1. STRATEGIES FOR
DEVELOPMENT: THE
ROLE OF PLANNING
IN TOURISM
Aroj Bashir
&
Muhammad Qasim
University of Gujrat

2. CONTENTS
 Introduction
 Planning and planning processes
 General model of the planning process
 Tourism and planning
 Tourism planning at national, regional and local
levels
 Planning Help to tourism for Sustainable

3. INTODUCTION
 The role of planning in shaping
physical developments, highlights
those aspects of tourism planning in
which geographical perspectives are
most useful in delivering an
understanding of processes of
change, although clearly this is not
the only way in which tourism is
influenced by planning processes.
 Tourism planning is an overtly
geographic phenomenon, varying
not only through time but, more
significantly, across space. Planning
at national, regional and local scales
is now widely encountered.

4. INTODUCTION
 Planning has a key role to play in resolving many of
the conflicts that such developments may generate.
Planning contain at different mechanism for:
 Integrating tourism alongside other economic sectors
 Shaping and controlling physical patterns of
development
 conserving scarce or important resources
 Providing frameworks for active promotion and
marketing of destinations

5.  Planning has been defined in various ways, but a
common perspective recognizes it as an ordered
sequence of operations and actions that are designed
to realize either a single goal or a set of inter-related
goals and objectives.
 From this broadly based definition, it follows that
planning (including planning for tourism) may take
on a variety of forms and may be deployed in a great
diversity of situations including physical and
economic development, service provision
infrastructure improvement, marketing and business
operations.

6. This conceptualization implies that planning is (or should be) a
process
Planning
Process

7.  Sets out a general model of the planning process in
which the principal elements in devising and
implementing a plan are predict as a series of key
stages.

8. There are several features of the general planning
model to emphasize:
 There is a progression within the planning process
from the general to the specific. The process begins
with broad goals and refines these to produce
specific policies for implementation.
 There is an evident circularity in the process by
which objectives and the options for realizing those
objectives are open to review and amendment in the
light of either background analysis or the
performance of the plan in practice.

9.  The general model maps out a set of procedures that
allow planning to be adaptive to changing circum-stances,
a quality that is especially important to
tourism planning, where patterns of demand and
supply are often volatile. Flexibility should be a key
concept for tourism planners.
 The general model defines a typical process out of
which may be derived many different types of plan
or planning approach.

10.  General
sequence
for the
production
and
implement
ation of a
plan

12. Master Plan
 The master plan approach is perhaps the most
traditional and also the least suited to the particular
requirements of tourism.
 Master plans centre on the production of a perfect
statement that provides a framework for guiding
development.
 The plan defines an end-state (or set of targets)
towards which public and/or private agencies are
encouraged to work.

13. Master Plan
 Targets are normally expected to be attainable within
set time periods—typically a five-year time
horizon—and once set in motion, a master plan is
normally left to run its course until its time has
elapsed
 The master plan approach has the advantage of
adopting a comprehensive view of development
processes but has also been widely criticized as being
too rigid, inflexible and ultimately unrealistic—not
least in the guidance of a variable activity such as
tourism.

14. Incremental Plans
 The key difference between incremental plans and
master plans is that whereas the master plan is a
periodic exercise, incremental planning recognizes a
need for constant adjustment of development process
to reflect changing conditions.

15. Incremental Plans
 The master plan approach, in defining a blueprint for
development, would place an emphasis upon Stages
1 and 2 of the general model (specification of broad
goals and objectives), the incremental approach
shows a much greater concern for Stages 8–10
(monitoring, revision of policy and objectives, and
adoption of revised plans).

16. Systematic Plans
 The systems is founded on the recognition of
interconnections between elements within the system, such
that change in one factor will produce consequential and
predictable change elsewherewithinthe system.
 In a planning context, systems approaches attempt to draw
together four key elements—activity, communications,
spaces and time—and map the interdependence between
these inproducingpatterns ofdevelopment.

17.  The advantages of a systems approachtoplanning are that it
is comprehensive, flexible, integrative andrealistic, aswell as
being willing to implementation at a range of geographic
scales.
 On the negative side, however, a systems approach requires
a great deal of information in order to comprehend howthe
systemactuallyworks.
 It remains the least widely applied of the three methods
described
Systematic Plans

18.  Planning is important in tourism for a wide
range of reasons. But which have six important.
1st
 Pysical planning processes to control
development, it provides a mechanism
for a structured provision of tourist
facilities and associated infrastructure
over quite large geographic areas.
 This geographic dimension has become
a more significant aspect as tourism has
developed. Initially, most forms of
tourism planning were localized and
site-specific, reflecting the rather limited
horizons that originally characterized
most patterns of tourism.

19. 2nd
 In view of the natural patterns of
fragmentation within tourism, any systems
that permit co-ordination of activity are likely
to become essential to the development of the
industry’spotential.
 This fragmentation is mirror in the many
different elements that are required to come
together within a tourism plan, including
accommodation, attractions, transportation,
marketing andarange ofhumanresources.
 Planning systems (when applied in a
marketing context) will also enable the
promotion and management of tourism
places and their products, once they are
formed.

20. 3rd
 Its clear links between planning and
principles of sustainability.
 Implicit in the concept of sustainable
tourism are a range of interventions
aimed not only at conserving
resources upon which the industry
depends, but also at maximizing the
benefits to local populations that
may accrue through proper
management of those resources.

21. 4th
 Planning can be a mechanism for the distribution and
redistribution of tourism-related investment and economic
benefits.
 This is a particularly important role for planning given that
tourism is becoming an industry of global significance but
one where activity does not fall evenly across different
regions and where the spatial patterns of tourist preference
are alsolevel tovariationthroughtime.
 Planning may assist both the development of new tourist
places and, where necessary, the economic realignment of
establishedplaces that touristshavebeguntodesert.

22. 5th
 The integration of tourism into
planning systems gives the industry
a political significance (since most
planning systems are subject to
political influence and control) and
therefore provides a measure of
status and legitimacy for an activity
that has not always been taken too
seriously as a force for economic and
social change.

23. 6th
 A common goal of planning is to anticipate likely
demand pattern and to attempt to match supply to those
demands.
 Through the exercise of proper controls over physical
development and service delivery, planning will aim to
maximize visitor satisfaction.
 There is now sufficient evidence from around the world
that the unplanned tourist destinations are the ones that
are most likely to be associated with negative impacts
and low levels of visitor satisfaction, whereas the
application of effective planning has often enhanced the
tourism product, to the benefit of both host and visitor
alike.

26.  The use of geographical scale is a particularly
valuable device for drawing out key differences in
emphasis and application within tourism planning,
and to illustrate the point, the chapter now addresses
tourism planning at the national, regional and local
levels.
 First, although we may distinguish various
geographic scales of planning intervention in
tourism, these should be seen as interconnected
rather than separate spheres of development.

27.  Second, in view of the
interconnectivity between the
different scales of planning, it
follows that some areas of concern
will form strands that run across all
three levels, albeit with varying
degrees of emphasis.
 Third, it is inevitable that given the
widely differing developmental
situations in which tourism planning
is applied, there will be marked
differences within as well as
between levels, from place to place.

29.  The significance accorded to national-level
planning of tourism varies
considerably between destinations but
is typically conceptual in character and
normally seeks to define primary goals
for tourism development and identify
policies and broad strategies for their
implementation.
 a growing number of nations,
especially in the developing world,
have positioned tourism centrally
within their national economic
development plans.

30.  Second common role for national tourism
plans is the designation of tourism
development regions.
 This may be done for any of several
reasons: to help structure programmes for
the redistribution of wealth and to narrow
inter-regional disparities; to create
employment in areas where
unemployment is an issue; or to channel
tourism development into zones that
possess appropriate attractions and
infrastructure and are therefore
considered suitable for tourism.

31.  A third focus of national-level tourism
planning is marketing, and this is
especially prominent amongst developed
destinations that possess the expertise
and the resources to form and promote a
distinctive set of national tourism
products.
 The strategic planning of British tourism
development at the national level is
largely absent and the primary role of
national agencies such as the British
Tourism Authority (BTA) is the
marketing of British destinations to
domestic and, especially, foreign
travellers.

33.  In comparison with national forms of
tourism planning, regional tourism plans
are usually distinguished by a marked
increase in the level of detail and a
sharper focus upon particular
developmental issues.
 National plans tend to be broad
statements of intent, but at the regional
level the implications of those intents can
be mapped far more precisely and
planning can reflect specific requirements.
 The implications of development
proposals for individual localities also
become more apparent, some degree of
public interest or participation within the
tourism planning process may also be
evident.

34.  Several themes are likely to be carried through
fromthenational to regional levels; inparticular:
 Concerns for the impact of tourism upon
regionaleconomiesandemploymentpatterns.
 Development of infrastructure, including
transport systems to assist in the circulation of
visitorswithin the region, aswell as provision of
public utilities such as power and water
supplies,bothofwhichare frequentlyorganized
at regional levels.
 Further spatial structuring in which tourism
localitieswithinregionsareidentified.
 Regional-level marketing and promotion,
especially where the region possesses a
particular identity and/or set of tourism
products.

35.  Local-level planning of tourism is a highly
variable activity, reflecting the diversity of local
situations inwhichtourismisdeveloped.
 Most forms of local tourism plan are primarily
focused upon the physical organisation of
tourism resources (accommodation, local
transport, catering and local attractions), the
control of physical development (such as hotel
construction) and the exercise of local visitor
management.
 Local plans are typically short term and
regulatory in nature (rather than being longer-term,
strategic statements) with particular
concerns for reducing development conflicts and
harmonizing activities that use the same spaces
and/or resources.

36.  Localplanningis oftenseenas themost effective level for the
 implementation of physical land use plans and associated
tasks such as the spatial zoning of activity and
developments.
 it is the planning level at which there is most likely to be a
legallyenforceable systemofplanning control.
 In most cases the appropriateness of a proposed
development is most effectively judged in a local context,
since this is the level atwhich impacts are to bemost clearly
felt.

37.  Sustainable tourism is about re-focusing
and adapting. A balance
must be found between limits
and usage so that continuous
changing, monitoring and
planning ensure that tourism can
be managed. This requires
thinking long-term (10, 20+ years)
and realizing that change is often
cumulative, gradual and
irreversible. Economic, social and
environmental aspects of
sustainable development must
include the interests of all
stakeholders including
indigenous people, local
communities, visitors, industry
and government.