Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.95.971113181355.24452L-100000@ccen.uccb.ns.ca> Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 18:14:21 -0400 From: Michael Gurstein <mailto:mgurst@CCEN.UCCB.NS.CA> Subject: Re: From Development to Education (fwd) To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 10:50:00 -0800 (PST) From: "Marcus L. Endicott" <mailto:mendicott@igc.apc.org> To: Recipients of conference <mailto:green-travel@igc.apc.org> Subject: Re: From Development to EducationIn reponse to whether or not it is possible to combine tourism development with sustainable development - Yes, but it's not easy.
A personal example I have is my hotel in Zanzibar, Tanzania. My partner and I restored an historic palace and turned it into a botique hotel and restaurant. We hired all local workers and used indigenous building techniques and materials. The majority of our time, energy, and funds was spent teaching local people skills in tourism management as well as other skills needed for the project such as building renovation techniques, etc. We utilized small grants from aid agencies and embassies to fund some of the building training, hired teachers ourselves to teach language classes, and spent the majority our profits and time doing hands-on training for the cooking, cleaning, and reception sectors once we opened.
It was (and continues to be) a lot of hard work. At the same time, it is very satisfying to see our staff, who began working with us about six years ago, go from having very few economic oportunities to having enough skills to become managers, and in some cases branch off and open their own businesses. The first chef I trained now has his own restaurant. The man who supplies my fish began working with me and brought me fish from the out-of-town markets on his bicycle. He now supplies several restaurants and has been able to afford a small moped. Slowly, things grow.
Frustrated that the demand for trained labor was much greater than the supply, and worried that the trend to bring in employees from outside of Zanzibar and from Europe was growing, I returned to grad school to find ways to combine tourism training and sustainable development. My Masters Thesis was a proposal for a hands-on training institute that would teach sustainable development techniques much in the way I had trained people through my hotel, but on a larger scale. The goal is to help indigenous people gain a better understanding of tourism and learn the skills they need to profit from tourism - but without selling out. While the project has received praise from development agencies, it is not receiving funding. Many donors see tourism soley as private/for profit industry and trying to raise money to open an on-job training institute for tourism training has so far been impossible.
So, this long-winded answer to your question, is tourism a means for sustainable development? Can the two be combine? Yes. And in my experience it is done well in a number of places, from Africa, to Central America, at the grass roots level. But will development/aid agencies sponsor such programs? So far, as far as I know, only on a minimal level. I know that Conservation International has sponsored tourism as sustainable development projects and say that they have had very good results. I have heard a bit about World Bank sponsored programs, but don't have any details.
Does anyone out there know more? I'd be eager to learn about more examples.
cheers,
Jennifer Kay Emerson's House Zanzibar, Tanzania mailto:jennkay@froggy.org