Sustainable tourism
development can fulfill economic,
social, and aesthetic needs while
maintaining cultural integrity and
ecological processes. It can provide for
today’s hosts and guests while
protecting and enhancing the same
opportunity for the future. That’s the
good news. But sustainable tourism
development also involves making hard
political choices based on complex
social, economic, and environmental
trade-offs. It requires education,
community planning and decision making.
The Sustainable
Tourism Lab, utilizing a group of staff
and professional experts with up to 25
years of experience, offers a number of
educational and consulting
programs and services aimed at assisting
communities, regions, government and
private sector planners and agencies,
and tourism professionals with meeting
this challenge. In addition to our
standard programs, the Lab can customize
services to best meet your needs,
budget, or timetables, including full
management and implementation to
providing support services to staff.
Services include:
-
Workshops,
forums and conferences (and planning
collabs)
-
Speaker's bureau
-
Strategic
tourism planning development
-
Tourism
marketing, program and activity
development
Whether you are
seeking to turn your community or region
into a tourism destination or need
assistance with specific tourism related
activities, the Sustainable Tourism Lab
has the programs and services to best
meet your needs and budget.
Educational Programs
Conferences, Forums and Workshops
Tourism is
a very diverse and fragmented
industry, consisting of numerous
small to medium sized companies,
supported by a myriad of municipal,
state and non-governmental agencies
that play very significant roles in
affecting, controlling or directing
the industry’s future. Bringing
representatives of these
organizations together in ways that
allows them to effectively interact,
listen, and hold back judgment in
regard to each other’s points of
view is an essential, first step
ingredient in getting conversations
started, and assuring that the
industry can effectively position
itself for success.
With
training and
education an important component of
promoting sustainable tourism
principles, the Lab offers a number of
educational programs, including
multi-day conferences, day-long forums
and individual workshops. Programs
are targeted to a wide range of
government, private agency and tourism
professional audiences, and while
standard topics are available, all
program topics and content can be customized to
meet budget and program needs. As
with our other services, the Lab can
handle the full management and
implementation of programs, or provide
staff assistance with planning and
implementation. Topics may
include:
-
Introduction to
sustainable tourism
-
The future of
sustainable tourism for your state
-
Building a
sustainable tourism program
-
River users
conference
-
Responsible
tourism
-
Social marketing
-
Civic tourism -
creating and marketing your
somewhere
-
Sustaining the
geographic character of your state
-
Resilient
tourism
-
Green Tourism
-
Voluntourism
Final reports
summarizing all workshop and conference
activity are made available to all
participants and the public.
See sample
final report from a recent conference
(PDF).
Separating Lab
educational programs from others -
Lab
Planning Collabs
One of the
most popular features of the Lab's
educational programs, and what
separates the Lab's educational
program from others, are the
Planning Collabs. These intense
small group discussions following
the workshops allow participants to
use information learned earlier to
begin developing potential strategic
and other plans of action.
Led by acknowledged
experts in the use of group
collaborative discussions for strategic
and other planning, the Lab Planning
Collabs have played an important role in
helping participants get the most out of
lab workshops, forums and other
educational programs. Following
the workshops, participants gather in
small groups of 8-10 people based on
their specialty or main interest to
discuss a small number of questions such
as "With this sustainable tourism
element, what are the visitors requiring
from their experience? Think about basic
expectations as well as new requests
that may become a trend."
The
sessions last about an hour, after which
each table summarizes the essence
of their conversations during a wrap-up
plenary session, that takes
approximately 40-45 minutes. An
afternoon session follows, where
participants mix up the groupings to
that each table consists of a person
from one of the morning categories and
different questions are posed.
Feedback indicates
that most participants find these
discussions to be extremely helpful
towards beginning to apply what they
have learned. Roundtable discussions are
an effective way to intensify
face-to-face interaction. Paper
tablecloths (large sheets of flip chart
paper) allow participants to write,
draw, map and cluster their
thoughts/ideas. As at a dinner party
everyone is expected to participate and
take a lead – even side conversations
are encouraged. The intent is to take
pleasure in ideas, build on them, make
them concrete, debate for clarification,
and integrate and synthesize them.
See sample
final report from a recent conference
(PDF)
Speaker's Bureau
As part of our
training and education services, the Lab
can provide a wide range of speakers,
including members of our expert staff
and partnership team, as well as
industry experts from around the world.
Consulting
Programs
Strategic Tourism Planning and
Development
A strategy
without implementation is a plan
gathering dust on a shelf.
Whether you are
developing an initial strategic plan or
modifying an existing one, the Lab can
develop, manage, and carry out the
entire planning process, or provide
support services to agency staff. When it comes to
assisting with developing strategic
plans, we believe in both building a
strategy of goals, and delivering a plan
that can be implemented. In
addition, we believe in customizing
plans and programs based on specific
needs and budgets. For this reason, the
Lab insists on developing a strategic
plan that is actionable.
Plan components
include: 1) General background analysis,
2) Infrastructure analysis and
recommendations, 3) Visitor attractions
and activities, and their improvement,
4) Visitor facilities and services, and
their improvement, 5) Recommended extent
and forms of tourism, 6) Market analysis
and projections, 7) Recommended tourism
development policy and structure plan,
8) Economic analysis and
recommendations, 9) Environmental
considerations and recommendations, 10)
Sociocultural considerations and
recommendations, 11) Institutional
consideration and recommendations, 12)
Marketing and promotion recommendations,
13) Plan assessment and evaluation, 14)
Crisis management, 15) Plan creation,
implementation and monitoring.
More
Support services
available to staff include the
following: