Developing a plan for tourism in Jamaica

SUSTAINABLE TOURISM

TABLE OF CONTENT

TOPIC PAGE(S)

Project background

Objectives

Literature review

Methodology

Understanding the rationale for planning in the travel and tourism industry

Benefits of planning of tourism development to stakeholders

Advantages and disadvantages of public private sector tourism planning partnership

Understand the different approaches to tourism planning and development

Features of tourism development planning at different levels

Significance of interactive planning systems and processes in tourism development

Different methods to measures tourist impacts

Understanding the need for planning for sustainable tourism

Introduction concept of sustainability in tourism development

Factors that may prevent/hinder sustainable tourism

Different stages in planning for sustainability

Understand current issues related to tourism development planning

Methods of resolving a conflict of interest to ensure the future well being of a developing tourism destination

Implication of balancing supply and demand

Moral and ethical issues of enclave tourism

Understand the socio-cultural, environmental and economic impacts of tourism in developing countries and emerging destinations

Comparison of current issues associated with tourism and development in a developing country and an emerging destination where the impacts of tourism are different

Recommendation

Conclusion

References

Appendices

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Tourism has been a major contribution to the Jamaican economy; however tourism in Jamaica needs sustainable development. The aim of this project is to give an understanding of sustainable tourism from a Jamaican framework. Sustainable tourism is tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the environment and host communities defined by (WTO 2014).

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In this project a scenario was given where the ministry of tourism contracts a consultant to develop and plan tourism due to the fact that Jamaica is heading to become unsustainable. In this project you will have analysis, recommendation and solution to the tourism industry in Jamaica.

The importance of this project is to give an understanding of the planning in the travel and tourism development and how it can benefit stakeholders. It is important for stakeholders to understand the tourism planning and development at different levels along with their significance. Since it is said that the Jamaican tourism is heading in an unsustainable direction, therefore it is of great interest to know what it is of great interest to know how to become sustainable different stages and how we can prevent it. Information is shown of how important public private sectors are in the tourism industry and their disadvantages. The public private sector must understand the socio-cultural, environmental and economic impacts of tourism in Jamaica. All of these impacts are what causes the Jamaican tourism industry to be heading in an unsustainable direction so the private and public sector can partner to help mitigate these issues.

OBJECTIVES

There are five objectives of this project as followed:

• To assess the importance of planning and development in the tourism industry
• Identify the benefits of planning and development to each stakeholder in the tourism industry
• To determine the sustainability of the Jamaica tourism and how it can be maintained
• To identify the impacts of tourism in Jamaica.

LITERTURE REVIEW

(WTO 2014) defined sustainable tourism as tourism that takes full account of its current and further economic, social and environmental impacts and addressing the needs to visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities. The Jamaican tourism is having failures and heading to an unsustainable market however it has some great attraction (sun, sand & beach). (JTB 2014) analyzes the element of tourism products which includes accommodation, transportation, attractions and tours, dining and entertainment (inclusive of festivals & events) and the support service.

According to (Edward 2009) tourism does not benefit the people of Jamaica because 80% of traveler’s expenses go to airlines, hotels and other international companies and not local businesses or workers. (Edward 2009) also gave market failures of the tourism in Jamaica such as low skilled employment are provided, unplanned settlements and squatters communities that are established close to resort areas that causes solid waste, inadequate sewage treatment, and tourism entities that are currently gaining all of the rent are also not accounting for the negative and external effect of their activities. (Ringo & Martin 2013) analyze the benefits of tourism such as the gaining of foreign exchange, providing jobs (directly and indirectly), developing income and developing infrastructure.

There are five reasons why the Jamaica’s tourism is stated as unsustainable. (TPDCO 2014) summarize the five reasons such as growth rate, competitive advantage of the industry, the wider product outside the hotels is poor, the degrading of the national environment and the view of Jamaican is that the industry is not beneficial. However (JTB 2014) recommended ways to shift from unsustainable to sustainability through five objectives such as enhancing the visitors experience, growth based on sustainable market position, community based development, inclusive and industry and environmental sustainability.

METHODOLOGY

UNDERSTANDING THE RATIONALE FOR PLANNING IN THETRAVEL AND TOURISM INDUSTRY

BENEFITS OF PLANNING OF THE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT TO STAKEHOLDERS

Stakeholders are the person or group who has interest in an organization. Planning of the tourism development is putting things together actions such as infrastructure, co-operate plans etc. stakeholders involve in the planning of tourism in Jamaica are JTB, TPDCo, Ministry of Tourism, Jampro, JHTA etc. Other stakeholders who benefit from the planning of tourism developments are the communities, visitors and non-government organizations.

Ringo & Martin (2014) wrote an article about how important is tourism to Jamaica, which gave ways that tourism, benefits the stakeholders of Jamaica. The planning of tourism development is beneficial to the government and its agencies because for the past years tourism has generated the highest level of foreign exchange (approximately US$2b). Foreign exchange benefits the government, their agencies and locals indirectly. However, it is said that the government gain direct benefit from the increase of income whereas tax revenues will increase.

The article also states the benefits to local Jamaicans through employments. The planning of tourism development provides jobs for communities and other local Jamaicans such as vendors etc. Statistics shows that employment through tourism provides approximately 200,000 persons directly and indirectly. Jobs that are provided directly are hotels, crafting, transportation, attractions and indirect are trading, bank etc. Infrastructure can be beneficial to not only hotels and resort but also the public facilities. Infrastructure has to be improved to accommodate tourist that are at the airport to hotels. For example the Norman Manley Airport road has just been improved. Locals also benefit indirectly from the increasing of foreign exchange.

The planning of the tourism development is also beneficial to tourist/visitors. If tourism is developed then it would attract more visitors to the island. This will improve the visitor experience and will come again to endorse in our culture and, our sun, sand and beach.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF PUBLIC PRIVATE SECTOR TOURISM PLANNING PARTNERSHIP

According to DBJ (2012) public private partnership is a long term procurement contract between the public and private sectors, in which the proficiency of each party is focused in the designing, financing, building and operating an infrastructure project or providing a service, through the appropriate sharing of resources risk and rewards.

There are recently public private partnership for tourism planning between JTB and JHTA. Public private partnership can bring advantage to tourism or disadvantage. However, the partnership between JTB and JHTA has brought advantage to the planning of tourism in Jamaica which is to gain competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is the main advantage of public private partnership in tourism planning. The public sector will transfer their knowledge while the private do the same to create ideas and increase innovation for the destination of Jamaica. JTB and JHTA have created a ‘give away’ of free rooms which would enable a little competitive edge to attract visitors. The partnership project creates not only a competitive edge but also innovations and new ideas. Another advantage of the PPP is the risk sharing. When problem arise the party who can best manage this problem, the risk would transfer to that party. Another example of PPP was with Lover’s Leap and Ministry of Tourism which would enable to provide jobs to the community members and involve them in participating in tourism. Private sector provides finance and service, where the public sector depends solely on them. For example NTO and JHTA. The private partner manages complex financial and technical task while the public sector deals with law and policies. Therefore the combination of the two brings higher value and minimizes cost. PPP share technology that will enable projects to finish faster and reduce delays.

On the other hand there are disadvantage that affect both private and public sector and both. Although risks are shared, most of the risk sometimes goes to the private partner and overall the government will be responsible in the final aspect. So we can say that although risks are shared most risk is on the government. The projects of public private partnership may take years to finish and this can be an disadvantage for the planning of tourism development. Political problems may arise for example if the government changes and they no longer want to be involved in that partnership then this cause a problem for the private sector.

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