The Effects of Tourism Developments on the Built Environment in Small Island Developing States, Scenarios, Frameworks: The Case study of Curacao

The Effects of Tourism Developments on the Built Environment in Small Island Developing States, Scenarios, Frameworks: The Case study of Curacao

Thielman, S.S.B.

De Jonge, H. (mentor)
Van den Dobbelsteen, A. (mentor)
Vollebregt, A. (mentor)

Architecture

Real Estate & Housing

Urban Area Development

2013-01-15

Tourism is one of the main economical drivers for small island developing states. An adhoc approach towards tourist accommodation developments may have major, economic, social and environmental impacts. If in the future Curaçao only maximizes economic benefits and ignores environmental issues, it may experience the pitfall of unsustainable mass tourism. Tourism developments have been identified as a tool for local economic development and could also contribute towards social development of communities, and conservation of the natural environment. If managed and developed in a sustainable way. In order to determine what the effects of physical tourism developments are on the economy, society and the environment, a set of sustainability indicators (SIs) has been selected and assessed which has lead towards guidelines and a sustainable vision for plantage Santa Catharina located in Curacao. The objectives of the study were to determine the elements of sustainable tourism developments from existing literature; to identify a framework for selecting both generic and site-specific SIs; to select appropriate indicators for tourism developments in Curacao context; and to do a baseline assessment of three tourist development sites to determine the suitability of the selected methods and indicators. Data were collected by making use of structured interviews and collected data from Curacao tourism bureau which served as primary source of material in the attempt to develop sustainability assessment maps (SAMs). The research draws on the work of Ko (2005) in which he developed a conceptual approach for conducting a sustainable assessment. His work is used as a basis for the research, because of the scope of this study only three dimensions has been analysed. The results of the study show that the identified indicators provide a means of determining overall sustainability of physical tourism developments. Visualizing research findings is a good way of presenting data to interested parties that are involved in planning, monitoring aspect of tourism developments. Throughout the process of the research and study for this paper, it has become obvious that there are a huge number of directions for future research in relation to this similar area. In order to conduct a further and deeper research study, some indications are provided as these are: -Further analysis of Ko (2005) Sustainable assessment the other nine dimensions. Example this research was based only on three dimensions. -Further analysis of Sustainable assessment on tourism developments. Example this research was based on SIDS, it is better to sample from a worldwide level. -Further analysis of the development of good practice in sustainable tourism through developing a transparent measurement, monitoring and reporting system. - Further analysis of eco certificate for tourism developments, awarded good practice examples, e.g. Fiskars Village (Finland), the winner from the Royal Awards for sustainable tourism. The above recommendations are made for improving the overall sustainability of tourism developments. Finally there needs to be a more manageable overview of indicators. During the research there were too many indicators which makes it difficult to process information.

built environment

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:db63361e-0269-4574-bb64-7cec8ed3d74a

2013-03-19

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2013 Thielman, S.S.B.