Community Participation in Tourism Planning and Development

Community participation (CP) is a vital component of sustainable tourism development and is advocated as a means to achieve both planning-oriented and community-oriented objectives. This chapter reviews critical issues in CP and its link with local residents’ quality-of-life while discussing pathways and pitfalls in the effective implementation of CP. Based on previous studies and past community participation initiatives, the chapter outlines recommendations for the successful integration of CP in tourism planning, including the need to match the proper CP techniques to the CP objectives. One of the important conclusions of the chapter is that despite the potential of CP in securing the interests of local residents, as well as in supporting tourism development projects, CP might not be the recommended course of action in all cases and should be carefully planned and adjusted to specific destinations, communities, and circumstances. The chapter also includes suggestions for future research on CP in tourism planning and development, including the need to develop comprehensive indicators for measuring the effectiveness of CP programs, which will evaluate both the outcomes of the CP programs, as well as the CP process itself. The need to explore the prospects of Internet-based CP in future programs is also discussed

An exploration of links between levels of tourism development and impacts on the social facet of residents’ quality of life

Konovalov, E ORCiD: 0000-0002-4055-7212Tourism is often recognized as having significant impacts on the quality of life (QOL) of the people who live and work in tourism destinations. Despite an extensive body of literature on tourism impacts, very little research has focused detailed attention on tourism and the social dimensions of residents’ QOL. The available evidence in this area suggests that social impacts of tourism are related to the level and type of tourism development at a destination. This chapter will explore these proposed linkages by comparing three regional Australian destinations with different levels and styles of tourism on a series of measures of residents’ QOL. The investigation of social impacts of tourism at the study locations was carried out in 2013–2014 and consisted of two components – an analysis of available relevant secondary data and a survey of residents. Consistent with previous research, a higher scale of tourism development was linked to increased crime, reduced volunteering and perceived influence over community development, and more/better community services. However, the results did not demonstrate a higher emotional connection to place, community pride, and needs fulfilment that are commonly assigned to benefits of tourism development. The chapter describes the complex pattern of results that emerged from the analyses before discussing the implications of these for further research and theoretical development in understanding the social impacts of tourism

The Tourist Area Life Cycle (TALC) and Its Effect on the Quality-of-Life (QOL) of Destination Community

This chapter examines the connection between tourism area life cycle (TALC) and its effects on the quality-of-life (QOL) of destination communities. We posit that as destinations go through structural changes over time, the extent to which the dynamics of change affect the QOL of the resident community varies with the stages of the life cycle. The chapter consists of four major sections. After a brief introduction, the first section presents the concept of TALC and describes the development phases and the indicators that help understand tourism area development. The second section provides a brief discussion on the impact of tourism on the community in relation to TALC, which is then followed by the third section which focuses on the adjustment to change and maintaining the QOL of the community. Section four reviews related literature to support the relation between TALC and QOL of communities. The chapter ends with delineating critical issues for future research, outlining some of the difficulties moving forward, and formulating relevant policy implications that may help the researchers and destination management organizations to further examine the issues that may surround TALC and QOL connections