Developing a transformative tourism model for the South Pacific

Project Description

In a South Pacific context, this project aims to develop and disseminate a model of tourism that balances economic, social and environmental objectives. In addition to creating new knowledge in tourism and sustainable development, expected outcomes include an enduring community of practice, a suite of tools, guides and policy briefs for those seeking to promote tourism that enables genuine sustainable development and more broadly improving outcomes for people and places in a region where tourism is a vital industry.

Aim 1: Form a Community-of-Practice (CofP) consisting of researchers, tourism enterprises, nongovernment organisations, governments, industry bodies and host communities. This will be a legacy of the project, designed to continue long after the project has ended. The CofP is a key mechanism for achieving Aims 2 to 6.

· Aim 2: Consistent with the first stage of the Theory of Change (Anderson, 2005), identify long-term goals. That is, agree what goals stakeholders want to achieve from engaging in tourism, and what models of tourism they believe are mostly likely to meet those goals.

· Aim 3: Build capacity within partner organisations and host communities through structured learning activities. This is a key objective of all partner organisations.

· Aim 4: Assess and document alternative models of tourism from best practice examples. These examples will include a combination of partner organisations and organisations identified through the CofP.

· Aim 5: Identify constraining and enabling factors for enterprises, local areas, nations and regions in achieving best practice. Develop a suite of tools and guides for those seeking to transform their tourism models, including where appropriate, briefs for policy makers.

· Aim 6: Disseminate knowledge gained from the project across the region. The South Pacific Tourism Organisation will play a key role in supporting this aim of the project.

Project Personnel and Beneficiaries

The project involves four Griffith University academics with diverse skill sets and eight partner organisations (including NGOs and intergovernmental organisations) across the Cook Islands, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. This project is an applied research project seeking to support concrete sustainable and regenerative tourism outcomes. This outcomes are rooted in the community aspirations around tourism at local level and will be facilitated with Griffith University and our in-country partners.

Outcomes to Date

The first process of this project was to establish the community of practice and support our partners enthusiasm and engagement together. Resources have been shared and we have engaged in learning for us and our partners. A key initial phase in this project was to understand the priorities for each partner, and the ways in which we can support the partners. A decision to facilitate the first research phase via in-country research associates that we upskill and support has led to our first few objectives soon being achieved with a reduced carbon footprint.