Telling our Local Community Story:

From Interpretation to Creating

Sustainable Hosting Experience

Prof. Yoel Mansfeld, PhD

Head, Centre for Tourism, Pilgrimage & Recreation Research

University of Haifa, Israel

4th NATIONAL CULTURAL TOURISM DAY

Fort Revelin

19th May 2011

Dubrovnik

Main topics

Critical approach to the applicability of

sustainable tourism in Cultural Tourism

context

Trends in conceptualizing “Host

Communities”

Enhancing socio-cultural sustainability – an

alternative approach

The VS model + NGT – An integrated tool for

enhancing sustainable tourism communities

Ministry of Tourism of Israel &

OECD - Organization for Economic Co-Operation & Development

« Industry & Policy Approaches to Fostering Green Growth in Tourism »

Document on Green Tourism Policy for the High Level Round Table

Prepared by:

Prof. Maria Gravari-Barbas &

Prof. Yoel Mansfeld

October 2010

3

The three Pillars of

Sustainable Tourism

Economic Considerations

Socio-cultural Considerations

Environmental Considerations

Host Community’s Socio-cultural

Considerations

The rise and fall of

sustainable tourism Problem of definition

Management and development theories as

“fashion”

Blurred concepts

Standardized “top down” approach

G to L approach

Lack of attainable goals

No calibration of standards according to local

abilities to develop sustainable tourism

“offsetting” is still not implemented

This transformed sustainable tourism

into highly controversial concept

Over the relevance of each of the three pillars

Over the need to look after the interests of future

generations

Over the ability to overcome differences

amongst stakeholders’ interests

Over its sensitivity to political pressures

Over its sensitivity to economic pressure

Over its “green-wash” effect

Over its practicality and affectivity as an

environmental management tool

Cultural Tourism as a concept

Product

based

Approach

Community

based

Approach

Product

based

Approach

Community

based

Approach

Trends in conceptualizing socio-cultural

sustainability of Host Communities

Carrying Capacity

TIME

The Carrying Capacity Concept

Community’s

Carrying

Capacity

Threshold

Limits for Acceptable Change - LAC

Lower Level of

Acceptable Change

Upper Level of

Acceptable Change Range of

Acceptable

Change

Alternative Approach to

Community – Tourism Interface

Assumption that each community is

different

Real and successful tourism planning,

development and management must be

based on “bottom up” approach

Socio-cultural feasibility study is a

prerequisite

All solutions must take into account the local

Limits for Acceptable Change- LAC

The Value Stretch Model: A Cultural Tourism Application

Tolerance Level

Expectation

Level

Current Situation

Level

Tolerance

Gap

Reconciliation

Gap

Value

Stretch

Scenarios for VS application

As a cultural tourism planning process for

“untouched” communities

Assessing the impact of tourism development

processes on local communities

Improving poor cultural tourism performances

affected by hostile host community

A community call for help due to operation of a

cultural tourism system beyond the

community’s LAC

The VS model + NGT – An integrated

tool for enhancing sustainable

tourism communities

The Tool:

Normative Socio-cultural

“Value Stretch” Model

Nominal Group Technique

(NGT)

Principles of NGT

Based on focus group sessions

Allows three rounds of guided and controlled

discussions

Detects groups’ attitude towards planning

problem or issue

Allows groups’ definition of acceptable

planning and development priorities

A source for strategic and action plans for

short, medium and long-term tourism projects

V.S. – as an Integrated Research Tool

The three VS model levels can be integrated to both quantitative and qualitative research tool.

Quantitative Research Approach – integration to a structured questionnaire using psychographics for each model levels

Qualitative Research Approach – integration to Nominal Group Technique )NGT(

Implementation

The integrated VS model was used so far in three spatial contexts:

Regional: in the Dead Sea Region

Local – Urban: in the resort town - Eilat, Southern Israel

Local – rural: Kibbutzim in Northern Israel

Results reached In all three cases the integrated VS model proved to be an efficient, low-cost and simple tool to detect LAC parameters of different tourism communities

Insofar, it managed to detect and define the unique characteristics of cultural and social LAC and carrying capacity issues that might infringe on the cultural and social coherence of the three communities.

Teaching, instructing and implementing this technique is straightforward. It can be easily integrated into any module that teaches social, cultural and environmental tourism impacts and into research and planning tools aimed for sustainable tourism community development