Strategic Planning For Tourism: Importance, Principles, And Approaches Essay. (70 Characters)

Examine the benefits of producing tourism strategic plans and give an example of a destination that has benefited from it. Evaluate at least one planning approach (i.e Economic, Spatial/Physical, Collaborative, Community based Approach, Co-operative approach etc.) for tourism development and illustrate your evaluation with an example of where this planning approach has been implemented. Discuss the pros and cons of this approach.  

The Importance of Strategic Planning for Tourism

Tourism is one of the sectors that contribute a lot to the economy of every nation. In some countries, it the most considered and respected industry that the statute relies on as far as economic development is concerned. Therefore, it needs to be given priority. Tourism and leisure go hand in hand, the two cannot be separated, and they are becoming mobile all over the world. Due to the number of visitors and the significant role that tourism plays, it requires a proper and suitable strategic planning to ensure that its potential is realized and used to the maximum for better revenues to the nation (Canavan, 2015). It is the driving wheel of the economy in most of the European nations since they are giving priorities to the non-industrial activities. This, therefore, means that they need to be competitive enough to attract more and more tourist. The success will depend on the type of strategic planning used.

Based on the example of a destination that will be used, when the value of the resources, as well as the standard of living,  begin to decline, strategic planning for the improvement ought to be initiated for these areas to be competitive and much the level where other areas have reached.

The process of defining a strategy, course, making decisions on distributing the resources to follow the specific strategy by an organization is what can be referred to as strategic planning. Similarly, it can also expand to manage methods for guiding the execution and accomplishment of the strategy. The strategy is the willpower of the fundamental durable objectives and goals of an organization or business, besides the approval of plans as well as the distribution of resources required for the purpose of accomplishing these objectives (Lyhne, 2011). Therefore, strategic planning becomes the process of developing the approaches to accomplish the defined goal. Strategic planning in the tourism sector is not only crucial for attracting tourists, developers, and investors but also it is for socially, environmentally and economically developing these tourists’ attraction locations. In most cases, governments of different nations are responsible for the task of creating effective strategic planning. However, as pointed out earlier, the focus is on a coastal area, Clacton-on-Sea.

Having known what planning is all about, it is important also to get to know and understand comprehensively what it means by tourism. Knowing what it entails helps a lot in deciding what type of strategic plan to develop and implement. Tourism is a very common term that many people associate with leisure and traveling. Deeply, it means a temporary movement of individuals to places outside their usual residential areas or workplaces; the events made to supply or satisfy their needs, as well as the activities, did throughout their stay in various destinations of their visits. The priority that every nation gives tourism sector is a clear indication that it is among the biggest sectors in the international scale. Why is tourism important? From the foreign exchange earning associated with the sector, it is precisely that it is a source of both economic and non-economic benefit to any specific nation across the globe. In economic development, the benefits are directly; also it is connected with the formation of new opportunities thus reducing the level of joblessness, the motivation of manufacture of products and services to be used by visitors and other people. On the other hand, there are also non-economic advantages such as enhancing of artistic interactions, increasing knowledge level, and easing of communiqué. 

Principles of Tourism Planning

Currently, tourism has developed into more aggressive than yet before, and as a result, the significance of strategic planning is superior and more significant than it has been in the past. The major tourism’s business endeavor connects to the accomplishment of enough stability linking the welfare of unrestricted/public and personal segments.

Planning for tourism has three general principles that can be particular and grouped as regulation, expectation, and supervising. Predicting issues concerning the expectations condition of the sector on the foundation of applicable minor and most important statistics is what anticipation entails (Hudson et al., 2017, p. 49). Secondly, regulation comes in as it shall be used to control both tourists and organizations involved directly or indirect way. Monitoring in this situation connects the gathering of information with the plans of evaluating the operation of tourism sector. Governments’ intervention into tourism sector means more of policy-making which is different from planning. Policy plays an important role in planning which marks the governments’ intervention while planning is connected with a specific action plan.

Great intensity of significance of plan in the tourism business is directly connected to its sustainability. Therefore, it is significant for strategists and other concerned parties in the tourism sector to formulate decisions, to build up and execute plans in a way that development is obtained advantageously to both, tourists, and, host areas in enduring point of view. As per Moutinho (2011), SCEPTICAL evaluation ought to be used in the process of formulating and implementing strategic planning.

 On the other hand, tourism is also affected by various factors such as urbanization tendencies, demographic transformations, and others. Again, cultural factors are linked with changes in principles in societies, the surfacing of worldwide culture, and position or attitude of people towards expenditure (Carvalho et al., 2018). The effects of monetary features on tourism development are understandable; furthermore, they share to the position of the general economy, trade tariff, the intensity of revenue of clients and other associated positions.

Methodological and physical aspects in tourism planning are connected to environmental and technical features of tourism in that order. In addition, global factors also do have inferences on tourism’s strategic planning, and they mainly connect to travel permit and other allied matters. The last categories of issues affecting tourism are effects of administrative, institutional, legal and political factors. Both regulatory and institutional can be described by referring to law enforcement agencies, tourism societies, and consumers.

Approaches to Tourism Planning

There are various samples of destinations of tourism across the world that has been negatively affected ahead by tourism development. The adverse effects have been contributed by lack of enough or non-existent planning structures for tourism development. Just like it is mentioned in the introduction, it has been believed and advocated that tourism is important to counterbalance to some of the unenthusiastic effects that tourism may have on the destination society. Numerous approaches have been suggested for quite a long time, tourism planning established on the values of sustainability has come out as one of the most acknowledged approaches. On the other hand, the sustainable strategy to tourism planning holds on two crucial limitations: first of all, an improved level of multiple stakeholder contributions in the tourism planning procedure is required; secondly, a call for a strategic course towards tourism planning.

Since the main focus is Clacton-on-Sea destination, the destination will receive lots of benefits if it is developed with good strategic planning. These benefits are:

•    Due to increased joblessness in the area, there is little demand for tourism and travel thus low regional economy in the Clacton-on-Sea. A poor economy is both long-term and short-term effect to the tourism industry. However, if the strategic planning is developed and executed, in that case, the issue can be solved in the quickest way possible. The world tourism report shows that the yearly average growth rate for the UK in international tourists’ arrival from the 1950s to 2005 is 6.5%. Consequently, if the prospective of this destination (Clacton-on-Sea) are well used then confirmation of tourism industry’s development and heftiness can carry on over the long-term in the area.
•    A well strategic planning will make the area become an important productive tourist division such as employment will produce, an inflow of foreign trade will increase, health and education will be enhanced, and it will begin to contribute to Gross Domestic Product and foreign exchange income economically. When all these are realized, more jobs/employment in the destination and improve the living standard of the people within.
•    Economic sectors such as fishing, ancillary, manufacturing and handicraft will be boosted. This is an indication that the level of poverty and unemployment in the area will go down at higher level.
•    The area has an infrastructural problem; the strategic planning will be the solution due to the increased number of tourist in the area. Since the area is next to the sea and coastal area, facilities such as ports and roads will be put into considerations as far as maintenance is concerned. Regarding conservation, the coastal sea will be the major area of concern due to its role in the provision for leisure; it will be preserved and kept at the required standard that meets the international level. Since heritages in the coastal area provide a healthy environment and entertainment, it will be preserved for a feeling of comfort. The most important sector that will benefit is the hospitality sector (Garci et al., 2009). The hospitality sector plays an important role in the tourism industry since it is the only sector that provides food and accommodation to the tourists and other locals. Additionally, in areas like these, health sector cannot be left without getting proper improvement.
•    The strategic planning will make good use of the destination’s local resources which it has in abundance, and this will lead to a comparative advantage in the production for the destination’s product market. For the increase of employment and living standard and single parenting will be solved. In terms of housing, the plan has an outline that will ensure that more houses are built to accommodate tourists. A good number of unskilled people will find jobs in housing, fishing, and hotel departments. Through the help of government, there will be a policy that controls dumping within the area, an indication that cleanliness will be given priority.
•    Through the tourism promotion done by the government, the destination’s strategic planning will offer a clear guideline for them to showcase every important thing within for attraction, this indicates that the areas will be exposed to the outside world and will also attract not only tourists bus also investors. Similarly, the housing department shall benefit greatly from the demand will up.

Planning is an essential activity that is used to accomplish the objectives of tourism development; it first described planning as a tool for destination area growth and observing it as evaluating the requirements of a tourist getting destination. Several approaches can be used for this destination. These include major planning such as boosterism that suggests that tourism is only beneficial for a destination and the occupants; environmental substances are promoted as resources to kindle market interest and enhance economic advantages and barricades to development are reduced (Godfrey & Clarke, 2007, p. 8).  In this approach, residents are neither well thought-out nor included in the planning process, and the carrying capacity of the area is not offered enough consideration. Consequently, boosterism approach does not offer a steady solution to the development and is practiced by selfish individuals who only care for their own needs.

Tourism evolution has always given problems to the locals, for instance, overpopulation, traffic jamming, socio-cultural corrosion, and superstructure. Laissez-faire tourism policies of inadequate planning contribute most of these problems. However, some locations have gained from tourism development without any cognizant planning; there are others that are going through difficult times from negligent planning. Many countries have good plans for tourism sector; however, these plans are not being implemented for development purposes. In the case of Clacton-on-Sea destination, the focus is on the interactive and integrated approach. This approach agitates for the participative process, even though it is more difficult to carry out. In this approach, every stakeholder is given a chance to participate in one way or the other with the guidance of the planners and policymakers. Every opinion counts in this situation and decisions being implemented reflect the ideas of everybody and will have minimal adverse effects on the local. 

The Interactive and Integrated Approach to Tourism Development Planning in Clacton-on-Sea

An interactive approach places an emphasis ahead of an indulgent of the entire tourism system on the basis of the thorough evaluative research. In that case, the objectives for tourism should, therefore, be dispossessed from, and integrated into, general community ambition. The interactive and integrated approach should have the following elements:

•    Integrative- putting tourism planning matters into the conventional of planning for parks, tradition, maintenance, land use and the economy.
•    Goal leaning- this a clear identification of the role to be done by tourism in accomplishing broad societal objectives
•    Democratic- with full and meaningful residents’ input from the community level up, and
•    Systematic- sketching research to offer technical and extrapolative help for planners, and illustrating on the assessment of planning efforts to build up the theory.

Any tourism development plan has to be incorporated into the Clacton-on-Sea’s socio-economic and political plan, into the natural and artificial atmosphere, into the socio-cultural customs, into the socio-cultural traditions, into the numerous connected sectors of the economy and its monetary systems, and into the global tourism market. The interactive and collaborative approach enables the community around Clacton-on-Sea to take part in the planning of the matters regarding tourism in the area. This gives them the opportunity to suggest the ideas that will not have any adverse effects on their environment but beneficial grounds. A collaborative and integrated approach has one main advantage to the residents; their opinion counts. Another advantage is that the approach encourages the use of the local resources to stimulate economic growth of the region. Similarly, it has little adverse effects on the locals since their views are put into consideration. However, it has few disadvantages; the approach cannot undermine the profit since it might not be market-oriented due to conflicting views from various points. Similarly, a community may be strict as far as culture is concerned, and that might not guarantee visitors freedom in doing whatever they feel is good for them. For this reason, the number of visitors may go down. Thus the whole sector will operate at a loss.

As mentioned earlier, this approach is being implemented in Clacton-on-Sea and seems helpful to the sector. The area has been rejuvenated from the position where it was almost collapsing to appoint where it records a high number of visitors.

Historic means merely old and appeal the trouble. It applies to a building that is part of a community’s real past. And to a level that may astonish cynics, old buildings can offer prospects for a future of the community. What importance do these historic buildings contribute to the development of tourism sector?

Buildings of a given period such as pre-World II seems to be built with higher-quality resources such as exotic hardwoods and timber from old-growth forests that are no longer in existence. Various standards built these buildings. These buildings might be a better long-standing stake than its brand new matching part of the same kind. Whether these buildings are connected to anything famous or noticeably dramatic, tourists and longtime locals can observe the artistic and cultural history of a region. Just as banks fancy building splendid, old shaped facades, even when positioned in business malls, a city desires old buildings to uphold a sense of permanency and inheritance.

Preservation, reuse, preservation plays a cultural purpose. Ancient buildings have teaching concerning history that took place before the current generation was born and enhances the reverence for the individuals who lived in the past various times and various communities. Similarly, architectural testimonials develop pride of the past heritage making a certain community unique in the globe. For instance, Paris in France is now known for its Eiffel Tower, London is known for the Big Ben and much more from every country. These historical structures bring nature and specific attraction to the neighborhood that the people live in. Moreover, re-establishing an old building is often cheaper than constructing a new one.

In addition, the economy is an essential good point of preserving the old. The monuments are some of the major attractors that attract tourists, and therefore, play a crucial role in the sector and needs proper preservation just like other resources. Whenever a tourist visits any place, they always want to have and feel the endurance of the location, which most frequently is represented through structural design. Renovating locally essential historical constructions breeds employment for both local people and global experts. Renovation activities need extra skills and understanding than simple structure and thus result in high salaries and also add to enhance the economy. 

On the other hand, renovation is environmentally pleasant. Constructing new green buildings and energy cutback houses is vital, but refurbishing the old ones is as green as it can acquire. Conservation and refurbishing are the definitive means for recycling (Elsorady, 2014). It aids reducing construction waste and save energy that is normally used up on transport and manufacturing building materials as well as equipment.

The London City dates back to the ancient times of Roman, and that means there is no shortage of historic building around. It is one f the oldest cities in Europe and rich in historic monuments as well as buildings. It has very many remarkable and great attractions, and one of the most crucial London Landmark is the TOWER OF LONDON. History from the royal family indicates that the Tower of London is the most visited destinations by tourists. In this iconic building lies the oldest exhibition around the globe, the Line of Kings and have the armor of old rulers and the priceless Crown Jewels and Traitor’s Gate (Broadhurst, 2008). Legendary Ravens are hopping around the courtyard. Another notable historic structure is the Tower Bridge which many people mistakenly refer to London Bridge. This is the London’s most iconic landmarks that have sat a stride out the River Thames from 1894. It is a Victorian bascule steam-powered bridge and was the feat of industrial engineering in its era (Allen, 2012). Currently, it is open and unlocks to the public to have a look into the entrails of the bridge, and in addition to strolling across the top pathways featuring the new Glass Footpath to view down at the river as the pedestrian walk beneath. Providing views up and downstream, it is a great historic building in London to gain knowledge of about both past and present.

Westminster Abbey is another famous historic site in London. It is a Gothic UNESCO World heritage and a coronation church from the 11th century to date (Dredge & Jenkins, 2007, p.49). It is impressive and beautiful historic building in London and acted as a burial platform for some the greatest men and women of England. A great philosopher such as Charles Darwin and Geoffrey Chaucer was buried in this building. This site acts as an event hosting site as well as a worship center and operates daily.

Though it is within the outskirts of the city of London, Windsor Castle is also one of the oldest and the largest occupied castle around the globe, where the Queen preferred to send the rest of every weekend. It is set in the small borough of Windsor; this rural town is a great place for a day trip. With the Changing of the Guard, it has almost 39 staterooms and popular Dolls House. (Henderson, 2015, p.35). This is a royal palace that welcomes both locals and the visitors. Next to it is Hampton Court Palace where people go and learn about King Henry VIII and how he lived his life as a Tudor King.  

Having mentioned all these historic buildings, both of them are being used as tourism and leisure facilities; however, there is one that hosts events and other social activities; Westminster.  This building has some significance to any philosopher who is still alive today. It contributes a lot to the national since it is one of the most places by scholars in the UK. This historic building hosts wedding, seminars, workshops among other activities. It has rich historical information such as information about philosophers like Darwin, different people from all walks of life troupe in this place for a fact a finding mission (Morc?O?L  & Wolf, 2010, p. 127). For foreigners, they pay to gain access, and that is an economic advantage to the nation. The local people also get to exchange culture as well as getting a platform to interact with the visitors. The locals make up the bigger percentage of those who are employed by the municipal to work within the facility.

Fig 1.0: (Westminstersc.org, 2018)

Plan execution seems like an administrative procedure because of the government intervention in accomplishing the implementation. However, to attain methodological and practical performance, some techniques must be put in place. These include development or action program as well as approval of certain rules and regulations and the assessment costs (University Of Wisconsin & Scout, 1973). Since our main focus was on Clacton-on-Sea, each project, such as modernization of facilities must be estimated in terms of costs, the requirements as well as location and time frame. Also the agencies and parties concerned for certain tourism projects must be identified to help in the coordination of these projects as well as some little support from the municipal sector. Other government sectors also make up vital elements for a successful execution. Another step is the specification of tourist ability improvement and design sets, such as architectural technique and landscaping (Yung & Chan, 2012, p. 54). These are normally conducted by a different plan appraisal committee or in a straight line by the planning department. Similarly, the specification of zoning and other land use rules that explain exact locations for various categories of land uses and the development standards to be used within every use zone in coastal area of Clacton-on-Sea. Therefore, the physical planning sector ought to be directly involved in the improvement of zoning policies for the location. Besides, identifying of prospective funding sources for project development is also important. The funds may come from the UK’s government through tourism board or any other relevant agency. Lastly, employee training program must be considered to ensure smooth operation with adequate knowledge in matters regarding tourism and also to improve public awareness on the importance of tourism. Having put everything in place, the process to plan execution and the normal progress ought to be specified. It is important that Clacton-on-Sea ascertains a method to supervise and analyze the effectiveness of actions before tourism development occurs. 

Conclusion

Currently, Clacton-on-Sea‘s economy has gone down compared to the past even though the demand for tourism has gone up. The economy is too low in the region, and the unemployment rate is rising at a high rate. Similarly, there are also other challenges such as teenage pregnancy, single parenting, among others. The poverty rate is a bit higher as there is no stable source of income, most of the adults go through tough times due to lack of qualifications to secure jobs. For this study, the strategy discussed if implemented seems to be the solution to some of the challenges that the residents are facing. It is a coastal area which merely depends on tourism activities as well as fishing. However, without a proper strategy, the district will always lag behind as far as growth is concerned. The area has potential in growth; it is in a strategic location that can attract a lot of investors and international tourists. It is commonly known that areas within coastal lines always do well in major economic activities and therefore, the concerned authority must come up strongly to support development plans of such areas (Collier, 1995). In conclusion, better strategic plan; interactive and collaboration is the solution to most of the problems and challenges being faced in the region 

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