INTER-REGIONAL WORKSHOP
ON THE PREPARATION OF A REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM PLAN (RESTP)
Preparing a Regional Tourism
Plan:
A Vision for Sustainable Tourism Development
in Europe
Chester Town Hall
9th February 2001
The Event
The workshop on the preparation
of the Regional Environmental Sustainable Tourism
Plan was the first Inter-regional Workshop to
be held under the ECOSERT project. The event
brought together a wide range of experts notably
those in the field of tourism planning and marketing,
regional planning, cultural heritage and environmental
protection. It was held on 9 February 2001 at
the Council Chambers of Chester Town Hall.
The Aim
The overall aim of the workshop
was to discuss the approach, methodology and
principal components of the RESTP and to engage
discussion and gather the opinion on the merits
of the methodology as an innovative tool to
plan tourism at a regional level to promote
balanced and environmentally sustainable development.
The workshop also discussed opportunities for
introducing such a tool as part of mainstream
regional and tourism planning.
Overall Conclusions
In general the approach, methodology
and principal components of the RESTP were endorsed
as an innovative means to apply a spatial element
to the planning of tourism and to integrate
such planning with relevant disciplines including
land use planning, environmental sustainability
and promotion of eco-cultural assets. The plan
was seen as a necessary first step to initiate
spatial planning of this important resource
which would complement many initiatives being
pursued by both national Governments and the
European Commission.
Notwithstanding certain features
of the plan were considered to require additional
attention, which can be either incorporated
or highlighted as part of ECOSERT or subsequently
refined as part of the on-going process of refinement
of the RESTP methodology.
It was considered that the RESTP
methodology did not include robust methods to
assess the demand for tourism in the sub-regions.
This is partly explained by the fact that the
RESTP methodology represents a 'bottom up approach'
that seeks, in the case of the partner regions,
to diversify the tourism base of their respective
regions and to increase the Average Length of
Stay of tourists already visiting. Nevertheless,
for future similar plans covering regions with
different tourism potential, the RESTP methodology
should perhaps incorporate greater emphasis
on tourism demand and forecasting.
There was a general feeling that
players and potential beneficiaries within the
tourism industry should be more involved in
the project. This was due to a lack of interest
in the RESTP methodology, perhaps because actors
in the industry did not fully realise the potential
of planning tourism over a wider geographical
area and longer time horizon of 20 years. More
effort to involve the private sector within
the tourism industry should be made, perhaps
by specially targeting such actors as part of
ECOSERT's promotional activities. This could
include examining new methods to introduce incentives
to the private sector. It was also considered
that the net economic benefits should be better
demonstrated in order to integrate tourism more
effectively with regional planning. This could
involve greater use of stakeholder procedures
in the planning of tourism projects.
There was a common consensus that
the use of indicators to measure sustainability,
and in particular carrying capacity, was subject
to a variety of research and (sometimes contrasting)
approaches. In general an agreed set of indicators
for measuring carrying capacity over a wide
geographical area was not widely available although
current research, notably by the European Commission,
was seeking to derive common methods. In the
absence of these, it was concluded that carrying
capacity would be assessed at a wider spatial
level in qualitative terms (drawing on specialist
local knowledge or past research into specific
areas) and in quantitative terms at site level
(i.e. including possible action areas). The
methodology is expressed in the RESTP Guidelines.
It was deduced that as England
has no spatial tourism plan and regional policy
does not involve tourism development at a spatial
level, the integration of RESTPs in UK would
best be attained at sub-regional or local level.
Sophisticated land use planning controls at
local level can ensure that site-specific tourism
recommendations under RESTP can be successfully
incorporated. Meanwhile the RESTP can draw some
commonality with the initiatives being developed
under PPG 11 and Government's policies for sustainable
tourism at regional and local level as set out
in the tourism strategy document, "Tomorrow's
Tourism", as well as the national planning
advice contained in PPG21. In other partner
regions, sub-regional planning tools exist in
Italy and Greece that could accommodate RESTP
Recommendations.
Innovative ideas for the RESTP
included the suggestion of using GIS as a consultation
tool. Such a procedure could be explored when
the draft RESTPs are produced at the end of
Stage 2 of ECOSERT and evaluated in Stage 3
of the project.
The issue of consensus building,
as opposed to more traditional measures of public
consultation, was a useful consideration, which
could be included within any future refinement
of RESTP. Indeed flexibility to use this type
of public consultation as an alternative to
those procedures selected in ECOSERT could be
introduced in the overall methodology, at the
discretion of public authorities undertaking
the plan and pending the proven benefits of
these methods in member states.
The terminology of the RESTP
was discussed. Although the guidelines describe
it as a 'subject plan', such as term was considered
to be more usually associated with the planning
of mineral extraction as a supporting policy
to regional plans. Although 'sectoral plan'
was suggested as a definition, this would devalue
the objective of the RESTP as a multi-disciplinary
plan bringing tourism planning together with
other relevant policies on the environment,
land use, transport and cultural heritage. Following
post meeting discussion the RESTP was referred
to as a sub-regional cross-sectoral plan which
could initially act as a stand alone document
which should to be consulted by local plans
and/or, (where appropriate) sub-regional and
regional plans. |
