Expert calls for sustainable tourism development

Expert calls for sustainable tourism development

YOGYAKARTA (JP): An expert of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has called upon
those involved in tourism to apply the concept of sustainable
tourism development to halt any damage caused by the tourist
industry.

Beatrice Kaldun, consultant for culture at the office of the
UNESCO regional advisor for culture in Asia and the Pacific,
unveiled here on Tuesday the results of a recent survey of
conservation problems at World Heritage sites.

"The recent survey of conservation problems at World Heritage
sites reveals clearly how damaging tourism can be to the
heritage, the environment and to the local communities who live
near the sites," she said.

She was speaking at a tourism symposium being held in
conjunction with East Asia Inter-regional Tourism Forum (EATOF)
meeting that took place in Yogyakarta from Sept. 9 to Sept. 11.

Representatives from eight provinces in the region, comprising
Gangwon (Korea), Cebu (Philippines), Tuv Aimag (Mongolia),
ChiangMai (Thailand), Tottori Prefecture (Japan), Jilin (China),
Yogyakarta (Indonesia) and Sarawak (Malaysia), attended the
symposium.

According to Kaldun, the survey also revealed that a policy
that blindly pursues rapid growth in tourist numbers contained
two main fallacies.

"First, the impact of increased tourism activities and the
pressure it puts on the sites, the people of local communities,
and the surrounding environment, can create an irreversible
downward spiral which degrades the heritage values of some of the
sites to the point where the site ceases to be valuable as a
tourism resource and where further increases in tourist numbers
have ever-diminishing returns," she said.

"The second," she added, "the increasing profits made by the
tourism industry (private sector and government) are not being
used to redress the imbalance between visitor servicing and
heritage conservation."

She said such a problem was exacerbated because policy
planners and tourism developers alike had overlooked the reality
that increased visitor numbers required increased site
maintenance, infrastructure and personnel.

She warned tourism stakeholders that tourism also placed some
vulnerable members of communities at risk.

"Experience throughout Asia and the Pacific, as well as
elsewhere in the world, has also shown that the rapid and
unregulated growth of tourism has been responsible for serious
social dislocations including ruthless land expropriation from
ethnic minorities," she said.

"The cultural heritage of Asia and the Pacific may be exotic
and seductive attractions for both foreign and domestic tourists,
but there are limits. The demise (of the sites) will mean not
only loss of some of the most sacred and spectacular, historic
and scientifically important places on earth. It will also mean
the end of the tourist industry based on theses cultural and
natural resources. We are in grave danger of loving our heritage
to death," said Kaldun.

According to her, tourism stakeholders must be aware that
present rate growth (as applied in tourism) is unsustainable.

"Applied to tourism, sustainable tourism development means
recognizing the benefits of tourism growth and also recognizing
that sustaining the benefits of this growth will ultimately
depend on the ability to preserve over time the very things which
attract the tourists and respecting the very communities and
cultural landscapes that play host to the tourists," she said.

"We have to engender a paradigm shift in the tourism industry
itself, transforming tourism from an industry which merely
exploits into an industry whose ultimate purpose and goal is the
preservation of the heritage," she added. (23)