Students rank challenges to implementing People-First Tourism
Using a Nominal Group Technique exercise, tourism students from NC State identified and ranked challenges to the implementation of People-First Tourism in North Carolina. These students have been thinking about this project since August, and have been reading extensively about business solutions poverty. They are also talking with people with vulnerable livelihoods about micro-entrepreneurship and they have even been asked to search for tourism micro-businesses in the region that might qualify as People-First. So... I think we should take their input seriously. I am posting this list here in the hope some of you may want to comment with ideas on how to overcome each challenge.Bellow are the challenges in order of importance with the number of votes each item received in parenthesis.
- How to train micro-entrepreneurs in efficient/effective/timely/affordable ways (8)
- New micro-businesses will struggle to compete with existing and more established businesses (5)
- Identify business ideas/products/services that are new/profitable/attractive (4)
- Legal constraints and permitting requirements may be costly or even insurmountable (4)
- Does the target population have the education needed to start and run a business (3)
- Current tourism industry may resist change and a new way of doing business (3)
- May be difficult to identify empowerment partners and allies
- How would People-First Tourism market the overall brand and at the same time each business?
- Many tourists may not be ready or interested in interacting with the poor
- Difficult for micro-entrepreneurs to leverage natural or cultural resources where they have been ruined with pollution and neglect
- How to manage transactions and payments in a transparent, dignifying and ethical way
- There might be a complete lack of tourism in areas where we would like to develop People-First tourism
- May be difficult to deal with opposition (e.g., negative PR, political interests, nay sayers)
- Stimulating micro entrepreneurship might affect/erode traditional cultural roles and norms (e.g., gender roles)
Clearly, the NGT is a resourceful method in achieving best solutions and/or recommendations by the aid and collaboration of stakeholders of a community that are asked to gather in a neutral venue and participate in this part of a decision-making process. Precisely, every question or problem with corresponding answers should be evaluated and scrutinized in order to understand inner thoughts of repliers even if they have not spoken about it .Sometimes, scrawls, erased phrases or other signs of emphasis or illegible hand writings show their main thoughts and attitudes.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, firstly these people who claimed to be entrepreneurs ought to be evaluated if they have the potential and enough talent to establish/operate/sustain a business or not.They might pretend or just guess that holding desired quality or ability. In addition, it might not be interesting or unique in tourists’ point of view as expected .These people could profit in other parts or receive necessary trainings/education which will help them to be an active entrepreneur in the future. Further, when people are young ,even child, it could be tough to identify their talent and the way they could mostly benefit their communities. Alongside with essential education, residents should learn about their culture, maintain and preserve it and do not let it vanishes through ages. By this, in long term they will be confident about continuity of their communities.
Provided that their influence is endorsed , deciders or empowerment partners of PFT, would pay attention to this criteria:
• Psychological and ethical examinations which help deciders to get knowledge about their ability of business management which directly serves the tourism industry. It refers to their capability of making friendly/close communications with tourists in a way that they are not disturbed or get annoyed by an undesirable manner.
• The entrepreneurs could leave their homes for a while to take a tour around destination areas where are most likely to travel back to their habitats. This is the way they could make advertisements/public shows about their homelands, giving a picture over the quality of spending time there.
This could be carried out in a circulatory-substitutional procedure, whereby each entrepreneur accustoms with the proper style of how to communicate with civilian residents, having particular manners/traditions, subsequently gain self-esteem in future meetings( This should not spoil the intrinsic value of behaving in a natural/unique way or prompts residents to move to urban areas).
• These people should receive rankings according to their degree of ability in performing a specific businesses , Financial status and uniqueness of their talent. This helps those Micro-Lending institutions to determine whether or not, loans will be returned or received where it was essentially required.
• People who have shown their readiness in obtaining a business, should be categorized according to mentioned factors in smaller groups, helping them cooperate with each other and then get trained in an easier way.
• Similar businesses should not to be copied in a small area, so they should recognize the area that they serve/impact to avoid deteriorating competitions. In other words entrepreneurs should realize that how many tourists they could serve in a limited time and a specific area.
What I can recommend, For the first section, People- First Tourism developers and deciders to provide another system like NGT which helps them to reach applicable solutions and policies (which is not rooted from single person). For example, they could create a committee which every member writes their solution regarding to each problem then other members rate it with numbers and discuss about it and then reach an agreement of estimated strategies that they may implement.