Environmental planning policies and principles have evolved which have a
wide application in tourism, although they are not necessarily applicable to
all areas. Some basic policies at the national and regional levels are as
follows:
1 Develop tourism in a carefully planned and controlled manner and,
where warranted, establish an upper limit on growth, as Bhutan has done,
at least for certain time periods.
2 To use tourism as a means for environmental conservation and to help
justify and pay for conservation of places, and for maintenance of overall
environmental quality, e.g. the Borobudur Complex, Java, Indonesia;
National Parks, USA.
3 To use selective marketing techniques to attract environmentally-oriented
tourists who respect the environment and are conservation minded in
using it, e.g. viewing mountain gorillas, in Rwanda.
4 Maintain a moderate rate of tourism growth to allow sufficient time to
plan and develop the area, and to monitor environmental impacts (and
also give residents time to adapt if this is a new activity in the area), e.g.
the Seychelles has limited expansion of hotel room numbers.
5 Concentrate tourist facilities in certain areas (often in the form of resorts),
to allow for the efficient provision of infrastructure, thus reducing the
possibility of pollution and providing the opportunity for integrated landuse planning and application of development controls, to contain any
negative environmental impacts. The concentration approach is especially
applicable in large-scale mass tourism areas, e.g. Nusa Dua complex, Bali,
Indonesia.
6 Phase development so that when one area (or tourist attraction) becomes
saturated a new area can be developed to distribute tourists better, e.g.
resort development in the Maldives.
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7 Use various techniques to reduce seasonal peak use of facilities and
attractions when saturation levels are exceeded, e.g. peak pricing policies
in Caribbean islands.
8 Consider alternative tourism development strategies, such as:
(a) quality tourism which implies highly controlled development and
selective marketing attracting affluent tourists with high expenditure
patterns, e.g. Bermuda
(b) special interest tourism which requires limited specific infrastructure
and is selectively marketed to relatively small numbers of tourists, e.g.
marine diving, nature safaris; cultural tours; e.g. ‘walking safaris’,
Zambia
(c) village tourism which involves development of small-scale facilities
and services located in or near villages, owned and operated by the
villagers, and catering for a specialized market who want to experience
village life, e.g. original development of village tourism in Senegal
(d) farm or ranch tourism with tourists staying on the farm or ranch and
engaging in local activities, e.g. game ranches, Namibia; farm holidays
in the UK
(e) home visit/professional exchange tourism with tourists staying with
local families and persons with similar professional interests, e.g.
home-stay programmes, Jamaica.