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A practical approach to city tourism sustainability

Informally Refereed

Abstract

Generally, destinations with pristine natural attributes are the ones faced with issues related to tourism sustainability. However, this narrow focus often leads to the establishment of dogmatic 'dos' and 'don'ts' that are not always practical in all circumstances. Secondly, depending on the definition that is given to the concept of sustainability, no form of tourism can last very long unless deliberate efforts are made to ensure that it has a future. City tourism is one of the types of tourism that is not usually associated with the sustainability debate, and yet needs to be. Experience has shown that when a laissez-faire attitude is adopted toward city tourism development the strengths and weaknesses of a city are not studied in detail to determine which attributes may be exploited for touristic purposes. In addition, when the unique characteristics of local residents are not harnessed through community partnerships to ensure that tourism development is sensitive to existing cultural and environmental systems, the longevity of city tourism becomes suspect. This paper summarizes a study that uses the Importance Performance analysis to identify those tourism features in Indianapolis that international visitors perceived to be tourism magnets to the city, as well as the attributes that needed to be worked on. It is such grounded evaluations of city tourism perspectives that can make reliable contributions toward the building of a sustainable city tourism model.

Parent Publication

Citation

Avgoustis, Sotiris H.; Achana, Francis. 2003. A practical approach to city tourism sustainability. In: Schuster, Rudy, comp., ed. Proceedings of the 2002 Northeastern Recreation Research Symposium. Gen. Tech. Rep. NE-302. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station. 65-71
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/12171