This is the first in a three-part series exploring ways communities are playing a greater role in planning and developing their tourism industries. Guest blogger Joe
Bly is a former documentary producer and writer, going beyond film and television
to tell stories of social and urban progress.
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| Community Tourism Planning in Hood River, Oregon, has benefited downtown through increased economic activity |
As we are arriving at a tourism
or vacation travel destination, what often goes by in a blur, at first, is the
community that surrounds it. Other
times, unique neighborhoods themselves are
the destination, and we’re alert to every nuance.
In either case, we eventually
leave with lasting impressions, whether we realize it or not, that are rooted
in the relationship between the attraction and the supporting community. Did we feel welcomed as visitors? Were the residents and the area benefitting
broadly from tourism, or was all the business captured by a single
attraction? Did we feel exploited by a
“tourist trap”, or did we go unnoticed, our getaway about being able to pretend
for a little while that we lived there ourselves? How do we feel about tourists in our own
town?
Increasingly, attention is being paid
to the relationship between the community and its tourism industry. Community Tourism Planning is a planning
approach that recognizes the contributions of the host community:
- Local residents are the owners, operators, and workers of the tourism base.
- Communities are the source of the culture or character that attracts visitors, the “flavor”.
- More than ever, residents are literally the hosts, using Airbnb or other means of private short term rental to physically host visitors in their own homes.
Therefore, Community Tourism
Planning, or Community Tourism Development, encourages greater input and
determination from a community in the strategic planning of local and regional tourism,
in order to:
- Ensure that tourism plans are aligned with overall community values and goals.
- Create a collaborative partnership between residents, businesses, resources, and planning authorities.
- Work with communities to balance the positive and negative effects of tourism
- Ensure that the whole community is the ultimate beneficiary of sustainable tourism activity.
Municipal governments, visitors
bureaus, and tourism development groups find that communities involved in
planning remain active participants and are also supportive of initiatives,
regulations, or changes to policy needed to pursue the collective mission. As tourism becomes more diverse in its
offerings, spread out geographically, and democratized by attractions and
visitors interacting on social media, community tourism planning will be a way
for planning authorities to continue to provide leadership and coordinate their
goals.
The University of Minnesota
Extension has created a community tourism development project that publishes
resource material articulating guidance particularly well.
In many ways, the process is similar
to other kinds of cultural or business development assessment and
planning. The quality of community
engagement is the key factor to success.
Inventory – The Community Identifies its Tourism Assets
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| Hood River Fruit Loop Map |
The Hood River Valley of Oregon
has long been a center of apple, pear, and cherry farming. It is also situated in the scenic Columbia
River Gorge. When the area’s
agribusiness base began to fade in the 1990s, communities focused on what they
felt were their two most valuable assets:
local food products and scenic environs.
From this inventory, Hood River County growers associations and state
development grants created a wildly successful agritourism zone known as The
Fruit Loop. The Fruit Loop is now a 35
mile road route guiding visitors to farms, farm stands, and wineries of the
Columbia River Gorge. The Hood River
Chamber of Commerce Visitor Council publishes maps and coordinates a calendar
of events to bring tourists to harvest and blossom festivals year-round. In 2014, approximately 125,000 visitors spent
almost $88 million dollars in this rural county. The Fruit Loop has become a model for
inclusive and sustainable food tourism because its development is anchored in
what the community believes it does best (http://hoodriverfruitloop.com/)
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| Mt. View's Fruit Stand, open each harvest season from July through November, is the not-so-hidden treasure of the Hood River County Fruit Loop |
Participants - Harness Community Initiative and Identity
Washington D.C.’s Neighborhood
Heritage Trails are official walking tours of the District’s historic
neighborhoods, illuminated with historical markers, signs, photographs, and
audio tour guides. Cultural Tourism DC
is the nonprofit group that coordinates the funding and technical assistance to
implement the tour routes – but the historic themes, research, and planning are
articulated and conducted by the neighborhoods themselves. Prospective communities submit proposals for
routes and points of interest. If
selected by Cultural Tourism DC’s committee, they receive funding to organize
and conduct their own historical research and receive guidance in assessing and
developing the neighborhood’s capacity to support a permanent tour offering
(transportation, available public restrooms, businesses on the route are
informed and can answer questions).
Enticing visitors to explore, eat, and shop “beyond the monuments”, the
tours become economic boons to neighborhoods further away from D.C.’s most
iconic landmarks. But the benefits also
go beyond financial. Supporting
communities in their own heritage tourism development stimulates a
conversation, taps the knowledge and memory of life-long residents, and fosters
a sense of neighborhood identity. The
program now boasts 17 distinct heritage trails on historic themes from art
history to civil rights (http://www.culturaltourismdc.org/portal/neighborhood-heritage-trails).
Knowledge partner case studies of
developing neighborhood cultural tourism include:
Future posts in this series will
take a closer look at issues related to community tourism planning.
Community Based Tourism: CBT is a
tourism development model that relies entirely on the host residents and
resources where little or no tourism infrastructure or authority exists. At the moment, this kind of thinking is
applied to very poor or isolated communities possessing a unique attraction,
like a village in Tanzania that hosts wildlife tours. Couldn’t these same principles be applied to
any locale here in the U.S. with a natural or cultural attraction, but few
resources to develop them?
Airbnb as economic development plan:
Platforms
that facilitate short term rental make any property owner a participant in
their local tourism industry. Municipal
governments across the country are responding largely with regulations and
restrictions on private short term rentals.
Is there a municipality doing the opposite – embracing, supporting, or
even helping coordinate short term rental as part of economic and tourism
development?
These and other stories from
where the rubber meets the road, or the comfortable street shoe meets the
walking tour.
joe bly
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