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Abstract This study had two main objectives. First, to explore, in theory, the role of environmental awareness as a concept in the evolution of the tourism system as well as the reconfiguration of tourist destinations to include some of the long ignored areas. Such areas would emerge as new sources for wealth for many countries. To sustain this wealth; the second main objective is to investigate the behaviour of stakeholders involved in the tourism development process in the light of prevailing environmental awareness as a means to sustain the environmental resources while attaining the tourism goals. To meet these objectives, the study is divided into two parts. Part I provided a conceptual framework against which Part II analysed the case study. The main aim of Part I was to highlight potentials accrued to regions, which were before out of the tourist map. It drew attention that these potentials are made possible because of the new trends of the tourism system, which were the products of the shifts in the dominant western paradigm. In highlighting the importance of these potentials, the first part of the study stressed simultaneously an early warning, that the discrepancy of environmental concerns between tourists coming from developed communities and local communities residing the tourist destinations may hinder the supply side from playing its role in serving the tourism demand. Part I had given attention to emphasis the dangers of neglecting this discrepancy. It ascertains that this discrepancy should be sized in its true magnitude. Furthermore, it proposed the idea of integrating all stakeholders involved in the supply side, including host community, into a consolidated scheme in order to deal with this problem and prevent its detrimental impact on the development process, and subsequently on realising the anticipated benefits. Part I fulfilled its aims through its work on three dimensions. Firstly, Chapter 2 paved the road for this study, by introducing the main concepts and theories. Considering complexities of tourism, the chapter applied a systems perspective to the topic. The chapter earned a deep understanding of the tourism system by incorporating the ‘stakeholders approach’ of the tourism system, the ‘spatial approach’ of the basic whole tourism system, and the ‘demand-supply’ approach of the tourism function system. Accordingly, components of the tourism system, including tourists, origin communities, host governments, tourism industry and host communities, were identified by spatial, temporal and purposive parameters. In addition, this analysis demonstrated that the components of the tourism system, and subsequently the whole system, are influence by various physical, economic, social and other external environments. Such findings led Chapter 2 to approach environmental awareness as a concept that would influence the tourism system. Consequently, the study identified a number of factors affecting the public behaviour to the environment, such as economic, social and cultural status. Further, these factors justified variation in environmental concerns among different communities. Hence, the discrepancy in environmental concerns between tourists and host communities could be attributed to the difference in circumstances prevailing at origin destinations, commonly located developed countries, and those at host destinations, in developing countries. Chapter 3 employs concepts established in Chapter 2 to analyse the growth of tourism. It investigated the role of the environmental movement among the ‘push’ factors which have stimulated the emergence of new patterns of the tourism system, in both the demand and supply sides. Overall, the effect of the mounting environmental concerns on the tourism system could be concluded in two main outcomes. The first is throwing light on regions which were long regarded as of negligible value for development. The second is bringing the concept of sustainability and its related topics into the arena of tourism development. This had significantly determined the contemporary behaviour of stakeholders involved in the tourism development process at tourist destinations. On the light of these conclusions, Chapter 4 examined the behaviour of stakeholders involved in the tourism development process, in order to investigate the effectiveness of environmental awareness on their practices. Through reviewing international examples for each group of stakeholders; the chapter elaborated the efforts exerted by these stakeholders to encapsulate the environment as a focal dimension in their behaviour. Efforts to support sustainability are evident in actions such as laws and regulations issued by governments; codes of ethics and declarations released by intergovernmental organisations; certification programmes and codes of conduct introduced by non-governmental organisations; and codes of best practice and environmentally friendly procedures adopted by the tourism industry. Having local communities in the core of the review; Chapter 4 delineated various levels of local participation in the tourism development process. It appeared that neglecting them would lead to destructive impacts not only on the development process but also the environment, such as in the case of Plai Phongpang Homestay in Thailand (Box 4.1). Thus, the chapter took the effort to investigate the perception of governments, as a main player, to local communities. Comparing the behaviour of governments of developing countries and that of developed countries revealed some interesting points. Commonly, developing governments of reviewed countries approached local communities as a partial component at tourist destinations. Mechanisms to target their communities in their plans ranged from organising orientation campaigns, environmental awareness programmes and offering employment opportunities (Figure 7-1). On the other hand, governments of developed countries appeared to maximise the concept of locality as a means to actualise anticipated benefits. Mechanisms to approach their communities in their plans extended to involve local communities actively in decision-making and encourage them to own and mobilise the resources of the destination independently. Figure 7-1: Tourism Development s a Separate Layer from the Local Community Source; Researcher, 2006 Reaching this point, it was doubtless that the development process would actualise the potential benefits without employing an integrated supply scheme. In particular, this chapter laid the milestones of this scheme by Text Box: Historical Site reviewing the role played by actors involved in the tourism development process. Chapter 4 concluded that governments, particularly in developing countries, ought to stretch their role beyond the traditional practices. Therefore, the study recommends that governments adopt a consolidated mechanism for sustainable tourism development, which integrated local communities in the tourism development process taking place on their region, not just as partial beneficiaries but as the real owners of the process (Figure 7-2). Figure 7-2: Tourism Development as an Integral Part of the Local Community Source: Researcher, 2006 Taking these findings into application, Part II comprises 2 chapters. It adopted the Western Desert region of Egypt as case study; to demonstrate the new horizons for development in regions which were perceived before of limited resources. Thus, Chapter 5 examined the multiple facets of the environment in the study region, to produce an inventory for potential attractions. This chapter proved that the Western Desert region, which has been commonly regarded as an endless sea of sand, is a major latent source for income generation and future development of Egypt. Nevertheless, Chapter 5 found out that the irrevocable resources of the region, which have been preserved over thousands of years, would not stand long the intrusion Text Box: Historical Site of human beings in their quest for modernisation. Thus, Chapter 6 brings the discussion to local communities living in the study region. Capitalising on the conceptual framework drawn from Part I, Chapter 6 developed a questionnaire to investigate the nature of the relation between those communities and their environment as well as their perception of tourism; in order to investigate their ability to maintain and guard the sustainability of tourism development in their region. Despite primarily reading of the collected data depicted a prominent level of environmental awareness; cross-examining the answers of respondents elaborated that this level is not a congenital perception, but rather a toneless parroting of the media. Furthermore, dissection of their environmental attitude outlined a high degree of absorption in local immediate environmental issues. The reviewed sample was not able to recognise the implications of the behaviour on their environment. Moreover, they had the tendency to sacrifice the balance of their environment for pecuniary benefits. Such observations were substantiated when interviewees were subjected to selected items of the ‘New Ecological Paradigm’ scale. Altogether, the attitude of the sample was hardily towards a pro-environmental orientation (Appendix VI). However, the high rates of education open a gateway for decision makers to approach these communities. 7.2 Main Findings It could deduced that the findings of this research are concerned with developing tourism in natural areas – particularly desert zones –in a way that would realise foreseen benefits. Firstly, any tourist destination has to be regarded in terms of the ecological zones rather than administrative borders. Regarding the case of the Western Desert region, the research discovered that this region comprises interrelated ecosystems. In accordance, identifying these ecological zones should be done and taken into consideration when providing infrastructure projects as well as marketing plans. This is crucial to ensure that the limits of carrying capacity are not exceeded. One of the important implications in Egypt is that the administrative divisions of towns/governorates should not limit the integrated vision of the whole ecosystem running through the tourist destination. Similar to economic zones which were incorporated in building economic plans, the governments may consider the concept of ecological zones. Actually, the Egyptian government has a precedent in considering the Nile valley a continuous ecosystem regardless to administrative boundaries. Till today, the ministry of irrigation deals with the Nile banks as one ecosystem, where the impacts of any irrigation project along the valley is calculated along the whole length of the valley. By analogy, the Western Desert region should be treated by the same manner. Here matters are more difficult of to identify the ecological zones, in desert zones, as in the case of the Nile valley. However, it is essential to exert this effort since potential benefits are huge. Secondly, the study ascertains that marketing the Western Desert region in terms of ecological zones, rather than administrative boundaries, is crucial to stretch the tourist capacity of the region. The outstanding ecological regions, which extend form the coast in the north to the deserts of the South, offer a relevant variety of tourist experiences in the light of the new tourist trends. For instance, tourists interested in the natural heritage can navigate the various ecosystems of the region to encounter distinctive experiences. Also, dealing with the Western Desert region will enrich the experience of tourists concerned with the cultural heritage. They will be able to take an exceptional voyage in time and relive the glamorous history of the Earth as well as the authentic culture of indigenous communities of the region. Thirdly, it is crucial to integrate tourism development in any destination as a part of the social and economic context of the area. For governments, this approach would lead to change the focus from just developing tourism in the region to considering tourism as a tool for social and economic development of local communities. That is to say, local communities would become the core of development plans, and tourism would manifest as an application to foster development in the destination. Lastly, developers and decision-makers have to develop economic motives to integrate local communities according to their social and economic traits. In developing countries, tourism can encourage greater social mobility through changes in employment from traditional agriculture and pastoralism to service industries. Nevertheless, based on inherit traits of a community; individuals may perceive citizens from other settlements –especially urban settlements –as outsiders. The same more applies to expatriates. In consequence, this local community may suffer trembles when the government attempts to pump external investments to develop the region as a tourist destination. In such cases, employment may create social tensions, gap of understanding and irritation towards the government’s actions. In this case, micro and small loans, technical support to develop community-based tourism would be preferred to integrate local communities into the sustainable tourism development scheme. 7.3 Issues for Future Research The study pinpointed a crucial aspect that would support fulfilling and actualising potential benefits sought from investment in new tourist destinations. To resolve the problematic issue of discrepancy of environmental concerns between local communities inhabiting the new tourist destinations and the global environmental concerns of demand side- a new deep integrated process sponsored by national governments in such destinations should be framed and applied. To maximise the benefits from this study; further research are crucially needed and invited in very specific issues pertaining to conclusions of this thesis. The most important issues are: . A comprehensive research to identify in a measurable way the power and effect of each component in the formula of constructing environmental awareness of a certain society, in addition to derives behind those components. The nature of such research is multidisciplinary, since it employs economic and socio-economic factors behind each component. Nevertheless, conducting such research is crucial to enable policy makers to correctly frame their interventionist channels as of their strength and longevity. Besides, proceeding into building the integrated scheme without appropriate intensive study of mentioned components, jeopardises the intervention process. Decision makers would not be able to determine the adequate degree of intervention required, either underestimate or overestimate the process. In the latter case, resources would be squandered, when the intervention was more than actually required. Or, in the former cases, intervention would not be effective, when the intervention was less than actually needed. . Moreover, it is critical to trace and investigate thoroughly the stage during which the shifts in the western dominant paradigm and its repercussions on the society’s perception of the environment. In the course of this study, the shift in the social dominant paradigm was exposited. Furthermore, there is a great need for a detailed historical study on the variables which led to shifts in the western dominant paradigm. This is important because the world is undergoing rapid changes, and it goes without saying that the circumstances through which coincided the shift in the dominant paradigm of western societies may not identically concur those of today. Accordingly, in studying the methods to direct the attention of local communities to global environmental concerns, it is not enough to work on replication of socio- economic patterns thrusting the shift in developed countries. . The core of this thesis was local communities in developing countries, particularly those with authentic heritage and residing in regions with significant ecological features. For the purpose of the study, community was regarded as a homogenous construct. However, in reality, a community is constructed of many heterogeneous segments, of differing degrees of contrast according to many criteria. Consequently, there is a problem of obtaining a representation of all points of view of residents. Additionally, as revealed from the study, the economic and socio-cultural heritage of a community influences the community’s perception of tourism. Thus, anthropological and sociological studies, which document the economic and socio-cultural characteristics of local communities in each region, are perquisites determine the appropriate mechanisms to integrate the citizens of each region. . This thesis shed the light on the Western Desert region of Egypt, a pristine region hosting a wide range of complex ecosystems. Due to the absence of an ecological map for the Egyptian territories, the study channelled a huge effort to explore the various ecological zones in the region. This highlights the need for more specific interacting ecosystems need to be identified in a hierarchal system to support decision making and management objectives. Thus, it is hoped that this thesis will constitute the point of departure for future intensive research which will study the ecological zones of the regions and their carrying capacity. |