Much is heard about sustainable tourism in the media - in many cases with misleading connotations of such concept.
According to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) "Sustainability principles refer to the environmental, economic and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development, and a suitable balance must be established between these three dimensions to guarantee its long-term sustainability." These characteristics make it a strategic tool for local economic development, and therefore an essential condition for the competitive development of the sector.
PNCS, the national Dominican competitiveness plan, identifies the integration of communities as the cornerstone in enhancing and ensuring industry competitiveness through associative models that promote collective social capital. Its goal is to support and strengthen collective management models or clusters that take into account all the actors forming the links in the value chain.
One of the main objectives of our cluster model is to create the necessary conditions to ensure sustainability. A holistic cluster approach helps to create a paradigm shift in better understanding of the importance of sustainability, taking the transformation to the local level. This is made possible by strengthening and empowering local communities and their institutions by involving them in joint initiatives. To rely on the development of competitive tourism cluster, it's also necessary to have a highly skilled workforce to meet the requirements demanded by national and international tourists. All this aims to create a territorially planned, ordered and diversified sector, which provides an efficient platform to ensure the well-being and safety of international visitors and local consumers.
Strength through local development
It is imperative to value natural and cultural resources of the country based on a strategy of empowerment through social community. This is achieved by creating awareness among communities of their natural and cultural values, so that they can become advocates and promoters of what we are. For these purposes, you need to implement a long-term national cultural awareness strategy, which encourages community participation in such activities. A rigorous application of a regulatory framework is important, so that it enables preserving cultural heritage and helps maintaining the relationship between tourism and culture within the community agents, ensuring the quality of cultural expression.
Same methods are recommended for handicrafts. The artisan sub-sector has become one of the most important activities in enhancing community integration to tourism. It directly contributes to the preservation of identity and differentiation, and promoting the creative and innovative capacity of the community. In this sense, it is necessary to continue the efforts in educating, training and financing micro and small enterprises involved in this sector.
These general ideas aim to contribute to the advancement of a new phase of competitive and sustainable tourism development. Based our experience, we know it is necessary to ensure the sustainability of existing tourism sectors by giving them infrastructure, services and adequate conditions, without forgetting the need for proper tourism education.
Development of new market segments, products and forms of tourism has to be encouraged as well. This is made possible by advancing the development of complementary activities, particularly those that incorporate the cultural and environmental tourism. In addition, we need to build a country brand strategy that promotes the whole potential of the country and takes into account three essential elements: the citizen as a vital element of society, trade and investment.
These elements, when properly articulated and implemented under commitment and long-term vision by public policy makers, private tourism sector and civil society, will allow us to create a competitive tourism cluster capable of contributing to economic and social welfare of all Dominicans.
1st TCI Global Conference on Tourism Clusters will be held on April 7-10 in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Tamara V. Vásquez Sosa
Dominican National Competitiveness Council
tamara(at)cnc.gov.do
23 March 2010
