Using tourism to build social capital in communities : New pathways to sustainable tourism futures

Abstract

Despite considerable discussion about how tourism could or should contribute to sustainable destination development, there is little evidence that the practice of tourism planning or development has altered in any significant way in the last 30 years. This paper will report on an action research project aimed at identifying and applying new approaches to using tourism effectively as a strategy for sustainable development in destination communities. The research reported in this paper adopted a community capitals approach to sustainable destination development and explored the links between features of tourism development and impacts on the social capital available to destination communities. The study was based on a workshop conducted with sixteen regional tourism development officers that used a variety of techniques, including a futures wheel exercise, to identify the relationships between aspects of tourism development and both positive and negative impacts on social capital. The results of the workshop highlighted the importance of effective local resident engagement in tourism planning and activity and suggested several new dimensions of tourism planning for further exploration and development. These included the need for tourism leaders to take on a broader responsibility for community development, the need for tourism take a more social entrepreneurial role in destination communities and the need to find different models for local and regional tourism organisations.