Tourism and Local Economic Development by Emeritus Professor Harold Goodwin discusses how tourism can be used to improve communities rather than just exploit them. The summary is: 1. Tourism should be used to improve places for residents to live rather than just cater to visitors. 2. Responsible tourism minimizes negative impacts, generates local benefits, and involves communities in decisions affecting them. 3. Unique local characteristics and culture give destinations competitive advantages and help attract visitors interested in authentic experiences.

1. Tourism and
Local Economic Development
Emeritus Professor Harold Goodwin
WTM Responsible Tourism Advisor
Director Institute of Place Management at
Manchester Metropolitan University &
Director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership
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2. • The fundamental question that should be
asked is
Will our village, town, city or region be used
by tourism or shall we use tourism to make a
better place for us to live in?
harold@haroldgoodwin.info 2

3. Menu……..
1. Tourism
2. Responsibility
3. Responsible Tourism
4. Local Economic Development
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4. TOURISM
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5. What about putting something back?
“Take only
photographs,
leave only
footprints”

6. Sir Colin Marshall,
British Airways 1994
Tourism and the travel industry “is
essentially the renting out for short-
term lets, of other people’s
environments, whether that is a
coastline, a city, a mountain range or a
rainforest. These ‘products’ must be
kept fresh and unsullied not just for the
next day, but for every tomorrow”

7. Our holidays their homes
Tourism in unusual in
that consumers travel to
the point of production
(the factory) to consume
the product.
Opportunities for
additional sales of goods
and services:
Complementary product

8. Culture & Tourism
“Your everyday
life is someone
else’s
adventure”
Swedish NGO fly-posting in
Ljubljana, Summer 1997

9. Tourism is a social construct
• Tourism is what we –
consumers and
producers make it.
• We can change it.
• “every individual tourist
builds up or destroys
human values while
travelling.”
• “rebellious tourists and
rebellious locals”
• “Orders and
prohibitions will not do
the job – because it is
not a bad conscience
that we need to make
progress but positive
experience, not the
feeling of compulsion
but that of
responsibility.”
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Jost Krippendorf

10. RESPONSIBILITY
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11. Why Responsible?
Accountability
Actions and consequences can be
attributed to individuals or legal
entities, who can be held
accountable, and legally they are
liable.
Respons-ability
Individuals and organisations are
expected to respond and to make
a difference. This requires
partnerships, a plurality of
relationships, learning, praxis,
and critical reflection.
The Ostrich problem
• They’ll sort something out

12. Why Responsibility?
• to respond, to act,
• responsibility implies and requires action.
• critical to creating change is acknowledging
and owning up to problems, and taking
responsibility for making changes.
• Responsibility is free – you can take as much
of it as you can handle

13. • 責任を取る is to take responsibility (actively)
• 責任を負う is to bear responsibility (with a
negative, burdensome connotation)
• 責任を持つ is to carry responsibility (more
neutral than bearing responsibility)
• 責任がある is to have responsibility (objective
fact of having an obligation, e.g. legally)
• 君は本当に無責任だな You really have no sense
of responsibility.
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14. The antonym is Irresponsible
Two primary meanings
• Unreliable, untrustworthy,
unlikely to be held to
account or mentally or
financially unfit to be held
accountable
• Lacking a sense of
responsibility, akin to
carefreeness the trait of
being without worry or
responsibility
Manchester Metropolitan University. Centre for Responsible Tourism MMU
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15. RESPONSIBLE TOURISM
An attitude of mind..
harold@haroldgoodwin.info 15

16. “Sustainable and Responsible”
• Sustainable Tourism and Responsible Tourism
are not the same thing
• Responsible Tourism is about taking
responsibility for achieving sustainable
development through tourism.

17. Tour Operator Inbound Operator Hotelier/
Accommodation
Local/
National
Government
Attraction
Managers
National Parks/
Heritage
Local
Community
Tourists
Travellers
Holidaymakers
Taking and Exercising Responsibility
Economic, Social & Environmental
Principle of Sustainablity
WTO Global Code of Ethics
Taking responsibility
You cannot outsource responsibility ..
Whose responsibility? Everyone’s
Nobody’s

18. Responsible Travel takes a variety of forms, it is
characterised by travel and tourism which
1. minimises negative environmental, social and
cultural impacts;
2. generates greater economic benefits for local
people and enhances the wellbeing of host
communities, by improving working conditions
and access to the industry;
3. involves local people in decisions that affect their
lives and life chances.
Cape Town Declaration 2002

19. Better places for people to live in,
better places for people to visit
4. makes positive contributions to the conservation of
natural and cultural heritage and to the maintenance
of the world’s diversity;
5. provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists
through more meaningful connections with local
people, and a greater understanding of local cultural
and environmental issues;
6. provides access for people with disabilities and socially
disadvantaged people; and
7. is culturally sensitive and engenders respect between
tourists and hosts.

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What’s in
• EFM is becoming more important than VFM
• Experience for money vs. value for money
• We are seeing experience inflation
• Brits once thought Florida was a big adventure
• Now they want to visit Orangutans in Borneo or dive the Barrier reef

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Responsible
Responsible tourism
More authentic experiences
that create better places
to live in and to visit
Tourism is a cultural process.
Memories of a place are jointly produced by the tourists, the locals and the place –
the physical space and the human activity that takes place there.
“the destination of the tourist and the inhabited landscape of local culture are …
inseparable” Ringer (1998)

22. LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
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23. Successful tourist destinations
• offer the visitor something
unique
• they create a sense of place, an
identity which is different from
their competitors….
• no two communities are ever
exactly the same…
Numbers => yield
Seasonality & extending length of stay

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Resource Uniqueness
“Generally, the less unique a destination or
the weaker its sense of place, the harder it
will be both to draw people in and compete
in the tourism market place. Indeed, if
every tourism destination offered virtually
the same set of [experiences] tourism
would become somewhat meaningless.”
Godfrey & Clarke The Tourism Development Handbook

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Destinations are cultural landscapes
• A place has a topography, buildings and
managed land – it also embodies meanings.
• Residents and visitors find meaning in the
experience.
• Memories are co-created by locals and
guests, by residents and visitors.

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28. Stories & Meaning
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30. SUCCESS = COMPETITIVE
ADVANTAGE + SUSTAINABILITY
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31. Local Economic Development
• Extent of linkages to the local economy – the
more the better.
• Who benefits?
• Community, local elite, national elite, source
market businesses
• Tourism as an additional livelihood strategy?
• Dangers of dependency?
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32. It is not tourism until it is sold
• Transport to and in the
destination
• Accommodation
• Food and drink
• Attractions
• Crafts, souvenirs…
• Purchased locally, mail
order or in city shops.
• Ownership
• Supplementary
livelihood
• Employment – local?
• Tourism services –
local?
• Young people
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33. Eat the view
Improve the market for
products which:
• come from forms of land management
which enhance or protect an area’s
distinctive landscape, wildlife, and historic
features and which help conserve soil and
water resources
• strengthen the sense of place of the area
in which they are produced and in doing
so provide an opportunity for the farmer
to ‘add value’ to the product
1. Consumer awareness of the link
2. Increase demand for distinctive local
products
3. Enhance market opportunities
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Shoreditch
Tanzanian “Fair Trade” coffee sold in
Dutch supermarkets

40. ‘Overtourism’

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http://haroldgoodwin.info/links/