Key Considerations in Adopting Tourism as a Destination Development Strategy

Destinations in their quest to harness the economic benefits of tourism as rapidly aspossible may do so, not being fully aware of or with disregard towards the potentialnegative impacts that can accompany such development, particularly on the localcommunity and environment. This paper highlights key destination planning andmanagement issues, particularly highlighting moot factors such as sustainabletourism, tourism stakeholder collaboration, destination carrying capacity, impactsof tourism, as well as discussion on major tourism development models of theTourism Area Life Cycle (TALC), Irridex, and Visitor Impact Management (VIM).While some of the issues have been applied within the context of Macau, strategicplanning and management for tourism development through the integration of thesemajor tourism concepts in any destination will greatly assist in creating anoptimum environment for the various tourism stakeholders, and in maintaining thedestination's continued attractiveness to visitors and quality of life (QOL) for thelocal community.