International Institute for Environment and Development 
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| International Institute for Environment and Development |
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Tourism Project Summary
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Theme: Good Governance for Sustainable Tourism Project: Policy Coherence Ensuring that tourism is carried out in a sustainable and responsible manner requires commitments and actions from all stakeholders: industry, government; local NGOs and other civil society organisations; consumers and donor agencies. Much attention has been focussed on the particular role of the tourism industry and significant steps have been taken – many tourism businesses have environmental policies and increasing numbers are taking up the challenges of corporate social responsibility. However, tourism businesses also claim there is only so much they can do and that it is the responsibility of the host country government to develop an appropriate policy and planning framework that encourages forms of tourism that contribute to sustainable development. Governments set the rules of the tourism game. A short study was conducted in 2003 to examine the extent to which tourism has been identified as a potential tool for local economic development in poverty reduction strategies. It also looked at national tourism policies the extent to which the objectives set out in these are consistent with the roles for tourism that the poverty reduction strategies identify. The study focussed on 95 developing countries including the LDCs and other developing countries for whom tourism had some degree of significance – either in terms of contribution to GDP, importance as an export, or volume of international tourists. The PRSPs were examined to identify firstly whether they mentioned tourism at all in the context of poverty reduction and secondly to see in what way they perceived it as contributing to this goal – for example simply as a tool for macro-economic growth, forex earnings and so on, or as an element of pro-poor growth. The national tourism policies, strategies and/or master plans of the same countries were then reviewed and their objectives compared with the vision set out for tourism in the PRSPs. View a summary of the results (PDF file 45k) Copyright © 2005 International Institute for Environment and Development. |
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