate editor for event management Journal he is on The Advisory Board of the anals of Ledger research and on the board of leisure studies so thank you so much for joining us this evening and Welcome to our panel so tonight we are going to be discussing the key question of is it possible to balance growth with sustainable tourism so to start us off this evening I'd like to welcome Dr Anna D young to share her insights on this question k thanks Amy and thanks everyone for coming it's really nice to see you here for the first in this um in sustainability insights panel um so the question that Amy just posed is it possible to balance growth with sustainability to have a think about how we might engage with this question this evening I thought it could be useful as the first speaker to do some scene setting to think about what we mean by these terms growth and sustainability within the context of the tourism industry we have of course witnessed exponential growth in tourism in recent years an emerging middle class with increasing levels of disposable income coupled with the ability to increasingly move further faster much more frequently has led to a context whereby multiple International and domestic trips each year is seen as a human right in many Global North contexts and increasingly in many Global South contexts travel is something that's fundamental to our well-being or is perceived by many to be so these social and economic shifts have facilitated the ability of the tourism industry to become a crucial Economic Development tool within Scotland of course and internationally but particularly within peripheral areas and in areas that have experienced Industrial Cline and this is something we've seen in the south of Scotland with the um the um construction of the south of Scotland destination Alliance which is basically the idea of it in utilizing public money to generate tourism as an economic development tool so tourism is seen as particularly enticing in such contexts because it requires well it is understood to require relatively low levels of direct public investment whilst um compared to other potential industries that could be developed while simultaneously offering higher levels of employment entrepreneurial opportunities the ability to bolster Community cohesion through private investment in things like events and festivals accommodation infrastructure investment in green and blue spaces and is also claimed to conserve environmental assets which we seen with the recent um Galloway National Park bid that's been successful tourism success in these contexts is generally measured through number particularly visitor numbers where the um the idea is to see an increase in visitor numbers over time through accessing new markets and it's really this growth focused narrative that prioritizes high visitor numbers to a particular region to a very specific geographical area that produces a paradox within tourism whereby success in tourism development can hinder the very thing that it sets out to achieve where High visitor numbers to very specific geographical areas can lead to environmental degradation and influence issues or so um exacerbate issues in terms of our social inequities in communities as such questions around how we might limit these impacts whilst bolstering these potential benefits have followed with sustainability arguably being the most commonly drawn upon framework in which to respond to these concerns so that's a bit about growth but to really understand sorry why sustainability has been drawn on so commonly it's useful to take a step back and think about this origin story of sustainability where it's generally narrated that um the term um the concept sustainability came out um emerged within a forest management context in Germany in the 1700s where Focus was with how we might conserve the finite resources available in the forest to M ultimately ensure that that Forest would be available into the future ultimately ensuring overall that the business itself of Forestry management would continue into the future so this managerial context in which this term sustainability arose has heavily influenced its uptake in many professional contexts including tourism because within many tourism business contexts it's similarly seen as very applicable and very important to think about how we might manage the resources within that business context in a way that ensures that they're available to that business into the future particularly this is something that's become even more more important or more challenging as our changing climates have led to more vulnerabilities about around our resources as well as many other social economic and political issues that we're grappling with so it's this intimate connection that we have between growth and sustainability that's led to a coupling of the two terms but also it influences the way we can think about sustainability within tourism context what's available within that context but also some of the challenges that it um at Le leads to and I'm just going to highlight two particular challenges that are relevant within this evening within the context of this evening's discussion the first is when we're thinking about sustainability within a tourism context we're often thinking about alternative tourism products the creation of different forms of Tourism such as ecotourism nature-based tourism community- based tourism that offer lower intensive forms of Tourism development to particularly ethically conscious consumers so it's so it's the creation of a niche tourism product primarily and there's a there's a an ability within such context to um focus Less on the visitor numbers because you can um charge a higher premium um and so you get that return on that Revenue generation without having that same intensity on say an environment or a community so whilst these ex these examples these alternatives are are really valuable and Incredibly important in going some way to offer Travelers something different to seeing what could be could be done they still do rely on um they don't necessarily completely um deconstruct or dismantle the system the growth narrative they that that we have they offer alter an alternative but the traveler usually generally has to still engage with the broader tourism ecosystem so if you want to be an international um traveler and you're visiting an e e tourism Resort in in barley you still have to undertake an international trip which has the quite High intense intensity in terms of its emission so it doesn't completely dismantle the growth narrative that we have it also um sorry I move on I completely lost my train of thought on that one or the point the other point that I wanted to say but moving to the Second Challenge is that um in terms of the sustainability framework that we're working with generally we're thinking think we have to tourism alternative products but also within an actual business context we generally think about sustainability in terms of measures so measures implemented say within a specific business or a set of type of businesses say accommodation providers or within a governance a tourism governance context and here it um it is seemed to be more readily possible to understand how things like the environment and the economy could be drawn on as resources to be managed in terms of the sustainability framework that we have but Society our communities thinking about how they could be conceptualized as a resource has proved really challenging because the grammar of sustainability is almost the wrong way around in this context rather rather than placing the business at the Forefront we need to be thinking about how communities um the extent to which tourism development actually enhances the capacities of community and what forms of development look like in terms of um benefiting our communities as opposed to placing the business business front and center and we've really seen the lack of focus on the social in terms of social sustainability within tourism context time and again and increasingly in recent years you know it's almost been impossible this summer to not be met with a new news article each day if not multiple news articles that have highlighted these concerns of high visitor numbers through the discourse of over tourism to very specific geographical areas and the effects this is having on the livelihoods of the residents of the communities that live in these places that are focused on higher levels of Tourism so really just in as a first Speaker this evening I just wanted to set up how tourism is is understood Within These contexts and this intimate relationship we have between growth and sustainability and the the challenges that come from that and at the same time though there are really important Alternatives um that we can work with celebrations of best practice different ways of doing things that might not completely dismantle this growth narrative that we have but they do go some way to challenging it so here I'm going to end to open up space to Leslie and Sandro who are going to think a bit more about what these Alternatives look like what they are currently as well as what they could be in terms of practical examples but also more radical ways of rethinking the growth medal through things like degrowth um and to really think not just how tourism development can enhance and protect our environments and our economy but also importantly that social aspect that the communities the residents that live in the areas in which tourism development is taking place so thank you thank you thank you very much it's lovely to set this scene there I'd like to invite Leslie now to to share your response to our question is it possible to balance growth and sustainable tourism thank you can everyone hear me yeah great okay so thank you you Anna um I wanted to tell you just a little bit about interface um if you don't already know um interface brings together Scotland's business and academic communities um to build uh environmental economic and societal prosperity for Scotland and we do that by matching um businesses third sector and public sector with academic expertise we work with all sectors across all of Scotland and um and we also support industry groups to tackle challenges um and that can be across food and drink tourism and we've helped many businesses develop sustainability uh practices and help them with um uh transition to climate change and and lots of different aspects and we um manage funding um programs to to support that collaboration so um I'd be happy to talk to anyone if they're interested about that later um to to address the question is it possible to balance tourism growth with sustainable uh growth with sustainable tourism I don't have the answer to such a complex question but I believe that a much more datadriven approach uh can help us gain the evidence that we need for strategic decision- making and for alternative business models which I think it's clear that we probably um need to look at at this point um in tourism's development so technology data together with the right kind of leadership inclusive collaboration research-based Innovation can help address many of the serious challenges which we're experiencing at the moment where the balance has clearly been lost between residents and visitors in so many communities including um on our own doorsteps where the strain on local infrastructure that we're Witnesses witnessing is having serious long-term consequences across housing cost of living transport uh jobs and I think that there is still a a often a disconnect between the people who Mark at destinations and the people who have to manage destinations there are lots of different approaches to the question that Anna has posed but one which resonates with me is the invisible burden report which was published in 2019 by Megan Epler wood and a team at Cornell University and that report asserts we need tourism which conserves the the resources it depends on and sustains the well-being of local people for future benefit so the report argues for a greater understanding of the costs that tourism has when it imp impacts on our infrastructure on our local resources on Water waste energy uh emissions land and housing and by understanding the cost per tourist compared to the cost per resident uh it can help us with our financial planning with tourism investment budgeting um and and perhaps new business models so to connect the consumption of Tourism resources to the management of Tourism destinations requires a more datadriven approach and a shift in business models um so should we be costing the impact of visitors before we impose visitor levies so what role can technology and data play to address some of the the aspects of the question well I can give you some examples of of projects that I've I've been working with so in the visitor management of our R Rural and coastal areas in Scotland there are various working groups um who meet regularly to exchange knowledge to exchange uh information um agree on some uh agreed uh metrics which um some of that data is still collected manually which goes back to government um and those groups include our national parks councils agencies visit Scotland forestry land Scotland and other groups um the digital working group which which I chair um is focused on censor and iot projects across many parts of Scotland one of those projects is aggregating data and using AI uh which has built algorithms to analyze that data so that is predictive so for example in uh L Lon the trtic national park and pon R Council Rangers can see how busy locations are they can look at the number of people cars motor homes tents uh Rangers can plan follow-up visits the next day after campers have gone to make sure they've left the C the area the way it should have been left um they can quickly identify problem areas uh they can predict how busy a site will be on a future date and they can respond in a much more agile way to a rapid rise in visitor numbers and I've gotten my notes here when the Sun comes out so for example that's when we would get a massive rise in visitors um on the visitor facing side the same data is being collected and relayed in an interactive web- based map so visitors can check if car parks are busy where to park where to uh Park a motor home EV charging water topups uh looking for wildlife and the objective here is responsible trip planning so a lot of the tools that are being developed using data are also being used to inform and educate visitors um to behave more responsibly and try and make decisions before they arrive in the destination or while they're in the destination um and again this group is also um has been leing with with academics um which have helped them a lot with research and startups Tech startups are a big um important Focus for us because very often they are developing Solutions uh which can be really useful to to this kind of challenge so we regularly uh bring uh startups in when they have solutions that are of of relevance but some of the challenges here there's a lot of cost in investing in this technology and maintaining how it's going to be financed so that's one of the challenges I think Tech can also help us understand the views of residents uh it can convene communities and citizens and it can also help um businesses understand their customers better which can in turn help shape uh product development to to respond to to these issues so we can build resident surveys and engagement platforms to seek uh views and determine visitor sentiment we can also address visitor flows by implementing timed ticketing and booking systems and learn more about the customer from the data that we uh get from these platforms and that can also help staff allocation um for businesses to be more efficient and we need relevant and and accurate data to inform regular ulation to make business cases uh and for policym we can use artificial intelligence to build more predictive models um we can access mobile phone and credit card data but that's very expensive and there are lots of challenges around data sharing which I'm all too well aware of um so challenge is again time cost and skills we we need the right skills particularly for more data focused uh work Tech can help us to to build alternative business models to respond to tourism leakage where profits from the big OTAs online travel agents for example booking.com uh profits don't get reinvested in local communities um but even on a small scale companies are are are working on that so a company like is holiday which is based in Tyree it promotes holiday rentals uh but all the profits from from the rentals are reinvested in working projects for Islander uh communities fairbnb mainly based in Europe uh again a good example of guest profits going back into Community projects um and again understanding the customer and really working with customers and and making an effort to uh engage with them can make a difference to product development so UK company byway which offers flight free travel uh tours by uh Rail and uh Ferry and bus they are using uh AI and different forms of data to understand their customer Behavior that's allowing them to plan different routes into communities which do need tourism growth and and helping them look at alternative locations so that can help with product development as well uh in terms of new business models so some of the challenges here how can we scale those Solutions or can we influence the tech industry to uh to to to do something a bit more um Community forward focused with with the data that they have uh and can we use data and Tech to encourage more uh more of this kind of activity so what does the future look like well who do we need to involve to affect change and to ensure that our tourism growth is sustainable and that we can balance the needs of residents and visitors research-based Innovation working with our academic colleagues can help our tourism sector develop new skills can help our tourism businesses become more social or environmentally sustainable some examples from interface um there's a glen Moore hotel and apartments in veress they've been working with glasow Caledonian University to decarbonize their hotels Heating and uh water uh systems they've also been working with Edinburgh College to adapt their recruitment policies to make them more inclusive and more sustainable in the longer term we have uh the Scottish cranic Center in perser the visitor attraction they have benefited from over 20 student student Le projects including stakeholder research developing sustainable practices uh and creating digital assets and destination Tweed and the Tweed Forum we're currently in discussion with uh colleagues there to set up a collaborative projects focused on the environment but also to inform uh tourism visitors on the Tweed Trail and align with the south of Scotland responsible tourism strategy so how can we encourage more of this so and another way that I think is really important is sharing knowledge and best practice Iceland has doing a lot of really good work on data to help visitors uh see where visitor sites are busy when and where um and see that visually in order to plan booking their their visits in advance uh they're exchanging best practice with visit Scotland or national tourism agency uh on what's worked in terms of visitor Management Solutions uh Lo and trus national park has also been doing a lot of best practice exchange visits with Iceland Innovation Norway and destination Norway are also leing with visit Scotland they're focusing on skills development for the sector uh attracting shorter whole visitors who can stay longer uh and balancing resident visitor needs uh Sweden in bu business Stockholm has been involving school children in its placemaking uh as they argue that residents they are the future residents future Workforce so learning from others how can we capture that momentum how can we take even smaller steps to make uh changes and uh I think one of that that's just a really important aspect as well so to sum up um we need to address balancing growth with sustainable tourism but we don't know what kind of growth what's the definition of growth what would that look like who would it impact who would it benefit we need a collective effort clearly to act responsibly and collectively for the longer term we need to balance ambition with responsibilities to our communities and our businesses we need better datadriven strategies or do we need new Frameworks to tackle tourism's invisible burden the cost on our infrastructure uh leadership and role models to affect change who needs to be in that room are all the voices in tourism development in our communities being heard residents are our greatest asset so we should remember that and research-based Innovation we need more academic industry collaboration to tackle challenges uh such as this evening so I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas thank you thank you so much l fantastic insights there and certainly quite a few things I'd love to pick up on a little bit later hope I didn't race through that I'd be delighted to welcome sand now to share his insights and his perspectives and response to our question as well don't go away am don't go away way I have a question for you okay how many people fit in this room 40 40 do you all agree well depends right if you're sitting or if they're standing what about if they are lying on top of each other I would like if you can pile them up right put everyone line pile them up quite more than that yeah thank you Amy thank you um I just wanted to start with that provocation because when you're talking about growth we need to think about growth in a a different probably perspective right so um apologies for my accent I'm from Brazil um I've been here in Scotland for 13 years but I haven't learned Scottish accent yet I'm doing hard with my with my son but getting there uh and why is it important for me to say that I'm from Brazil um growing up um we us should have holidays as well in Brazil believe me or not and my dad will take four weeks a year and would do one trip the whole family for 4 weeks somewhere in Brazil or you know couple of times overseas when we could afford but it was a four-week time right and was I was quite surprised coming uh coming to UK um and obviously lived in New Zealand uh before seeing that actually people take don't take four weeks holiday anymore right people take a week a weekend two weeks three weeks if the company allows right so we see much shorter periods of time in terms of holiday um and I hope to get to the idea of why that change in tourist behavior is important for us when we're thinking about growth and sustainability when they ask me to talk a little bit about growth uh my first question is growth of what what we are talking about growth because the first thing that people think when you're talking about growth in tourism is about the number of tourists butow growth in tourism doesn't need necessarily to be the number of tourists so the first thing for us to stop to think is about when you're talking about growth in tourism is growth of what because we can talk about growth of experience growth of well-being economic growth that not necessarily is the number of tourists right um so are there alternatives for us to think growth and even if we are thinking about economic growth are there Alterna alternatives to think about economic growth that is not more tourists are there Alternatives in terms of improving processes in the businesses on the or the destination reducing leakage that Leslie mentioned can we talk about economic growth thinking about a diversification of the offers that we have can we think about um growth economic growth and tourism if you change the Prof file of the tourist and here you may think about oh yeah if you get rich people they will spend more money it's not like that believe me rich people don't always spend more money there's actually uh a lot of work done in New Zealand where I came from about reducing the number of Backpackers in order to have more Cruise tourists because the cruise tourists are rich and the Backpackers are poor and that would mean that they'll spend more money that's not true because we all know and there's evidence that people on Cris sh would spend less money in the town than actually the Backpackers who are not only spending money in the town they're spending money in businesses that have less leakage because they will spend the money in the local coffee shop instead of in the Starbucks right other than that there was a lot of research saying okay the Backpackers will stay longer in New Zealand and a lot of them would work in New Zealand if they have the the the Visa condition and that would also help in terms of um the the resources uh so the problem of growth is when we um we are talking about the exponential consumption or growth in consumption of finite resources resources that we don't have forever so if you go and ask DMO about what's the capacity of your town There's a high chance that the the numbers they will tell you is the number of beds that are in hotels so they'll say well the capacity of this town is 3 300 beds or 3,000 beds but what about the capacity of the water supply what about the capacity of electricity what about of the capacity of the stressors on the local community right so we need to kind of rethink the way uh uh we discuss growth and in order to do that we need to understand the limits that are the build the number of beds we need to understand the limits of the natural capacity and we need to think about the limits of the human resources as well and all that we used to call carrying capacity right so the capacity that a place has to cope um with that and that led us um uh as a a concept that has been um um used and manipulated and shaped that is the concept of sustainability so how how can you be sustainable if you're not talking about carrying capacity and one of my criticism to uh tourism research is that a lot of them forgot to talk about carrying capacity they talk about sustainability but actually they forgot the basic term of carrying capacity and if you go back to the idea of of sustainability that I think Anna mentioned a little bit and the the original idea of H stewardship and um U you know the concern for the future Generations will be the future Generations be able to be in a place like that um a lot of them have been widely discussed in in the in the previous 100 years um in the 1930s for example economists in USA were already discussing what was the optimal consumption level with the resources that were nonrenewable so how much we as a as as as humans can consume and what is the optimal level with the consumption of nonrenewable resources so yes there is then the club of Rome and the Brut report and a lot of these other reports that guide us in terms of understanding sustainability uh and that was came to the point where we discussed sustainability as the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the abilities of future generation to meet their own needs and in that evolution of the term we come to the business model of people planet and profit right and we think about people planet and profit as 33.3% of each but we forget that the planet exist without the people and the prophet the prophet is the only one who would not exist without the people on the planet so the 33.3% is cannot be linear discussion people were here before the planet was here before and the thing that has been created was the profit so we need to really be careful in understanding the relationship between these three concepts and in that perspective we go into the term of the growth and about was I think 2018 2019 we wrote a paper about rethinking tourism and the concept of the growth and a lot of people come to me and say how can I be a tourism Professor be anti-tourism and I was like well is not really like that read the paper and then we can talk about because the concept of the growth of Tourism is not that I want a decline of Tourism the concept of the growth of Tourism is a rethinking process where we think tourism as a better thing than just an excessive consumption process um the concept of of the growth it is about living better with less and that's very difficult in in our current society and I know that uh the the the growth I'm just watching the time here sorry yeah I have one minute so the concept of the growth would give more focus and power to the local communities to decide where is the limit there because even in this room when I ask the number of people that would fit in this room there's a limit and any space and environment we have limits and it is about the local community to make those decisions in terms of where is the limit of Tourism and visitor in their economy in their communities and and going from there a colleague of mine Freya uh Higgins Deo she um talks about the relocalizing tourism making tourism focus on the locals and empowering them to make those decisions so the community should make the decision it should have social um um contracts uh the businesses the local business should have social contracts and the tourist should should change from consumer to guests and here's the point I want to make to you because if you have guests in your house you may be the host that will tell them please take your shoes off before you enter my house you may be the guest the the host who say yeah just come on whatever paint the walls let your kids destroy the room or whatever you you may be the host who will put like we are in our house we put all the mess in one H in one room lock that room and make sure the visitor doesn't go to that room because that's where you put the mess right so you can think about the visitor in your house in the same way right and there are um uh destinations that have suffered with uh uh over tourism like duik and they've made a lot of changes on they're trying to make a lot of changes to try to control that and one of the ways to control the over tourism in Du brvenik is to better guide the tourists to where they want the tourist to go and how they want the tourist to spend their money yes they have reduced dramatically the number of CR ships and the amount of people that comes at the same time but the other thing is yeah you are welcome to my house but in my house that's what you do first you take off your shoes and that's what you do second you go to the uh uh the living room and you can use that toilet but not that toilet right so all these things are very important when we are relocalizing tourism and allowing the community to decide what are the spaces that they are welcome to share with you and that's because the local community should be the Guardians of the destination which is one of the problems for example with airbnbs or second homes is that you lose that agency of community because you don't have neighbors anymore you have lots of empty houses so who is the community that is never there the community doesn't care they just have a house and that's one of the problems and not having the agency of community in deciding what is going to take happen in that place so I overtime I'm sorry about that um Anna but one of the things that I want to leave here is tourism in the future the tourism now because otherwise um we'll be increasing our problems should be a tourism that we should focus on the education of the visitor and in that process of educating the visitor we need to consider a a new term that we um we've been using now which is about caring capacity about how can we de uh develop uh elements of care in those who are visiting my house how the people visiting can care about my Rivers can care about my um my mountains can care about my uh historical buildings so developing that process of caring for the place where they are visiting is extremely important thank you 13 minutes sorry thank you so much Sandra thank you um I'm so looking forward to just getting straight into discussions I have some questions for our panel here and of course we'll open up to our audience as well um to kick things off I'd like to come to Leslie first of all but panel feel free to to jump in as well to help for destinations still in the early stages of developing so very much you know economic growth is a priority they're very early in the tourism sector what strategies can they adopt to ensure that sustainability really is integrated from the outset well if they're starting from scratch they've got a really good opportunity to try and avoid some of the mistakes that more mature destinations have made and like I think we've all said um Community consultation is is Paramount you have to have the people who live there your residents and your communities and your businesses uh really fully engaged um and then you I suppose you have to decide what does growth look like you know and what does that mean and how is that going to help with uh employ ment but also with skills um and sometimes even though you want to develop a tourism economy um I think where I've seen a lot of things go wrong is that there's far too much Reliance on the tourism economy so you should be thinking about if you're training people and helping them develop skills what else can those skills be of value for and it could be much wider than tourism so I think I think the community consultation and getting everybody involved at the very beginning and and they all have a say in in what happens and they decide what growth looks like what does that mean for them yeah absolutely would you like to come in there yeah I think just following from that I think um um I I've just be I'm just becoming the the chair of the new tourist leadership group in rfor Shire and one of the things that I think is important for us is to map the resources that we have so one of the things is sometimes as local residents of people we don't stop and think about actually what resources do we have if if you're doing a barbecue in your house and you only have five plates but you have 35 people coming it will be a bit odd at least right so understanding the resources you have and understanding the caring capacity is the first step then following from that you need to think about okay what are the commercialization process that you need to to put uh uh in place for that because yeah maybe you don't need the plates people can eat their barbecue using uh napkins right so you can think about okay how you commercialize with the resources you the resources that you have to maximize the benefit for the local community right and that includes couple of points one is the protection of the environment and the resources because if the visitor goes and destroy that commercialization ends there anything that is destroyed that's the commercialization done right you cannot commercialize after the second thing is the um personal development and training of your your Human Resources so the importance of training uh and and developing your your human resources and the third one is bringing the community together in Partnership and supporting each other because some people would be better to do um uh the Frontline service other people will be better implementing the technology other people will be better to do the data analysis so how you bring those people together so just just to not go too long um one of the things that we are doing in rfor Shire now is they said okay we're going to do this leadership tourism leadership group and then they brought me a series of lists of Tourism businesses so hotels uh camper van hires things that were directly linked to to the tourism but then that's not all because I need Community groups as well I need to know who are the uh influencers of the town I need to know who are the good people who can communicate to the to the town so I need more than just the people who are directly benefiting and understanding that tourism is a process that is way more complex and impacts way more people than those that are directly working on it can I just say one thing I think I I agree with Sandro and also how how do you measure what your growth is because traditionally it's always been based on volume and value it's always the number of visitors and the the amount of money that they bring in but those models don't really work anymore so so agreeing on how you're going to measure uh what what that growth is or what the impact is in terms of your societal impacts as well yes so was that question of what does success look like just to add to that I mean I agree with um all of Sandro's and Leslie's points I think that point about the community and and who that actually is is incredibly important not just who the key influencers are but every Community is going to have a different demographic and there's going to be those powerful voices who do engage with consultation who do show up to to these networks these organizations time and time again but those who are being most affected by changes in the community aren't really that represented you know thinking you know I live in the Bor Peninsula just outside of cbri the voice of young people already isn't represented it's already an older demographic there so it takes a lot of effort to think about how you're going to engage with those people they're not going to come to a meeting that not necessarily going to come to these sorts of events so what are those engagement processes how do you bring that voice in in a way that reflects that community that gives importance to that to that voice and the process yeah absolutely thank you so much I'd like to pick up on something that we mentioned there and Sandra was okay I'll come to you first just about that human resource and your kind of Workforce Development what role does that play in ensuring both the growth and the kind of sustainability stud of things for tourist destinations yeah and um and there's a lot of examples of that a lot in rural communities where people want to develop a tourism product but they just don't have the human resources in the region right um and I was mentioned to you before that I I've done some work with people from Lagan here and they're struggles and find chefs and finding people to work in the kitchen and things like that is is really evident uh but it's more than that because you want a tourism uh industry if you want to call or sector um that will not spend money and money training and more training because they cannot uh retain people so it's not only the recruitment of people is the retention of people so we want the people who go and work in hospitality and tourism to feel that that's a career for them there right and that would also contribute to um establishing a positive narrative right which is the other thing that a lot of people don't talk about in terms of Human Resources is if we have people work in the tourism sector who truly believe on the visitor economy who truly believe in the tourism product The Narrative around that sector is always positive now if you have a Workforce that doesn't believe on debt feel undervalued undertrained constantly moving on what you have as a narrative is the industry the sector is not good and then actually you then have spent more money on training and more money on developing that positive narrative and the final point is if you don't need to spend a lot of money and time on training recruiting retraining there's a high chance that your staff will have more time for them to think on an innovation for them to think on on on uh create have time for creativity to develop new services to develop new products because you know you you're saving that time and money of training retraining recruiting so um I think that's an important thing for us to think about how do we value the sector and the workforce to a point where that narrative is positive yeah absolutely yeah I mean just just to add to Sandro's point I think a huge part of this is also public investment um if the Scottish government is going to be investing in tourism as a as a key economic driver in the economy it also has to be thinking of investing in its in its um Workforce of course but in that new generation coming through and ensuring that they have that knowledge around sustainability that they can embed into the workforce but what we're actually seeing is the opposite of that you know with the pullback of the upskilling fund with closures of many tourism programs undergraduate particularly across the UK and across Europe actually at the moment we will find that those skills aren't going to be in the workforce over the next few years um so that it h you know that that support has to be there if it if it is the key driver of the economy that the Scottish government positions it as and I think the Skilling you spot on because the upskilling fund that has been pulled from the Scottish government it will be such a Major Impact actually because there's a lot of uh continuous professional development courses that universities usually offer that were free because the funding uh a lot of people coming from alternative sectors to events tourism Hospitality because of those courses and feeling that they had the first step into it and now that is not there and then you asking a huge amount of investment for a sector that has been struggling to pay enough and I think then it has to come through the informal networks like there are I mean on to put a more positive spin on it there are really valuable networks that do talk about these things that don't cost anything to be a part of you know for example the Yu has next to which is a a um network of sustainable tourism destinations right across the EU where they share breast practice they come together um think about what works what doesn't work and understanding the geographical specificity of why things are working and and sharing that I think you know these more informal free networks are going to become even more important collaboration is essential right because if you collaborate then there's a high chance that you you're reducing costs and then open the opportunities for other types of Investments and and so on so fantastic thank you so much I have a question I certainly different perspective I suppose but what does it mean to be a responsible tourist so how can destinations kind of engage tourists in a way that aligns with sustainability goals while they're still getting that you know enhanced experience where they are I'd like to go to Anna first if that's something yeah sure I mean I think that both Sandro and Leslie have touched on it and and even I think Sandro's point about how we travel and how we travel in different cultures and some cultures taking whole months off I think that's really key like it has to come from the employers infrastructure of facilitating people to take C types of holidays and travel in certain ways to then allow the traveler the individual to make certain more sustainably conscious decisions for example do I need to travel multiple times do I need to take an international trip well maybe you could just take one trip and actually spend quite a long time in a destination and really get to know it invest in local businesses stay with local businesses rather than perhaps visiting many places very quickly um so yeah I think we all you know we all play a role in thinking about how we actually engage with those places yeah yeah and there are examples now of a lot of destinations who are encouraging a bit of slow tourism but they are also promoting better engagement between the tourist and the community uh because that's one of the things is and I've been thinking a lot about that um so I was mentioned that I had a a holiday sometimes we also take holidays um with my family and um and we decided to be a little bit slow and you know take a week in each three cities that we visited so we three cities and we stayed a week in each of them almost a week in each of them um and finding what are the places where the community meets the visitor and these are maybe the coffee shops um we went to a a library in um in uh in Guttenberg that in Mao that was absolutely amazing because you can see that there a li prepared for that encounter between the visitor and the you know it is a tourist attraction let's say but is also welcoming for them to so what are the places where we know the visitor can have a conversation with the guest and why is that important because it's just by understanding the host perspective of life that we can empathize is that the word with with the problems the issues how our behavior is impacting that their lives or not right if you go to Venice which is a place that everyone knows um about the issues of over tourism and overcrowded how difficult must be for the tourist to understand what is the life of someone who lives in Venice in terms of their daily lives the cost of living the traffic the stress psychological issues and so on if they don't talk to the person because it's very easy for you on holiday feel that that's my holiday I worked very hard and I have the privilege of and I'm paying for so one of the issues for me when you're talking about that is trying to educate and try to understand ownership who owns the place I'm visiting it's not my place you know I need to be grateful for being there right and understanding the rights what are the rights of the locals in saying actually I don't want you here right I don't need you to come here or this place is actually not for you right and I think a lot of towns and cities are now saying this is not for you this is you're not actually welcome in this part of the country or in this part of the city or so on so that process of education is very important and I do think that this process of um is funny because we teach a lot of things to kids and I always ask me why have you never taught the kids how to be better tourists if they will probably a lot of you know in developed countries a lot of them will be tourists at some point at what point in their education process we talk about Behavior as a visitor I think education and information is really crucial and and really trying to inform visitors about those things about what you know what's important in destinations and what needs to be protected and trying to do that as far Advance as possible um and storytelling you know like narrative has has a big role to play um but the some of the challenges about that are um that the visitor Management Group have encountered is um trying to reach visitors like even if it's through social media channels or websites you can have so much information available on websites and social media channels but it's trying to reach visitors to to to inform them so for example people that use motor homes will very often use different H forums and things like that and they'll tell each other where they can park which where they shouldn't Park um and so or or you know people that are like camping or illegal camping for example it's quite hard to to you can put a lot lot of messages out on a lot of channels but you don't always succeed in reaching people to get those messages across it's very interesting that you know again there's a lot of um good practice around the world and it's very it's very difficult because sometimes what works in one culture doesn't work in another what works in one regulation or regulatory framework maybe not works in another one um it's very interesting what's happening Copenhagen just now with the tourists being encouraged to leave the place better right so it's like going and doing uh picking up litter or you know helping to clean the canals or whatever um and uh it seems to be working quite well but it's still a fraction of the people right A lot of them it's still Mass tourist Mass consumption and things like that so um I can see positive and I can see that we are moving towards some good practice in terms of you know being better tourists um but I think without a more uh slow tourism without you know you know and I see students and they have six seven eight holidays a year I was like how you know why why don't you you know and it's it just feels that we still need to talk more about it at very young age of true yeah absolutely thank you so much I have one final question for you but I really would like to open up uh to our audience and ask for questions um in the room if anyone would like to ask a question of our panel we have one no yes thank you got a microphone for you yeah okay I'm going to ask a question now because I have to go after sorry so thank you so much for putting up this panel because it's been really good to see colleagues and uh so last week I was at a tourism conference and with Scholars who've been working in sustainable tourism for 35 years and the discussion was literally on abandoning the concept of sustainability as a whole because basically it's a shimmer it's it has it's not it's not working a so and the reasons for that were primarily because the tourism system was grounded on the ideas of neoliberalism so you're taking Airlines you're taking easy Jets uh Ryan Air and to counter those waves of people and our students traveling seven times a year grounded on that model is literally impossible so the discussion was literally on limiting the impacts rather than trying to rethink the concept of sustainability in tourism it doesn't mean we can't rethink it but so I would just wanted to have your views on literally keep using that idea and that Paradox of sustainable tourism within tourism Academia but also in prac practice drop the mic and then leave right that's right I I think you for in my own work I see it in two ways I think you have the realities that sustainability is the discourse that's what we're working with that's what's I mean sha visit Scotland's moving towards responsible tourism but you know it is very it is similar it's it's it's building on the same Concepts that's the reality the pragmatics of what we're working with and I think there's importance to continue that conversation and thinking about what can be done in that context while also having these broader conversations around degrowth at the very same time that we actually do need to completely rethink the model because it's just not working I think personally the two can go parallel together and need to go parallel because otherwise what do you actually do you're not going to have a a revolution tomorrow you know you have to keep building towards a lower more less intensive form of of Tourism because of the impacts that it's having that's my personal perspective it's def the academics can say whatever they want we can say whatever we want to change that discourse from business from policy makers is a very different story actually we've been talking about ditching the term sustainability is not not something new we've been talking about ditching the term of sustainability for the last 10 15 years at least right so um and we haven't not even get closer right now I fully agree the term is very problematic as I mentioned it's very complex is is been is been corrupted in many ways uh I also prefer more responsibility instead of sustainability uh now one thing is it's very difficult to change that discourse at a at a Action level right uh the way to start for me is okay how do we start to change that because maybe something that we need is you need to just I think there's a a a stronger link between academic research and and and data going back to data and policy making so I think the way to if you want to change the narrative on the ground level need to change the data at the discourse on policy level first for me the academics that's where they will be able to influence probably more and then that would Cascade down to operational levels of businesses um but the term is problematic and I don't and I think there is an assumption of academics and I'm an academic that businesses are don't see it as a problematic and that's not true a lot of businesses see already the term sustainability as problematic and they probably they saw it a problematic before us right so we need to be careful with academic arrogance of that term doesn't work anymore let's use this one because that just doesn't help anyone right I think we can talk about the issues of the term but what we need to talk is about the consequences of Tourism thank you very much we have a question here thank you question it's a sort of Part B oh sorry is this on it's Part B really to follow up that question I want to pick up on that term you've just used academic arrogance um linked to that I wondered about the panel's views where on a perception which I think can come across that the the different offerings and new on that's kind of pivoting away from whatever traditional tourism look like to these new to these new offerings that it's elitist and a bit of a middle class luxury offering and how do we popularize that in the broad sense of the term that it's something that everybody regardless of budget class socioeconomic background can feel as meaningful to them and it's not a an academic concept or a a middle class worthy thing to do thank you very much yeah that's a huge challenge I think that's a um a a massive issue and there's a me you know in tourism we talk about the democratization of travel that happened through the growth of travel it's a in a lot of ways it's a positive argument really that more people can travel more people can engage with other countries but how we actually enti or open up those conversations so these alternative ways of traveling are actua

2024-09-13 19:53

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