PROCEDIMIENTOS DE PROTECCIÓN DE LOS CULTIVOS

Procedimientos de protección de los cultivos

B) PROCEDIMIENTOS DE PROTECCIÓN DE LOS CULTIVOS

Ade Oriade and Mike Evans

Introduction

There is no doubt that sustainable tourism both as a concept and goal is a vital area in tourism management. Sustainability in relation to tourism in a basic sense may be regarded as the application of sustainable development ideas to the tourism sector (Weaver, 2006). Obviously the term is one of the most controversial con-cepts in the study and management of tourism.

However, despite the non-consensus among academics and practitioners on this deﬁ nition, the majority of writers in the ﬁ eld agree that a combination of eff ective policy, planning and management decisions is the secret key that unlocks the door to sustainable tourism develop-ment. Most of the time ideas that revolve around alternative kinds of tourism as opposed to mass tourism are advocated; even then, this is also controversial as it has been observed in many quarters that all forms of tourism tend towards mass tourism, as discussed in Chapter 1.

Often in the recent past in developing tourism, managers, planners and developers annex and exploit the unique sociocultural, economic and physical environment of a given destination. In modern day tourism, the concept of sustainable tourism has stimulated a prominent concern for equity and fairness. It has been suggested that the majority, if not all, stakeholders should be involved in decision making in order to determine the type and level of development that is acceptable to all. While this is a laudable idea in principle, it has proved to be challenging in practice. Nevertheless,

developing tourism is no more the sole decision of a group of technocrats or the beneﬁ t of a group of few people who have ﬁ nancial and political interest. At least this is the case in most developed countries; tourism development and decision making in less developed countries is still the domain of a few powerful or privileged people.

Most of the tools and techniques advocated for the achievement of sustainable tourism development have been based on trade-off s and compromises, some of which are examined later in this chapter. Given the multidimensional nature of tourism and the multitude of stakeholders involved in planning, decision making becomes a complex task that requires rigorous assessment of the costs and beneﬁ ts. In addition, an understanding of market eco-nomics and organizational attitudes and rea-lities should not be under-emphasized. It should be noted that this area is not dealt with in this chapter, but is discussed in Chapter 7.

This chapter examines and analyses varying views, issues and prospects for sus-tainable tourism. Discussion and analysis is structured as follows: discussion of the basis for deﬁ nitions of sustainable tourism and an analysis of deﬁ nitional and conceptual issues.

This is followed by the creation of understanding the trend of tourism development and the necessity for rethinking the philosophy of past development. The chapter also goes further to examine key theories and ideas and explore a range of management and planning principles associated with sustainable tourism develop -ment.

Defi nitions

The concept of sustainable tourism may be regarded most basically as the application of sustainable development ideas to the tourism sector (Weaver, 2006). The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987) described sustainable development as a form of development that ‘meets the needs of present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.

The application of sustainable development principles to tourism management, according to the English Tourism Council (ETC, 2001), encompasses visitor satisfaction, industry profi t-ability, community acceptance and benefi t, as well as environmental conservation. To this end, Swarbrooke (1998) defi ned sustainable tourism as the ‘forms of tourism which meet the needs of tourists, the tourism industry and host communities today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. This defi nition is in line with most authors’ view. It is safe to say that this defi nition adopts a generalist view; hence it is open to many interpretations. Again, it is safe to say that sustainable tourism has been embraced more as an industry than an ideal.

Early deﬁ nitions of sustainable tourism placed emphasis on physical environment. To a very large extent it is commonplace to see terms such as ecotourism and green tourism used interchangeably with sustainability. However, the late 1980s and early 1990s witnessed a shift in which the social and cultural dynamics of a destination were closely linked to the concept. A further shift was seen by the last decade of the 20th century, including economic and organizational perspectives in the explanation of the concept (Mason, 2008). In light of this, Inskeep (1991) saw the principle of sustainable tourism as encompassing the management of all resources in a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulﬁ lled while cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, bio-logical diversity and life support systems are maintained. Mason (2008) interpreted Inskeep’s (1991) view of sustainable tourism thus: ‘Non-intrusive, non-depleting and renewable, scaled to the particular environment, natural in material make-up and presentation and well

integrated into the local physical, social cultural and economic environment.’ Although the picture painted by Inskeep (1991) and sup-ported by Mason (2008) is an attractive one, the practicality of the model is questionable.

Tourism Development

The rapid development of tourism, after World War II, into a formidable industry has been argued to be as a result of increases in house-hold income that subsequently aff orded families more discretionary income to be spent on leisure. Other factors such as paid holiday, a better educated population that is willing to learn and explore and increased business travel have also been identiﬁ ed. Perhaps the major driver has been acknowledged to advances in technology, most importantly transportation.

With increased travel resulting in tourist numbers doubling in most destinations, the World Tourism Organization (WTO, 2010) has reported that international tourist arrivals rose from 534 million in 1995 to 920 million in 2008, before declining to 880 million in 2009 as a result of the deepest economic crisis ever experienced in most parts of the Western world.

The implication of these increased tourist numbers was that destinations had to meet demand with supply, hence the sporadic development of facilities to accommodate growing demand, particularly in the 1980s.

Tourism is generally considered to be the provider of a substantial proportion of income required to supplement the primary economy in some countries and the main source in some few others. It has been seen as providing capital investment opportunities for public and private sectors and both generates employment and enhances quality of life within the local community (see Chapter 2 for further discus-sion).

Alternative forms of Tourism The term ‘alternative tourism’ emerged from the ideology that unregulated tourism development will result in undesirable high economic, environmental and sociocultural

Sustainable and Alternative Tourism 71

Case Study 6.1. Tourism development in Ghana.

Following Ghana’s independence on March 6, 1957, the tourism industry emerged. This was regarded as a socioeconomic phenomenon that could be enhanced for the development of the country. Ghana was the fi rst country south of the Sahara to have gained independence. Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian Prime Minister who championed the African emancipation struggles, turned Ghana into a destination for international conferences and meetings for other African and African Americans leaders fi ghting for freedom and independence. The country subsequently began to attract Europeans and Americans.

The tourism industry has suffered failures in its development since independence, which can be attributed to Ghana’s approach to tourism development and its over-zealous attempt to meet the mass tourism demand. Adu-Febiri (1994) conceded that mass tourism as envisaged was inconsistent with the country’s low domestic investment and capital accumulation capacity to support the basic tourism infrastructure, untrained and unskilled labour force, indigenous entrepreneurial skills and inexperienced local residents.

Tourism growth started to decline rapidly following the fall of Nkrumah’s government when he was deposed in 1966 by a military coup de état. The attraction of tourists, foreign capital and investment opportunities became severely constrained due to the country’s volatile and unstable governments, with one coup after another until 1992.

Meanwhile, the formal development of tourism in Ghana actually occurred in 1972 after an assessment and evaluation of the country’s tourism resources by the Obuan Com mittee in 1970. The objective of the committee was to identify the potential tourism resources to kick-start a 5-year development plan covering the period 1972–1976.

The late 1980s saw a renewed effort put into tourism. This was given a considerable attention as part of the economic development strategy of Ghana, and has enabled Ghana’s tourism to move up to be among the top 20 leading tourism revenue earners in Africa (World Tourism Organization, 1999). Table 6.1 shows a steady increase in the number of international visitor arrivals in Ghana from approximately

Table 6.1. Ghana: international tourist arrivals and average trip travel spend.

Year Total international arrivals (000s) Average trip travel spend (US$)

1988 114 482

1989 125 576

1990 146 555

1991 172 686

1992 213 784

1993 257 802

1994 271 841

1995 286 815

1996 305 816

1997 325 818

1998 348 816

1999 373 815

2000 399 838

2001 439 800

2002 483 742

2003 531 780

2004 584 798

2005 429 1949

2006 497 1733

2007 625 1453

2008 670 1541

2009 695 1512

Source: WTTC (2009).

costs. With the realization of the impact of mass tourism and conventional tourism development, many destinations and authors have advocated caution in the scale and pace of tourism development. Alternative tourism may therefore be regarded as an early form of recognition and adoption of sustainability ideals (Weaver, 2006). The term is usually used to describe products and activities that are considered to be more suited to the environment than conven-tional mass tourism (Fig. 6.1). The following sections present discussions on some forms of

tourism that are thought to be more desirable than conventional mass tourism.

Case Study 6.1. Continued.

114,000 in 1988 to about 695,000 in 2009. Average visitor spend has grown steadily from US$482 in 1988 to US$1512 in 2009, albeit with a slight decrease in 2002. In Ghana’s economic activities, tourism is ranked as the third largest earner of foreign exchange behind mineral and cocoa exports.

The increase in visitor arrivals and spend can be attributed to the aggressive tourism marketing effort by democratically elected governments since 1992. Ghana Tourism (2008) states that even though there have been signifi cant gains in visitor numbers and increased visitor spend, there are some problematic areas that need immediate attention if Ghana’s tourism is to be sustainable. The areas identifi ed are: (i) poor infrastructure (bad road network, especially leading to tourist sites, inadequate supply of water and sewage system, electricity supplies in remote regions); (ii) inadequate positioning and targeting of Ghana’s tourism products in the marketplace; (iii) poor internal and external service quality delivery; and (iv) poor business relationships between the public and private sectors and lack of capital investment in the tourism industry.

In view of these problems, the Ghanaian government has initiated a 5-year Strategic Tourism Action Plan, which is to address the negative aspects of tourism development and growth in the country. The aim of the action plan is to hasten growth and make Ghana a serious competitor in Africa’s tourism destinations by providing high-quality products and services to tourists within the framework of respect for the Ghana’s cultural, historical and environmental heritage. The plan’s objectives include: (i) overall improvement of tourism infrastructure; (ii) train ing and manpower development; (iii) opening up investment avenues; and (iv) improving the tourism product and ensuring standards in facilities at tourist destinations (Ghana Tourism, 2008).

Fig. 6.1. Forms of alternative tourism.

Table 6.2. Broad categories of adventure tourism

Soft Hard

Noticeable growth Reduction of risk Packages

Aimed at broad market Tend towards mass

tourism

High-cost product Small market volume Require advanced or prior

skills

Greater individual risks

Adapted from Buckley, 2004.

Alternative tourism

Cultural/heritage Fair trade Science and

education Adventure Farm-based

Volunteer tourism

Nature tourism

Pro-poor tourism

Sustainable and Alternative Tourism 73

Adventure tourism

The Canadian Tourism Commission (1995;

cited in Newsome et al., 2002) has deﬁ ned adventure tourism as an outdoor leisure activity that takes place in an unusual, exotic, remote or wilderness destination, involves some form of unconventional means of transportation, and tends to be associated with low or high levels of activity. Muller and Cleaver (2000) posited that adventure tourism provides tourists with a relatively high level of sensory stimulation, which is usually achieved through a mixture of physically challenging experiential elements and typical tourist experiences.

Adventure tourism may be on a large (mass tourism safari), medium (rafting) or small (bird-watching) scale in terms of the intensity of the activity and number of tourist involved. There-fore, it may be justiﬁ able to conclude that the environmental sustainability of a given type of adventure tourism will depend on its position on the continuum. Despite this realization, most travel marketers often advertise their products as green irrespective of their position on the scale. This is discussed further in Chapter 11.

Agro-tourism (or agritourism)

Agro-tourism is a long-standing sector of the tourism industry and an important source of diversiﬁ cation for rural economy. This type of tourism makes use of local knowledge and facilities, which mostly are not primarily developed for tourism. It mainly derives its income from agriculture and agro-allied products, such as farming, ﬁ shing and forestry practices. It is sometimes referred to as farm-based tourism, although there has been debate about what constitutes these two or each type of tourism. Henderson (2009) submitted that farm tourism can be conceived as a vital constituent of agro-tourism as it relies on farm and farmers in its conceptualization.

While the main argument for the development of farm-based tourism has been economic, there has also been doubt about the extent of the positive economic contribution of this form of tourism (see Oppermann, 1996).

Volunteer tourism

This denotes the type of tourism where travellers, for various reasons, volunteer in an organized manner to undertake a holiday that may involve aiding or reducing material poverty of some group of people within a given society;

it may also involve restoration of certain environments or research into aspects of the society or the environment. It often takes place in developing countries and is linked to charitable organizations that recruit their volunteers from developed countries. This form of tourism may also be applicable to academia, for example those in the ﬁ eld of archaeology, history and medicine.

Pro-poor tourism

Pro-poor tourism (PPT) is not a specifi c product, but an approach to managing the industry in order to alleviate hardship and poverty for poor people, particularly those living in rural and developing areas and who are sometimes seen as ‘victims’ of tourism. The idea of PPT is to increase the positive impacts of tourism on poor people. It is an approach that aims to encourage the participation of poor people at many points in the industry. It also seeks to increase social benefi ts accruable from tourism to people who are otherwise deemed to not have had the opportunity to benefi t. Charitable organizations in countries in the eastern and southern parts of Africa (e.g. Kenya, Uganda, Namibia) are notable for programmes directed at encouraging PPT. Arguably, any form of tourism can be PPT insofar that the aim is to bring economic benefi t to ‘marginalized communities’. In essence, one may be tempted to ask the following questions:

what about environmental sustainability? What about sociocultural sustainability? What about intergenerational equity?

Fair-trade tourism

Like PPT, fair-trade tourism is not a product.

The aim of fair-trade tourism is to address

injustices associated with conventional trade in which poor producers suff er in the global market place. Fair trade is seen by many as another initiative that makes some contribution to the sustainability agenda while beneﬁ ting from improved image and potential tourism promotion.

The Fairtrade Foundation suggests ﬁ ve goals that have to be met in order to achieve

‘Fairtrade Town’ status. An example of a Fairtrade Town is Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, which is reputed to be the fi rst Fairtrade Town in the country. The fi ve goals can, for purpose of ease, be referred to as the fi ve Cs:

council, commerce, community, common consensus and captains. These goals in a broad sense relate to the following:

• The local council passes a resolution supporting fair trade and agreeing to serve fair-trade products in meetings, offi ces and cafeteria.

• A range of fair-trade products, at least two, is readily available in the area’s retail outlets and served in local catering establishments.

• Fair trade is supported by local workplaces and community organizations and fair-trade products are used whenever possible. A ﬂ ag-ship employer is a requirement for popula-tions over 100,000.

• Publicity and media coverage are managed to raise awareness and understanding of fair trade across the community.

• A local fair-trade steering group is inaugu-rated to ensure the Fairtrade Town campaign continues to develop and gain momentum.

Tourism planning models

The realization that every form of tourism brings with it some impacts emphasizes the need for a holistic system approach to assessing tourism impacts and managing the industry.

Despite the non-consensus among academics and practitioners on the deﬁ nitions of sustain-able tourism, the majority agree that eff ective planning is the way forward for tourism to be sustainable. Planning for tourism development at the inception of mass tourism in the 1950s was simplistic, with the sole focus on economic beneﬁ t. No doubt with the attendant impacts

associated with the type of development witnessed up to the late 1980s and early 1990s, tourism planning techniques evolved to address changes deemed undesirable and damaging.

Getz (1987) identiﬁ ed planning approaches with their underlining assumptions and view of tourism planning problems. The four broad categories that can be considered as staged development of tourism planning philosophy are as follows:

• Boosterism orientation sees tourism as inher-ently good and as such it should be devel-oped. The predominant view is that cultural and natural resources should be exploited.

• Industry orientation takes tourism as an industry in its own right, hence eff ort is expended on optimising income. This plan-ning orientation sees tourism as a means to create employment, earn foreign revenue, stimulate regional development and encour-age economic equality.

• Spatial orientation deﬁ nes development in environmental terms and eff ort is often concentrated on manipulating travel patterns and visitor ﬂ ow.

• Community orientation places emphasis on the role of community in the tourism experi-ence.

Further exploration of the individual tourism planning philosophy identiﬁ ed by Getz reveals weakness(es), which can be compensated by one or two other approaches. Hall (2000) suggested a ﬁ fth approach, which he termed an integrated approach, where social, environ-mental and economic, as well as cultural and political goals can be achieved.

Visitor management approaches Central to the philosophy of sustainable tourism is responsible resource use and this informs the basis of most approaches employed in managing visitors or visitors’ use of tourism resources.

Visitor management has been employed by various levels of agencies and organizations to control visitor ﬂ ows. Most visitor management approaches are associated with areas of natural beauty or the countryside, and concern for the

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