Tourism Sustainability

By Malcolm Noden

2018 Florida Visitor Estimates VistFlorida.com

In a recent article about Tourism, I suggested that the issue of sustainability*was key to our understanding, and our future actions, as we seek to retain the benefits of our tourism demand market, while maintaining a sustainable modicum of control over its costs in our community.

In order to achieve this level of community control it is necessary for us to more fully understand the underlying concept of cost/benefit analysis. It is a condition of all our individual or collective decision outcomes, that the consequences of our decisions, whether intended or not, always have both positive and negative results. Thus, while recognizing the existing social, economic and political conditions that are present in our community, we must also seek to minimize the costs of our decisions, while optimizing their benefits. In order to accomplish this, the bottom line is that we must ensure that all inputs to our public debate must use only accurate and unbiased sources of data. To quote his constant reminder to his students from a former academic colleague of mine, who taught economics with me for many years at Cornell,-“No data-No dough!”

So we start with data! Size of the annual tourism demand, (domestic and international), and its seasonal variations. Projections of growth in primary market segments over the next 5 years. Identification of the principal local geographic areas of major impact.

We need to know the size of the fixed supply in the superstructure: e.g. accommodations-restaurant seats- etc. We need to know the size, condition and utility of available infrastructure: e.g. power, water, sewers, park benches, parking spaces, public transport, & public facilities-etc.

We need to know the size of the resulting labor demand; the available pool of labor in the community, and the available industry training locations/institutions.

When these and other associated data are collected, analyzed and published by a reputable and publicly recognized source, then the whole community is in a better position to judge how to go forward in clearly sustainable manner in order to achieve a clearly set out vision for the future.

So it is that by consistently monitoring these and other direct and indirect results data, it is possible to accurately measure and control the basics of the best sustainability model. Thus, we must monitor and measure the basics of the sustainability model: social/environmental impact; business strategy; economic viability, and our capacity to deliver the requisite services.

We are fortunate that we have a local agency that is charged with the primary responsibilities identified here. Point your browser, and take a look at the web site of the Amelia Island Tourist Development Council. < http://ameliaislandtdc.com/?view=mobile>. You will be pleased to see the excellent work, led by Gil Langley that this organization is doing on our behalf. Make yourself familiar with their data base, and when the opportunity to engage in the related public hearings at the city and county commissions, you should be there and knowledgeably contribute to the discussions and decision process.

* Sustainability-Definition: “Sustainability is the process of maintaining change in a balanced fashion, in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations.” Source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

Editor's Note: Malcolm A. Noden, who is the (Retired) Senior Lecturer in Management, Economics, Marketing and Tourism at the School of Hotel Administration, at Cornell University, is a well-known expert in the applied economics of hospitality and tourism policy, promotion and development.

Noden is the past Chairman of the New York State Tourism Education Task force, an advisory board appointed by former Governor George Pataki of New York. Noden serves on the editorial board of TEOROS International, a theoretical research journal for education in tourism, and was the Cornell University representative to, and a founding member of, the World Tourism Organization, Educational and Training Board.