Question:
Discuss about the Tourism Planning for Regulations, Directives and Guidelines.
A blueprint that helps in providing focus and direction not only for a local tourism industry but also for the local businesses, community and the government may be referred to as a tourism plan. It may also be referred to as the mechanism that helps as a medium for the local communities to assist the accommodation of the various aspirations of a community. A tourism policy refers to the set of rules, regulations, directives, guidelines, and promotion or developmental strategies which provide the framework that is inclusive of all the individual and collective decisions that affect the development of tourism and the day-to-day activities within the particular destination (Robinson, Lück & Smith, 2013). There are several governmental institutions and bodies that formulate the tourism plans and policies.
Kaikoura is a small rural area situated on the eastern coast of the South Island of New Zealand (Berger, 2017). The place is well-known for its eco-tourism aspects. The main attraction of the place is the abundance of the marine life that find residence in the deep Hikurangi Trench situated nearby. The following report deals with the ways in which effective tourism planning may affect the local community in New Zealand. The report discusses the positive impacts of the booming eco-tourism industry in the area. It also sheds light on the negative impacts of the same and attempts at finding solutions for the reduction of these issues.
The socio-cultural impact refers to the changes in the daily experiences of the residents of an area and the changes of their ways of life, values, artistic and intellectual products. The socio-cultural impacts of tourism generally refer to the effects faced by the host community on being linked directly or indirectly with the tourists that visit the place. The host community is also affected by the interaction of the host community with the tourism industry of the concerned region (Sharpley, 2014). The host communities are often found to be the weaker party while interacting with the service providers or the guests. Impacts are found to be long lasting and prominent in cases when changes are brought about by the tourism industry in the value system of the host community thereby threatening the indigenous identity of the host community. The tourism industry has some positive outcomes as well. The industry fosters pride in the cultural traditions and serve as supporting drive towards the establishment of peace (Kim, Uysal, & Sirgy, 2013). The tourism industry helps in creating employment windows in the local communities and thus helps avoiding relocation to the urban areas (Stylidis et al, 2014; Spenceley, & Meyer, 2012).
The Kaikoura Peninsula stretches out into the sea in located at the southern part of the town. This results in the abundance of the marine life that can be accessed from the place. These marine life exists in the deep Hikurangi Trench. The town was primarily a center for the whaling industry and owes its very existence to the residence of these whales, the Hikurangi Trench. The word Kaikoura actually means the “meal of the crayfish”. The cray fish industry plays a huge role in maintaining the economy of the country. In the modern times, the area has transformed into a popular eco-tourism destination. The main attractions of the spot are swimming alongside or near the dolphins and whale watching (Media.newzealand.com, 2017). The tourists visit this place in order to watch the sperm whales, an activity which is possibly the most developed and the best in the world at the peninsula. There is yet another attraction that the tourists visit the place for. There is a readily observed and large colony of the southern fur seals found at the eastern edge of the Kaikoura town. During low tides, the rocky base is revealed from beneath the waves of the ocean. This stretch can be easily explored on foot for a considerable stretch.
The Kaikoura Peninsula is one of those places of the world that are reasonably accessible by the bird watchers as well. In this part of the country are found several sea birds such as the petrels, shearwaters and the albatrosses. The Hutton’s shearwater is also found nesting in the high mountains of Kaikoura (Whalewatch.co.nz, 2017). The place is well-known for a branch of the Southern Alps, the Seaward Kaikoura mountains. The mountain range are very close to the sea at this place thereby creating several walking tracks through and over the mountains. The most common of them is the Mt. Fyffe track. The track winds its way up to the Mt. Fyffe that provides a panoramic view of the peninsula of Kaikoura from atop. The mountain is named after the first family that had settled down in the district of Kaikoura. The cottage that the Fyffe family used as their residence is maintained till date by Heritage, New Zealand, a Crown entity that aims to protect the ancestral sites and heritage buildings of New Zealand. The house is famous for its structure. The supporting foundations of the house are constructed with whalebones.
Resting on a peninsular of land between tall mountain ranges and the Pacific Ocean, Kaikoura is an amazing attraction spot for tourism. The deep sea trench that extends inside by 500 meters, attracts rich marine life, including whales and dolphins. A town like Kaikoura, has extensive chances of profit in areas like tourism. Tourism in mountainous ranges, swimming with dolphins and such whale-watching activities have helped this town get its economic side up and balanced after the economic decline observed in 1980s.
There were quite a few reasons in favour of Kaikoura deciding for tourism for instance:
Tourism encourages interaction with people from various cultures. This helps in opening up prospective areas of trade and business opportunities. Such involvement is seen in the case of Kaikoura Tourism Strategy, the District Council worked in hand with the representatives of the local community and Lincoln University to guide the tourism direction there. This benefitted the local community as they shared employment in the related areas of such tourism. Councillors, tourism operators, Maori members as well as fishing industry representatives all converged together in their effort to direct tourism efficiently in Kaikoura (Unep.org, 2017).
This strategy worked by channelling in a diverse market base and developing land based eco-tourism activities. Secondly, instead of directly working on the tourism front, improvement from the tourism sector can also be achieved by regulating the environmental factors and improving the overall habitat of the place. Hence, as is evident, another plus point of tourism is furnished as the improvement of the environment of the local community. Thus as a result, the local community is benefitted.
Waste management had begun to become an issue for the people of Kaikoura as tourism was gradually increasing. Landfills were reaching its capacity and waste dumping was becoming an issue. In order to mitigate the situation Innovative Waste Kaikoura (IWK), a non-profit joint undertaking between the District council and a community trust came in to action. They proposed the idea of recycling bio solid waste instead of just collecting and dumping it (McDevitt, Langer & Leckie, 2013). This led to a 30 percent diversion of waste from landfills. Gradually this scored up to 65 per cent when aided by a few more effective measures such as investing into composting units, expanding recycling pick-ups, opening second-hand shops and introducing Waste Management Protocols which reduced waste accumulation and in turn saved money (United Nations Environment Programme. Division of Technology, 2005). This in turn aided the economic conditions and contributed towards growth of life standards of the local community of Kaikoura.
The activity of tree planting has been incorporated as the Trees for Travellers project, where the community ensures planting of some estimated two million trees to combat the CO2 levels (Kaikoura.co.nz, 2017). Thereafter tourists buy those tress, to track their progress via the internet. This project also undertakes a social aim of rehabilitating young law offenders with tree planting and propagation jobs. This shows that the local community is not only benefitted economically via the trade of trees with the tourists, but also socially, as the troubled youth of the town finds suitable employment in a prestigious work contributing to the wellness of the society. Overall energy consumption was reduced with the introduction of a small business energy project that was started with the support of District Council. This came into function as a result of managing tourism resources and thus minimizing energy usage to enhance economy of the state. This contributed towards the benefit of local community as well.
Although resident sperm whales are the main attraction here, other such whales include the humpback, minke, blue, fin, sei, killer, beaked and pilot whales. The humpback travels via Kaikoura on its annual journal to Antarctic waters for food. Hence biodiversity preservation and proper land and coastal management are of primary importance to sustain tourism. Various projects have been undertaken to ensure proper strengthening of biodiversity which includes native ways of the Maori, as well as preventing overfishing, and proper management of waterways, wetlands and other habitats. Introduction of Conservation working holidays, identification of national as well as international importance of local biodiversity and assistance for protection of such sperm whales via measures like rate reliefs, construction of reserves and private contracts along with other aforementioned projects like “Trees for Travellers”; all of these contributed to the conservation of natural habitat and biodiversity thus ensuring the flow and growth of tourism in the town. As a result of proper maintenance of the local flora and fauna the overall quality of the local ecosystem flourished thus enriching the local community.
Kaikoura had to establish the fact that it was fulfilling the required standards with respect to various management processes including various topics like energy usage; greenhouse gas emissions, quality of air and water, biodiversity levels etc. At the 2013 census, most developed employment industries in the Kaikoura District were accommodation and food services, agriculture, forestry and fishing and retail trade (Stats.govt.nz, 2017). The wellbeing of the local community was also such a topic to be measured via close examination of the local residents. Kaikoura’s final certification as a Green Globe destination in 2004, gave it the necessary exposure as a tourist spot internationally thus boosting its overall economic as well as socio-cultural conditions. This also helped in creating awareness and commitment to sustainability management amongst the entire community and the entire world at large. Thus tourism, in a way, helped achieve the local community goodwill on the national as well as international front.
Kaikoura has exhibited a sequential approach to make tourism sustainable by relying on commitment from both the local authority as well as the local community. At a national level the importance of such activities has been recognised thus uplifting the social strata of the Kaikoura people. Presently the government is providing proper support and funding work on sustainability with bands of individual tourism business ventures as well as local communities. The region is also being looked upon for drafting a charter with regional business corporations committing to its principles.
Marine animals inclusive of the endemic species like the Hector’s dolphin and the New Zealand sea lion as well as the endangered species like the bottlenose dolphin are found to be the main attraction of tourist operations. According to a study done to investigate the effects of commercial tourism and the water vehicles used for recreational purposes on the common dolphins in their natural habitat in the ocean, the behavior of the dolphins is found to be altered on a major level. The behavior of the dolphins during foraging was found to have undergone huge noticeable changes (Messiner et al, 2015; Lundquist, 2012). The dolphins were found spending less time in foraging during the interactions with the vessels. The creatures even took longer times to return once their foraging was disrupted by the recreational vessels. There is seen a potential disruption in the feeding aspects of the dolphins as well. The recreational vessels are mostly run on oil and chemicals. The leakage of such material may prove harmful to the ecosystem of the Kaikoura peninsula. Thus these vessels used for recreation and commercial tourism should be kept in check so as to maintain the fauna of the peninsula. The commercialization of the activity of whale watching may hamper the mortality of the whales due to collisions between the mammal and the vessels (Parsons, 2012).
Conclusion
In conclusion to the above report it may be said that the tourism industry affects the socio-cultural conditions of a region in both positive and negative manners. Tourism affects the local culture and may even turn them into commodities thus resulting in reconstructed ethnicity. The sites and objects that may be considered sacred by the host community may not be respected in the same manner by the tourists who visit the place. The craftsmen are seen to be catering to the demands of the tourists for the souvenirs thereby contributing to cultural erosion. Hence, as is evident from the aforementioned facts with respect to Kaikoura, tourism in general provides a lot of benefits to the indigenous people and the local community at large. Economic development is seen, as well as improvement on the socio-cultural front can also be observed which, although is supported by the cumulative efforts of quite a few governing bodies, but is essentially the outcome of tourism interests.
References
Berger, H. V. (2017). Characterising landscape and sea level dynamics to predict shoreline responses over the next 100+ years in a high energy tectonic setting, Kaikoura, New Zealand.
Kaikoura.co.nz. (2017). Environment – Kaikoura, New Zealand. Kaikoura, New Zealand. Retrieved 19 October 2017, from https://www.kaikoura.co.nz/environment/
Kim, K., Uysal, M., & Sirgy, M. J. (2013). How does tourism in a community impact the quality of life of community residents?. Tourism Management, 36, 527-540.
Lundquist, D. J. (2012). Behaviour and movement patterns of dusky dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obscurus) off Kaikoura, New Zealand: Effects of tourism (Doctoral dissertation, University of Otago).
McDevitt, J. E., Langer, E. R., & Leckie, A. C. (2013). Community Engagement and Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Kaik?ura’s Biosolid Reuse Options. Sustainability, 5(1), 242-255.
Media.newzealand.com. (2017). NZ eco-tourism: Whale Watch Kaikoura. TNZ Media. Retrieved 19 October 2017, from https://media.newzealand.com/en/story-ideas/nz-eco-tourism-whale-watch-kaikoura/
Meissner, A. M., Christiansen, F., Martinez, E., Pawley, M. D., Orams, M. B., & Stockin, K. A. (2015). Behavioural effects of tourism on oceanic common dolphins, Delphinus sp., in New Zealand: The effects of markov analysis variations and current tour operator compliance with regulations. PloS one, 10(1), e0116962.
Parsons, E. C. M. (2012). The negative impacts of whale-watching. Journal of Marine Biology, 2012.
Robinson, P., Lück, M., & Smith, S. (2013). Tourism policy and planning. Tourism, 391-416.
Sharpley, R. (2014). Host perceptions of tourism: A review of the research. Tourism Management, 42, 37-49.
Spenceley, A., & Meyer, D. (2012). Tourism and poverty reduction: Theory and practice in less economically developed countries. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 20(3), 297-317.
Spiller, C., & Bhowmick, S. (2014). Whale Watch Kaikoura–New Zealand. Global Entrepreneurship: Case Studies of Entrepreneurial Firms Operating Around the World, 141.
Stats.govt.nz. (2017). 2013 Census QuickStats about work and unpaid activities. Stats.govt.nz. Retrieved 19 October 2017, from https://www.stats.govt.nz/Census/2013-census/profile-and-summary-reports/quickstats-work-unpaid/work_and_labour_force_status.aspx
Stylidis, D., Biran, A., Sit, J., & Szivas, E. M. (2014). Residents’ support for tourism development: The role of residents’ place image and perceived tourism impacts. Tourism Management, 45, 260-274.
Unep.org. (2017). UN Environment Knowledge Repository. Unep.org. Retrieved 19 October 2017, from https://www.unep.org/publications/
United Nations Environment Programme. Division of Technology. (2005). Making tourism more sustainable: a guide for policy makers. World Tourism Organization Publications.
Whalewatch.co.nz. (2017). Whale Watch Kaikoura – New Zealand Tourist Attraction. Whale Watch. Retrieved 19 October 2017, from https://www.whalewatch.co.nz/
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