Balancing The Benefits Of Tourism With Impact On Community Needs

Description: Tourism management can be closely related to many of the known benefits of providing public leisure amenities and programs. Many communities desire the funds that come from bringing in visitors, but also need to consider how the local residents will react to visitors and the impacts they may have on usage and local resources. This session discusses some successful methods for identifying the amenities in your community that may be prime tourism draws, the integration of tourism with parks and recreation, along with strategies to evaluate and communicate benefits to local taxpayers and decision makers, and minimize negative results. Needs Identification: Many communities need the funds that come from bringing in visitors, but are not sure how to go about it. Still others forget to consider how the local residents will react to visitors, and the impacts they may have. This session provides case study examples and strategies to help manage both the expectations and the results, along with measurement of impacts for local communities. Methods: A variety of qualitative and quantitative methods have been adapted to local community planning, and these are now being used specifically to address tourism and impacts on community development. Some methods include previous document review, community engagement strategies, inventory and level of service analysis, systems analysis, key issues analysis matrices, and consensus building with the public, key stakeholders, and decision makers. A summary of key recommended methods will be provided. Conclusions and Management Implications: This is a strong need to provide systemwide analysis when planning for public leisure management and assets, especially when tourism amenities may be considered. The studies indicate that there are a variety of innovative planning tools, such as component-based methods for inventory and level of service analysis, geo-spatial layering and planning tools and strategic service assessment methods that can be integrated in community planning. This session includes results from the latest research on determining health impacts of amenities, along with case study results for balancing economic with social, physical, and environmental aspects. Examples will be provided from planning for a variety of coastal and other high traffic tourism destinations in the U.S. Learning. Objectives: • Identify the various types of tourism approaches, and how they impact local agencies; • Describe the tools available to help forecast and measure tourism impacts; • Learn strategies that will help minimize negative impacts and maximize positive outcomes for the community as a whole.