Tourism Destination Area Planning Process and Some Key Tools, Some Readings

Now I want to move to the fourth part of the process， which deals with the stakeholder consultations, In the previous three phases of the process. we’ve basically got to the point where we have strategic directions built on a hard data, physical data from the site as well as consultations with the related stakeholders in the target beneficiaries. And so, we now we have a document which can be like an interim planning document or a draft plan which is ready for detailed consultations with stakeholders. In other words, you used the work that has been done as a framework for enabling stakeholders to help build the development plan going forward.

Again, as I’ve indicated earlier our approach is both top down and bottom up and so stakeholder participation is a critical part for a successful outcome in that process. So, what does that mean well, first of all, you need to circulate an interim planning report and that would be the sort of final output of the third phase which is setting the strategic directions and the programs and the the kind of results that you’re looking for. So that would be shared with the stakeholders who would then be brought together in some kind of a planning workshop framework usually a workshop of one two or three days duration depending upon the scope of the development plan. The stakeholders would basically review the document.

And then they would be a series of breakout groups look at different components of what is proposed and to essentially the confirm or just those components. And then to do that in a plenary context to finalize an overall agreed planning framework. This would then be document in more detail. And then quite often made publicly available circulated to a broader a range of stakeholders to the public at large. It might be exhibited in public places in order for people on the street who are not involved in the planning process, to make a contribution in terms of comments and suggestions and ideas or to verify that it’s a good plan.

So this would then lead after the comments have been received to a final stakeholder consultation workshop at which all the comments from the public, and from difference stakeholder groups of that’s taken time to prepare their comments and inputs would be incorporated and agreed. And that would then lead to the finalization of the plan. Now it doesn’t end there because the plan has to be disseminated, it has to be I think of it as a knowledge product that has to be disseminated to the stakeholders to the target beneficiaries and all the other groups and organizations that have some role in its implementation. So, the dissemination of the plan what is the dissemination plan.

What sort of dissemination activities will be used and what is for example the monitoring and evaluation and review process for the plan going forward. And as I mentioned earlier on one of the critical steps is ensuring that the plan has a very well developed monitoring evaluation framework which is result space. So it’s the results framework that I spoke about earlier Now to recap a little bit on some of the key planning tools that we’ve used recently in some of our projects here in China. In the greater Mekong subregion in India and at a country level in the Nepal for example in Sri Lanka, in Australia and in the Philippines and Malaysia and Thailand recently.

The first one was a capture techniques service of in depth interviews, focus group discussions and content analysis, are really the key planning tools that we use in getting data for our situation analysis. And understanding of what are the issues and concerns the strengths and weaknesses threats and opportunities of a destination. The data analysis methods that we use include economic impact analysis, particularly input output analysis where that data is available. We use factor analysis and regression analysis for market segmentation work and also for forecasting purposes. And of course if we do survey sample survey techniques using, for example, household surveys for domestic tourism or exit surveys in the case of international and domestic tourists from a particular location

for social services for example as a standard now. The SWOT analysis I’ve already mentioned. It’s an audit or a way of auditing and analyzing the competitive position and the TOWS analysis is a way of developing competitive strategies and selecting competitive strategies as arising from the SWOTanalysis. And of course forecasting and scenario analysis is a crucial part of the exercise for forecasting outcomes which can then be evaluated and assessed in terms of the impact. And then of course, the consultation tools to focus group discussions town hall meetings workshops which I’ve mentioned. The environmental impact analysis is an important part.

Every plan has to have and at least an initial environmental impact analysis and recommend a specific environmental impact assessments for projects that may be part of the plans implementation programs. And of course the most importantly a results framework that shows that connects the impact of the plan the goal that I mentioned earlier with the outcomes, specific outcomes of the plans and the outputs that deliver those outcomes. And of course the outputs are delivered in turn by the activities, and then there are the issues of the resources, and the time required to do that.

So, those are all pretty critical parts of the tourism planning process, I won’t go into the approach to scenario development but there is a diagram which goes through. The process of analyzing possible tourism futures by considering the alternative possible outcomes at the macro level. So that is something that you already have in the presentation at this particular lecture. The next application is and I do given application of scenario building on forecasting methods for destination area in North Plava and Coron airport in the Philippines and it’s about the scenario for airport development there at the moment. There’s three possible outcomes The first is no redevelopment of the airport.

The second is redevelopment as a domestic airport with international charter operations which we call that the medium growth scenario. And there’s a redevelopment of the airport as a regional international airport which would have a high growth scenario impact. Each scenario and related forecast outcome has implications for investment in tourism supporting infrastructure such as energy, where water supply and communications technology, waste management and tourist facilities and services such as hotels resorts, and tourism management at the public sector level. So, you can see from the graph. It just there is a projection of what each outcome would mean, in terms of the total number of tourist arrivals to the Coron airport and of course to the surrounding destination.

And of course it has significant impact in terms of, for example, hotel room requirements. You can see that on the low growth scenario. There’s relatively modest requirements going forward, but as you go to the mid on to the high growth scenarios, the number of room requirements more than doubled. So that’s a very substantial investment requirement that would have to be failed, if you’re going to depending upon the outcome, the scenario for airport development. And again, there’s an illustration here of SWOT and TOWS analysis for a municipality in Cebu again in the Philippines, which shows the approach in terms of identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and then the strategies for dealing with those.

And, finally provide some readings which help to illuminate some of the things. That I presented on the destination planning and process and tools and the approaches that are discussed. So with that, I will finish this lecture and I look forward to meeting you in the next lecture. As we move on to the next topic, thank you.