PAMANTASAN NG LUNGSOD NG MAYNILA

College of Business and Government Management

Institute of Tourism and Hospitality Management ITM 2105 – Sustainable Tourism

Topic 6: Tourism Impact Assessment

I. Tourism Impact Assessment (TIA) Entails reviewing and evaluating the impact of tourism-related activities on the environment, culture, and
economy.

Allows planners and developers to be aware of potential negative effects that would enable them to plan and
take effective and reasonable measures to prevent such impacts from happening (Coastlearn n.d.).
II. Importance of Tourism Impact Assessment Tourism impact assessment is important for a number of reasons:

1. It forces planners and developers to foresee what could possibly go wrong and take precautions to
prevent such unfortunate consequences from happening.
2. It compels the parties involved in tourism development to participate in a consultative process to iron
out kinks prior to the actual implementation of a project.
3. By assessing the potential impacts, planners and developers would be able to identify actions that
could prevent or mitigate the impacts.
4. The impact assessment process fosters coordination among stakeholders and encourages public
discussion of alternative approaches.
III. Basic Considerations in Tourism Impact At the conceptualization stage of a tourism project, it is imperative to consider several factors. Failure to do so
Assessment may result in legal suits, financial loss, and image problems. These factors include the following:

1. Constitution and existing laws

2. Land use plans and spatial planning
3. Zoning laws, zones of tourism value
4. Regulations on tourism investments, tourism enterprise zones, and tourism enterprises
5. Building code (various permits, standards for various types of structures)
6. Business registration requirements
7. Requirement for public consultation
8. Foreign equity laws
9. Protected area laws
10. Indigenous people’s rights, including their right to ancestral domains
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 11. Gender and development provisions
12. Minimum wage laws
13. Labor laws
14. Environmental laws
15. Tourism policy act
16. Critical habitat areas
17. Buffer zones
IV. Tourism Impact Assessment Tools
A. Triple Bottom Line Approach Triple bottom line (TBL) approach – encompasses economic, social, and environmental impacts of tourism
(Lundberg 2011).

TBL started out as a philosophy on how companies should incorporate sustainability and their environmental
advocacy in planning, but has evolved into an accounting tool considering not just the financial bottom line
(i.e., financial result) but also environmental and social impacts of the company.
B. Tourism Carrying Capacity Assessment Tourism Carrying Capacity Assessment (TCCA) is used to identify and implement limits to the number of
visitors to specific destinations or attractions.

Lundberg (2011) enumerated the various types of carrying capacity assessments:

1. Physical Carrying Capacity – determines the level of physical impacts that are acceptable at a
destination, which may all be tangible resources or just the environmental capacity, namely, how
many people that can be at a destination without affecting the quality.
2. Perceptual Carrying Capacity – looks at the situation from the tourists’ point of view, related to how
they perceive the quality of the destination.
3. Social or Sociocultural Carrying Capacity – focuses on the social and cultural changes due to tourism
increase.
4. Economic Carrying Capacity – the destination’s possibility to cater for demand without crowding out
other local economic activities.
5. Political or Administrative Carrying Capacity – concerned with how the local, political, and
administrative bodies can cope with tourism and to what extent it is needed to put limits on tourism
inflow.
V. European Tourism Indicator System The European Tourism Indicator System – is an assessment tool for monitoring, managing, and enhancing
tourism destination sustainability.

The System is comprised of a set of Indicators, a Toolkit, and a Dataset.

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 The System consists of 27 core and 40 optional indicators, which can be adopted on a voluntary basis and
utilized or integrated in whole or in part into existing destination monitoring systems.

The System is based on the principles of destination responsibility, ownership, and shared decision-making
(DG Enterprise and Industry 2013)
A. Core Indicators A. Destination Management Core Indicators are (1) sustainable tourism public policy, (2) sustainable
tourism management in tourism enterprises, (3) customer satisfaction, and (4) information and
communication.

B. Economic Value Core Indicators are (1) tourism flow (volume and value) at destination, (2) tourism
enterprise(s) performance, (3) quantity and quality of employment, (4) safety and health, and (5)
tourism supply chain.

C. Social and Cultural Impact Core Indicators – are (1) community/social impact as measured by the
visitor to resident ratio, (2) gender equality as measured by the ratio between men and women in the
tourism labor force, (3) accessibility for persons with disability, and (4) protecting and enhancing
cultural heritage, local identity, and assets.

D. Environmental Impact Core Indicators – are (1) reducing transport impact, (2) tourism impact on
climate change, (3) solid waste management, (4) sewage treatment, (5) water management, (6)
energy use, (7) landscape and biodiversity protection, (8) light and noise management, and (9)
bathing water quality.
VI. Boston Consulting Group’s Sustainable Best known for their growth-share matrix, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has developed Sustainable
Economic Development Assessment Economic Development Assessment or SEDA.

Sustainable Economic Development Assessment or SEDA - an approach which measures how well a country
is able to translate its income into overall well-being of its population.
SEDA – produces two numerical measures of progress:

1. Wealth to Well-being Coefficient (WWC) – compares a country’s current level of development against
the level of development that would be expected given its GDP per capita.

2. Growth to Well-being Coefficient (GWC) – compares a country’s 5-year GDP growth to improvements
in well-being during the same period.
VII. Sustainable Livelihoods Approach Sustainable livelihoods (SL) approach – analyzes the impact of tourism development on a community in
terms of its contribution to building capabilities, assets (natural, economic, or financial, human, and social

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 capital), and activities required for a means of living (Lundberg 2011).
It also analyzes tourism’s impact on creating sustainable livelihood, that is, the ability of a livelihood to cope
with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while preserving
the natural resource base ( based on the definition of sustainable livelihood by the Institute for Development
Studies or IDS, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK).

The Sustainable Livelihoods (SL) approach – measures outcomes in terms of the following indicators: increase
in income, increased well-being, reduced vulnerability, improved food security, and more sustainable use of
natural resource base (Krantz 2001).

VIII. Philippine Environmental Impact Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) – is defined by the Department of Environment and the Natural
Assessment System Resources Environmental Management Bureau as “a process that involves predicting and evaluating the likely
impacts of a project (including cumulative impacts) on the environment during construction, commissioning,
operation, and abandonment. It also includes designing appropriate preventive, mitigating, and enhancement
measures addressing these consequences to protect the environment and the community’s welfare.’’

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is mandated by law under the Presidential Decree No. 1586, which
established “an environmental impact statement system including other environmental management related
measures and for other purposes” (EMB) n.d.).
IX. Other Impact Assessment Frameworks The World Tourism Organization (1996) enumerated ten core indicators of sustainable tourism development,
namely:
1. Site protection
2. Stress
3. Use intensity
4. Social impact
5. Development control
6. Waste management
7. Planning process
8. Critical ecosystems
9. Consumer satisfaction
10. Local satisfaction (Cruz 20013).
A. Economic Viability Viability hinges partly on whether or not the tourist facilities that are provided are able to satisfy the needs,
preferences, and expectations of targeted tourist segments.

As such, accommodation facilities, spas, and other tourist amenities must be able to comply with minimum
international standards.

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 The Department of Tourism’s Office of Product Standards and Regulations requires compliance with
international standards for accommodation establishments, as well as tour guides.
B. Assessing Jobs in Tourism In addition to merely counting the direct and indirect number of tourism related jobs, there should also be an
assessment of the quality of such jobs.

The quality of jobs may be assessed using the decent work framework established by the International Labor
Organization.

Decent Work – has been defined by the ILO and endorsed by the international community as “opportunities
for women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security, and
human dignity” (Castillo 2010).