Baler Aurora Tourism Development through Sustainable Planning

Baler Aurora Tourism Development through Sustainable Planning

by Arch. Merant B. De Vera, uap

The hospitality of Filipinos and the country’s natural wonders provide the Philippines with a natural lead in tourism, an area recognized as a key contributor to economic growth by generating vital investments, foreign exchange earnings and revenues as well as stimulating the growth of other industries such as construction and manufacturing.

The tourism sector has swiftly been on the rise during the last decade, reaching a peak in the year 2000. The figures for 2001 and 2002, however, have not been as impressive largely due to the global effects wrought by international terrorism incidents and the global economic slowdown. In 1999, the country ranked fifth in terms of visitor arrivals among ASEAN member countries with 2.2 million tourists. Visitor arrivals to the Philippines declined to 1.8 million in 2001 from 2.0 million in the previous year as the number of tourists from the major tourism markets, namely the United States, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and Germany, dropped significantly due to various internal and external peace and order problems. This consequently reduced tourist receipts to US$1.7 billion from US$2.1 billion in 2000.

To some, tourism provides an incentive for the restoration of ancient monuments and archaeological treasures and for the conservation of natural resources as well as the economic means by which they can be achieved. To others, however, tourism means people, congestion, noise and litter. It means disruption of animal life cycles.

Most Researches on the relationship of tourism and the environment were undertaken after, rather than before, damage occurred. As a result only few studies attempted to clarify the processes of environmental change or relate these to aspects of the agent of change, which in this case, is tourists and tourist development. Ecological investigations are being carried out but few studies incorporate the role of tourist as means by which changed are produced. Similarly, tourist developers have often failed to embody ecological principles into development plan and policies promoting tourist activity. A marrying of these research areas is required if harmonious relationship is to be festered between tourism and the environment.

Most research has been reactionary in nature being a response to immediate threats to the environment. Such threats have been a stimulus to research but they have also resulted in a concentration in special environment, such as small islands, coral reef, and other delicate ecologies.

There are three suggested relationships that can exist between promoting tourism and those advocating environmental conservation. These relationships are especially important because tourism is highly dependent upon values derived from nature.

• 1.      Tourism and Environmental conservation can exist in a situation in which both can promote their respective positions, remains in isolation and establish little contact with each other. Unlikely to exist for long periods because of the substantial changes in the environment that are apt to occur with the continued growth of mass tourism.
• 2.      Tourism and conservation may enjoy a mutually supportive or symbiotic relationship where they are organized in such a way that each benefits from each other. From the perspective of the conservationist, environmental features and conditions are left as close as possible to their original state but, at the same time, they provide benefits to the tourist who view and experience them.
• 3.      Tourism and conservation can be in conflict, particularly when tourism includes detrimental effects to the environment. Most of the documented relationship between tourism and environment fall into this category.

In order to deal with the main challenge of integrating sustainability in the development of tourism related policies, UNEP in partnership with UNWTO to set an agenda for policy making have developed a set of policy recommendations. These recommendations are in line with the list of 12 principles of sustainable tourism development includes Economic viability, Local prosperity, Employment quality, Social equity, Visitor fulfillment, Local control, Community wellbeing, Cultural richness, Physical integrity, Biological diversity, Resource efficiency, and Environmental purity.