“GT” Insight Bites: Diverse perspectives on visitor dispersion

An oft-cited anti­dote to over­tour­ism, and a means to spread the bene­fits of tour­ism more widely, is ‘vis­it­or dispersion’.

What are the biggest chal­lenges to encour­aging and incentiv­ising tour­ists to explore more of a destination?

Who or what do you think could con­trib­ute most to effect­ive vis­it­or dispersion?

What can an organ­isa­tion like yours do to encour­age and incentiv­ise dispersion?

For this “Insight bites”, your cor­res­pond­ent put the pro­pos­i­tion and ques­tions above to a range of travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers, and invited writ­ten responses of up to 300 words. 

Thanks very much to all who respon­ded. Their replies appear in order of receipt. Click/touch a name to go straight to their answer: 

• Chris Flynn — First pre­pare trav­el­ler dis­pers­al points 
• Thomas Bauer — City sights will remain pri­or­it­ies for first-time visitors
• Lauren Uğur — Loc­al ambas­sad­or pro­grams may help dis­perse visitors
• Jona­thon Day — Ques­tion­ing the com­mon wis­dom about vis­it­or dispersion
• Ben Lynam — Vis­it­or dis­per­sion may not be right for all destinations
• Cath­er­ine Ger­mi­er-Hamel — Dis­trib­uted vis­it­or dis­cov­ery centres may help
• Kev­in Phun — Spread­ing people out needs ser­i­ous, cre­at­ive consideration
• K Michael Hay­wood — Not enough is known about vis­it­or motivations
• Aay­usha Pra­sain — Dis­pers­ing trav­el­lers in Nepal
• Tim Rus­sell — Pre­con­cep­tions, infra­struc­ture pose chal­lenges to dispersion
• John Roberts — Safety, com­fort con­cerns for time-poor inter­na­tion­al visitors
• Kar­en Sim­monds — Mean­ing­ful con­sulta­tions begin with any­one selling travel
• Gra­ham Harp­er — Determ­ine cor­rect car­ry­ing capacity
• Willem Niemeijer — Private sec­tor, NGO, and gov­ern­ment col­lab­or­a­tion needed
• What do you think?

First prepare traveller dispersal points

Chris Flynn, Executive Chairman, World Tourism Association for Culture & Heritage (WTACH)

Before we incentiv­ise trav­el­lers to dis­perse, the most crit­ic­al aspect of a dis­pers­al plan is to ensure that those in the planned dis­pers­al point (oper­at­ors, res­id­ents, busi­nesses) are fully aware, trained, and sup­port­ive of the plans. 

In most cases this aspect is ignored or nev­er considered. 

Dis­pers­al without these key factors, plus oth­ers, such as car­ry­ing capa­city aware­ness, appro­pri­ate and/or suit­able infra­struc­ture facil­it­ies / invest­ment etc. is merely shift­ing the prob­lem some­where else, which will only serve to rep­lic­ate or com­pound the issue. 

Without the above being in place or actioned then the neg­at­ive impact of tour­ism will far out­weigh any per­ceived benefits. 

Dis­pers­al is often thought of as an obvi­ous or simple solu­tion to over­tour­ism dur­ing high vis­it­a­tion peak sea­sons. Without the appro­pri­ate plans, com­munity engage­ment that serves to build respons­ible and sus­tain­able tour­ism that, in turn, seeks to improve lives and loc­al prosper­ity, then you’re merely shift­ing the prob­lem to some­where else. The prob­lems this cre­ates are all too obvi­ous from des­tin­a­tions that have already got it wrong. 

Who or what do you think could con­trib­ute most to effect­ive vis­it­or dispersion?

• Improved com­mu­nic­a­tions with affected communities
• Tour­ism train­ing of loc­al gov­ern­ment, coun­cils, oper­at­ors, and businesses

What can an organ­isa­tion like yours do to encour­age and incentiv­ise vis­it­or dispersion?

All of the above. We have a com­plete tour­ism train­ing port­fo­lio to counter the neg­at­ive effects of mis­guided tour­ism plans and strategies.

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City sights will remain priorities for first-time visitors

Thomas Bauer, Adjunct Professor, The University of the South Pacific, Fiji

It all depends on the destination. 

There is no point talk­ing about dis­pers­ing vis­it­ors if they are on their first trip to say Par­is and want to tick off the main high­lights because they only have a few days there. 

It’s a dif­fer­ent story if they are repeat vis­it­ors to a large coun­try like Aus­tralia and have already seen the main sights. 

It would be nice if des­tin­a­tion man­agers could dis­perse tour­ists and dir­ect them to places THEY want them to go rather to places that the tour­ists want to visit. 

So, in a nut­shell there is little chance to dis­perse tour­ists in cit­ies — Who wants to see the sub­urbs of any city? — unless new attrac­tions are cre­ated there (like Hong Kong Dis­ney or Par­is Dis­ney). But even then each loc­a­tion has some major attrac­tions and that is what tour­ists want to see.

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Local ambassador programs may help disperse visitors

Lauren Uğur, Professor, Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Think­ing about vis­it­or dis­per­sion in urb­an des­tin­a­tions and what it is that could con­trib­ute most effect­ively to a broadened spec­trum of vis­it­or exper­i­ences, I believe strengthened rela­tion­ships with loc­als, par­tic­u­larly in the form of ambas­sad­or pro­grammes, offers much untapped potential.

By pro­mot­ing their des­tin­a­tions to poten­tial vis­it­ors, loc­al ambas­sad­ors can help facil­it­ate effect­ive vis­it­or dis­per­sion and provide valu­able insights into the loc­al cul­ture and attractions.

Nowadays, more than ever, vis­it­ors seek true authen­ti­city and the feel­ing of immer­sion in the daily life of the places they vis­it – real food, real cul­ture, real people. Tour­ists fun­da­ment­ally seek emo­tion­al con­nec­tions with loc­als and their lifestyles. 

An effect­ive way of both cre­at­ing and com­mu­nic­at­ing this authen­ti­city would be through lever­aging rela­tion­ships with loc­al res­id­ents through des­tin­a­tion ambas­sad­or pro­grammes. After all, it is loc­al people that have the best insights into what val­ues, places, and exper­i­ences best rep­res­ent their neighborhoods.

No one knows a place bet­ter than a per­son who lives there.

The offer of authen­ti­city through build­ing strong rela­tion­ships with loc­al res­id­ents as brand ambas­sad­ors enables a power­ful, authen­t­ic, and irres­ist­ibly real form of des­tin­a­tion mar­ket­ing that show­cases a huge diversity of facets not nor­mally included on the tra­di­tion­al tour­ist itinerary.

Fur­ther­more, the con­nectiv­ity and interest enabled by social net­works and social media mar­ket­ing means that rais­ing aware­ness of excit­ing vis­it­or oppor­tun­it­ies across cit­ies is easi­er than ever to achieve, facil­it­at­ing vis­it­or dis­per­sion as tour­ists are aware, effect­ively informed, like what they see, and trust the know­ledge of those that know the city best. 

Also exceed­ingly attract­ive for DMOs is the fact that res­id­ent-gen­er­ated mar­ket­ing is less biased and more cost-effect­ive than tra­di­tion­al advertising. 

Over­all, a win-win oppor­tun­ity many more des­tin­a­tions could be tak­ing advant­age of!

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Questioning the common wisdom about visitor dispersion

Jonathon Day, Associate Professor | Graduate Program Director, White Lodging — J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management

Recently I have been rethink­ing some of the more com­mon wis­dom asso­ci­ated with tour­ism management. 

While ideas like dis­pers­al — and extend­ing sea­son­al­ity — may appeal to eco­nom­ists (they both increase util­isa­tion of assets), they may not be in the best interests of the des­tin­a­tion com­munity. For example, when listen­ing to com­munity stake­hold­ers, I hear folks talk about the value of their ‘off sea­son’. They have no desire to be busy all year. So, while dis­per­sion strategies are a pos­sible response, it is import­ant to think about it from a sus­tain­ab­il­ity perspective. 

Three ques­tions come to mind.

The first ques­tion: Do the areas tour­ists are being dir­ec­ted to really want more tour­ists? Will more tour­ists in these places improve des­tin­a­tion com­munity mem­bers’ qual­ity of life? And, if not, why do it? 

Some of the greatest points of fric­tion we have in the tour­ism sys­tem at the moment is where tour­ists go bey­ond the ‘tour­ist bubble’. A good example of this is Airb­nb, which has dis­persed vis­it­ors away from the ‘touristy’ parts of cit­ies across the world. 

This leads to the second big ques­tion: Is there a plan to man­age these new vis­it­ors in the new loc­a­tions? If not, then think­ing that through may be time well spent. Too often, we are just try­ing to address the symp­tom — over­crowding — without address­ing the dis­ease: Poor plan­ning. ‘Good tour­ism’ doesn’t ‘just happen’.

The third ques­tion: Are you pre­pared to com­mit to this approach for the long term? Dis­per­sion requires chan­ging con­sumer beha­viour and that takes long-term effort. It’s not a short-term fix. 

We live in a world of “big hits and long tails”. Icon­ic images attract us to many des­tin­a­tions. The per­ceived “must-see” things in a des­tin­a­tion — wheth­er it’s Lon­don, Rome, Par­is — don’t change quickly. It takes a long-term com­mit­ment to raise aware­ness of altern­at­ives that dis­perse vis­it­ors to new locations.

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Visitor dispersion may not be right for all destinations

Ben Lynam, Head of Communications, The Travel Foundation

Whilst vis­it­or dis­per­sion is an import­ant tool in man­aging the impacts of over­tour­ism, it brings with it the risk of mov­ing neg­at­ive impacts from one place to another. 

In some cases, less vis­ited places may be less suit­able to accom­mod­ate tour­ists, for example due to fra­gile eco­sys­tems. They may be unpre­pared for impacts such as increases in waste, energy, and water-use and demands on infrastructure.

Vis­it­or dis­per­sion may not be the best option for all des­tin­a­tions. One size does not fit all in des­tin­a­tion management. 

Zon­ing, or restrict­ing tour­is­m’s land use, may also be import­ant to dis­cour­age resort sprawl and retain geo­graph­ic­al char­ac­ter, crit­ic­al eco­sys­tems, and loc­al access.

One of the key chal­lenges is to ensure that it is used along­side oth­er strategies as part of a more hol­ist­ic and resi­li­ent tour­ism mod­el that puts the needs of loc­al res­id­ents at its centre (see the Future of Tour­ism Coali­tion’s guid­ing prin­ciples).

On its own, vis­it­or dis­per­sion is unlikely to ensure a thriv­ing and equit­able tour­ism eco­nomy, but used as part of a stew­ard­ship approach it is likely to be more suc­cess­ful. This includes under­stand­ing the impacts of tour­ism spe­cif­ic to the des­tin­a­tion, adopt­ing new indic­at­ors of suc­cess to include the exper­i­ence of loc­al com­munit­ies, and fos­ter­ing col­lab­or­a­tion between the pub­lic and private sectors.

Over­tour­ism is likely to remain a crit­ic­al theme post pan­dem­ic, and encour­aging vis­it­or dis­per­sion will no doubt be an import­ant part of the response. 

At the Travel Found­a­tion we are sup­port­ing des­tin­a­tions to go a step fur­ther, enabling the innov­a­tion, col­lab­or­a­tions, and new skill­sets, such as risk pro­fil­ing and com­munity engage­ment, required to move towards a more bal­anced tour­ism mod­el. Our new online course, with Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity, start­ing this Autumn, is designed to equip des­tin­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als with the know­ledge and skills they need.

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Distributed visitor discovery centres may help disperse visitors

Catherine Germier-Hamel, CEO, Destination Mekong

In this post-COV­ID con­text, it seems cru­cial to not only let people travel again but also to motiv­ate them to spend more time and money, and con­trib­ute bet­ter to loc­al eco­nom­ies. Togeth­er with diver­si­fic­a­tion and dif­fer­en­ti­ation strategies, vis­it­or dis­per­sion can be instru­ment­al in optim­ising phys­ic­al and fin­an­cial flows, provided it is prop­erly planned, man­aged, con­trolled, and promoted.

Cre­ated in 2017 and incor­por­ated in 2022, Des­tin­a­tion Mekong (DM) is a private-sec­tor-led tour­ism board ded­ic­ated to cham­pi­on­ing the Great­er Mekong Sub­re­gion (GMS), com­pris­ing Cam­bod­ia, PR China (Provinces of Guangxi and Yun­nan), Lao PDR, Myan­mar, Thai­l­and, and Viet Nam, as a sus­tain­able tour­ism des­tin­a­tion cre­at­ing value, impact, and oppor­tun­it­ies for all.

DM has designed and facil­it­ated value-added pro­grams and impact solu­tions high­light­ing the diversity, unique­ness, and attract­ive­ness of the GMS. These include Des­tin­a­tion Mekong Dis­cov­ery Cen­ters (DMDCs). 

DMDCs are smart, eco-friendly, mul­tipur­pose, and multi-branded tour­ism hubs offer­ing a vari­ety of mod­u­lar fea­tures, includ­ing inform­a­tion, inter­pret­a­tion, com­mu­nic­a­tion, pro­mo­tion, recre­ation, storytelling, as well as edu­ca­tion, train­ing, and skills applic­a­tion in mod­el accom­mod­a­tion and cater­ing facil­it­ies, data col­lec­tion, and ana­lys­is, etc.

DMDCs stand as unique exper­i­ences and attrac­tions nudging vis­it­ors to explore a des­tin­a­tion in a deep­er and more mean­ing­ful way. They also sup­port efforts towards the improve­ment of access­ib­il­ity, con­nectiv­ity, and qual­ity of the ser­vices espe­cially in devel­op­ing or emer­ging destinations.

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Spreading people out needs serious, creative consideration

Kevin Phun, Founder & Director, The Centre for Responsible Tourism Singapore

In this age of mass tour­ism, even if the pan­dem­ic seems to be near­ing its end, we are slowly see­ing what could look like pre-pan­dem­ic levels of tour­ist num­bers in many des­tin­a­tions. The idea of spread­ing tour­ists out, if not thought of ser­i­ously already, will surely need to be looked at ser­i­ously now.

Spread­ing people out decreases pres­sure on well-known sites and encour­ages plan­ners to think more about ways to dis­trib­ute tourism’s bene­fits, espe­cially to people who usu­ally find it harder to bene­fit from tourism.

Spread­ing people out should be explored more cre­at­ively; for example, cre­at­ing food trails — mar­ket­ing food tour­ism exper­i­ences — can be a very attract­ive pro­pos­i­tion. Food tour­ism pro­motes food cul­tures and tra­di­tions, helps pre­serve tra­di­tions, and encour­ages the safe­guard­ing of cul­tur­al her­it­age. Places asso­ci­ated with such tour­ism exper­i­ences often tend to be the coun­tryside, away from the urb­an spaces (very attract­ive to the stressed out urb­an­ites). Such trips also bene­fit the loc­al people, from grow­ers to farm­ers to oper­at­ors of homestays and farm-stays.

In an era when almost any­thing can be a tour­ist attrac­tion, spread­ing people out is not a very com­plic­ated idea. Eco­tour­ism and adven­ture tour­ism — not neces­sar­ily sim­il­ar yet both largely involve trav­el­ling to places close to nature — are good examples of dis­trib­ut­ing people out and also spread­ing tourism’s bene­fits. They work espe­cially well in places where there are endangered wild­life or flora.

Places that are less access­ible often find them­selves less vis­ited. There is an onus on plan­ners to cre­ate reas­ons for people to vis­it such places. Besides the fact that some less access­ible des­tin­a­tions make great places for nature-based travel, some­times one gets to see and appre­ci­ate eth­nic tri­bal cultures.

Spread­ing people out is not a new concept but know­ing how it works is important. 

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Not enough is known about visitor motivations

K Michael Haywood, Professor Emeritus, University of Guelph, Canada

Not enough is known about the par­tic­u­lar­it­ies and pecu­li­ar­it­ies of vis­it­or motiv­a­tions to smal­ler and often more remote des­tin­a­tions, let alone how to incentivise.

Budget and time lim­it­a­tions cur­tails interest in second- or third-tier des­tin­a­tions unless know­ledge about them is read­ily avail­able, and they are per­ceived as truly com­pel­ling, attract­ive, and desir­able. Bene­fits won’t accrue unless such des­tin­a­tions are afford­able, easy to access, and wel­com­ing. Essen­tial trans­port and accom­mod­a­tion infra­struc­tures and labor require­ments have to be in place and well established.

Dis­per­sion, how­ever, is not just a mat­ter of spread­ing bene­fits, but a mat­ter of avoid­ing asso­ci­ated prob­lems and out­comes, some asso­ci­ated with dis­turb­ances and mass gath­er­ings (issues often of con­cern to police), but also with host of eco­nom­ic, social, cul­tur­al, and envir­on­ment­al dis­lo­ca­tions and disconnects. 

There needs to be a trans­fer of know­ledge about the strategies and tac­tics developed by Dis­ney World and sim­il­ar theme parks. This includes the need for reser­va­tion sys­tems, attend­ance caps, schedul­ing, ven­ue dis­per­sion, pri­cing policies, and rev­en­ue man­age­ment pro­grams. All of which are man­age­ment issues, sorely lack­ing in many des­tin­a­tions because of a lack of cent­ral­ised oversight.

Policy and plan­ning ini­ti­at­ives should favor tourism’s region­al devel­op­ment; devel­op­ment that con­siders the pur­pose of tour­ism with­in indi­vidu­al com­munit­ies, includ­ing its upsides and downsides. 

It has been argued that des­tin­a­tion bound­ar­ies for DMOs could be exten­ded, sug­gest­ing a broad­en­ing of roles and respons­ib­il­it­ies. And most second or third-tier and remote des­tin­a­tions should con­sider seek­ing “min­im­um viable audi­ences”.

I would encour­age an under­stand­ing of the UK’s Nation­al Trust whose Policy from Prac­tice has worked won­ders for the dis­per­sion of vis­it­ors. Then there is UNESCO, whose Guidelines for the Imple­ment­a­tion of the World Her­it­age Con­ven­tion provides insight into devel­op­ing, man­aging, and pro­tect­ing areas of spe­cial interest. 

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Dispersing travellers in Nepal

Aayusha Prasain, CEO, Community Homestay Network, Nepal

The moun­tains of Nepal have attrac­ted inter­na­tion­al trav­el­lers from around the world for a long time. Although they helped put Nepal on the glob­al tour­ism map, they have also con­trib­uted to over­tour­ism in some destinations. 

Con­ven­tion­al tour­ism in Nepal focuses on pop­u­lar des­tin­a­tions, such as Tato­pani on the Annapurna Cir­cuit Trail, while over­look­ing oth­er places. Devel­op­ing and pro­mot­ing an altern­at­ive to the fam­ous Annapurna Cir­cuit Trail could incentiv­ise trav­el­lers to explore oth­er destinations. 

How­ever, it is a big chal­lenge for tour oper­at­ors if trav­el­lers are not will­ing to go bey­ond their buck­et lists and com­fort zones. 

Trav­el­lers who do want to explore bey­ond the well-mar­keted des­tin­a­tions often want to choose a respons­ible tour oper­at­or with the inten­tion of trav­el­ling respons­ibly. As an industry, we need to be pre­pared to encour­age these trav­el­lers by cur­at­ing unique tour­ism products. 

So Nepal is sim­il­ar to the glob­al con­text. Only a few fam­ous des­tin­a­tions are being heav­ily pro­moted, res­ult­ing in lim­ited bene­fits for “unex­plored”, yet beau­ti­ful rur­al des­tin­a­tions. With lim­ited expos­ure to tech­no­logy and mar­ket­ing, rur­al com­munit­ies can­not pro­mote their diverse cul­tures and land­scapes to their full potential. 

Real­ising these prob­lems, Com­munity Homestay Net­work was estab­lished in 2017 to pro­mote tour­ism that bene­fits loc­als and women dir­ectly. To con­tin­ue our efforts to build resi­li­ent com­munit­ies through a tour­ism value-chain approach, we work with dif­fer­ent busi­ness and devel­op­ment part­ners to cre­ate unique itin­er­ar­ies for travellers. 

We have worked on build­ing com­munity homestay cir­cuits in vari­ous regions in Nepal that were not pre­vi­ously on the tour­ism map, includ­ing com­munit­ies in Bhada and Narchy­ang, among oth­ers. As we added them to the cir­cuits, trav­el­lers found that they enjoyed the authen­ti­city of the cul­ture and the unspoiled nat­ur­al beauty. 

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Preconceptions, infrastructure pose challenges to dispersion

Tim Russell, Group Marketing Manager, Khiri Travel

I think there are two main challenges:

The first is the pre­con­cep­tions of vis­it­ors, who have been subtly ‘brain­washed’ into believ­ing that they HAVE to go to cer­tain des­tin­a­tions, or that only cer­tain places are suit­able. A per­fect example is Cam­bod­ia. Nearly every­one goes to Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, and misses out on Bat­tam­bang and Kratie. 

The second is that sec­ond­ary des­tin­a­tions may lack the infra­struc­ture required. In Thai­l­and I would love to see more people vis­it Suk­hothai, for example, but with no rail­way sta­tion and a tiny air­port, it is simply not ready for more tourists. 

Who or what do you think could con­trib­ute most to effect­ive vis­it­or dispersion?

It really has to be tour­ism boards, tour operators/DMCs, and travel agen­cies. Tour­ism boards need to look bey­ond their primary des­tin­a­tions and make their tar­get audi­ences more aware of ‘hid­den gems’. Travel busi­nesses need to push sec­ond­ary des­tin­a­tions, and encour­age longer stays and repeat visits. 

Travel journ­al­ists and film­makers also have a role to play by fea­tur­ing more obscure places, rather than the mar­quee des­tin­a­tions. This should be driv­en by tour­ism boards, DMCs, etc.

What can an organ­isa­tion like yours do to encour­age and incentiv­ise vis­it­or dispersion?

Enthu­si­asm and expert­ise are key to organ­isa­tions like Khiri. Our agents trust that we know our des­tin­a­tions inside out and listen to us when we wax lyr­ic­al about an obscure place. So we can play a sig­ni­fic­ant role in get­ting people to dive a little deep­er or stay a little longer. 

Stress­ing the bene­fits of tour­ist dis­pers­al is essen­tial. Post-COV­ID, trav­el­lers are more aware of the value tour­ism brings, espe­cially in devel­op­ing coun­tries. And they are more con­scious of sus­tain­ab­il­ity. We have a duty to high­light the bene­fits to all of, say, spend­ing more time in Laos to vis­it less­er-known Pakse or Champasak.

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Safety, comfort concerns for time-poor international visitors

John Roberts, Group Director of Conservation & Sustainability, Minor Hotels Asia

The biggest chal­lenge for inter­na­tion­al tour­ists is time, and a guar­an­tee of safe, com­fort­able travel. For many, the idea of trav­el­ling more than an hour from an air­port is too far, let alone los­ing a vaca­tion day sit­ting in a car. 

Also, it is hard to per­suade loc­al entre­pren­eurs to invest in hotels or activ­it­ies that are dif­fi­cult to fill. So, for guests who still push to see the unseen, put­ting up with uncer­tain qual­ity accom­mod­a­tion and food may be anoth­er disincentive. 

Who or what do you think could con­trib­ute most to effect­ive vis­it­or dispersion?

Dur­ing COVID sig­ni­fic­ant num­bers of Thai people trav­elled to so-called ’sec­ond­ary des­tin­a­tions’, amp­li­fy­ing their impact by post­ing their trip on Instagram. 

Mean­while ima­gin­at­ive, com­fort­able accom­mod­a­tion and infra­struc­ture from cof­fee shops to ’sky­walks’ have popped up to ser­vice these guests. It is not a case of hav­ing to rough it to see the unseen anymore. 

Domest­ic interest seems to have been key. I hope that as the coun­try reopens this con­tin­ues. It will be key to driv­ing flights and, once the flights are reli­ably there, inter­na­tion­al guests and agents will be more com­fort­able to book.

What can an organ­isa­tion like yours do to encour­age and incentiv­ise vis­it­or dispersion?

Does try­ing to per­suade people to travel to Chi­ang Rai instead of, or as well as, Chi­ang Mai still count?  After 20 years of doing it I’m still sur­prised how many trav­el­lers still say “we’d like to vis­it but you are too far”. 

Pri­or to COVID we opened Mekong King­doms Gypsy, a two-cab­in über lux­ury boat on the Mekong between Chi­ang Saen and Luang Pra­bang. And we’ve opened The Vietage a lux­ury train car­riage to some of Vietnam’s farther-flung destinations. 

Not being afraid to take on out-of-the-way des­tin­a­tions for our hotels, and then con­cen­trat­ing on com­fort­able ways to get there, is cer­tainly a good way to ensure inter­na­tion­al tour­ists’ con­fid­ence to explore.

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Meaningful consultations begin with anyone selling travel

Karen Simmonds, Founder, Travel Matters, UK

Some of the biggest chal­lenges facing vis­it­or dis­per­sion are the way that travel mar­ket­eers, social media, and des­tin­a­tion man­agers jump on the same band wag­on to pro­mote destinations. 

People are like sheep and, more often than not, go where they are told to go. They like to keep up with the Jones’.

As the own­er and founder of an inde­pend­ent travel com­pany, and the cam­paign “Make Travel Mat­ter”, I feel it is our respons­ib­il­ity to have unbiased, mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions, so as to explain to our cli­ents the big­ger pic­ture. We talk about the impact and con­tri­bu­tion their vis­it will have on the des­tin­a­tion, and the advant­age of research­ing a place before vis­it­ing to ensure that the exper­i­ence is rich­er for the vis­it­or and the com­munity alike. 

Human beings are curi­ous. They learn more from trav­el­ling than at any oth­er time. A truly immers­ive travel exper­i­ence is to get to know loc­als, learn about their live­li­hoods, use loc­al guides, build friend­ships, and have last­ing relationships. 

Travel com­pan­ies have a respons­ib­il­ity to play their part in effect­ive vis­it­or dis­per­sion by explain­ing the bene­fits. Mean­ing­ful con­sulta­tions begin with any­one selling travel. We should look to cre­ate a win­ning for­mula for vis­it­ors as well as locals. 

Des­tin­a­tions too need to con­sider the bur­dens and bene­fits of hav­ing the traveller’s dol­lar, includ­ing the over­all well-being of the com­munit­ies that live there. 

There needs to be a long term vis­ion for the devel­op­ment of tour­ism in des­tin­a­tions, ensur­ing that it meets the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals of decent work, eco­nom­ic growth, and a reduc­tion in inequality.

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Determine correct carrying capacity

Graham Harper, Director of Sustainability & Social Responsibility, Pacific Asia Travel Association

For the diver­si­fic­a­tion and dis­pers­al of tour­ism, gov­ernance by loc­al tour­ism author­it­ies (DMOs) is extremely important. 

This allows for the cor­rect des­tin­a­tion car­ry­ing capa­city to be determ­ined, and then, hope­fully, the cor­rect policies imple­men­ted for the des­tin­a­tion to be man­aged correctly. 

The adequate use of data via effect­ive tech infra­struc­ture will greatly assist the DMOs in mak­ing the right decisions to meet car­ry­ing capa­city requirements.

PATA has launched the Tour­ism Des­tin­a­tion Resi­li­ence pro­gramme, spe­cific­ally tar­get­ing DMO capa­city devel­op­ment and provid­ing requis­ite tools.

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Private sector, NGO, and government collaboration needed

Willem Niemeijer, CEO, YAANA Ventures

Vis­it­or dis­per­sion is the key to sus­tain­able growth for des­tin­a­tions in our region and a deterrent to over­tour­ism in hubs. 

Trav­el­lers and would-be cus­tom­ers need to see and hear about a ‘new’ place, and likely want to see or read about first-hand exper­i­ences by oth­ers first. 

Fur­ther­more, these days it is not only enough for a site to be beau­ti­ful or inter­est­ing. Trav­el­lers need to be con­vinced that the exper­i­ence they buy is sus­tain­able to the com­munity and to envir­on­ment as well. 

How­ever, des­tin­a­tion-build­ing is a very dif­fi­cult task for the private sec­tor to take on if scale is required. 

A con­cer­ted effort of the private sec­tor, non-gov­ern­ment­al tour­ism organ­isa­tions, and gov­ern­ment­al tour­ism bod­ies is needed to get new des­tin­a­tions ‘on the map’. 

It takes time, money and entre­pren­eur­ship. Private-sec­tor investors in such new places need to find com­mon ground with each oth­er, and put com­pet­i­tion in the mar­ket second to ensure that the des­tin­a­tion makes it. 

What can an organ­isa­tion like yours do to encour­age and incentiv­ise vis­it­or dispersion?

By keep­ing our part­ner tour oper­at­ors world­wide updated on the oppor­tun­it­ies these ‘new’ des­tin­a­tions have to offer — to help them keep their offers fresh and rel­ev­ant — and by shar­ing our pas­sion for these places. 

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What do you think? 

What do you think? Share your own thoughts in a com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism, because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Will vis­it­ors simply go where the wind blows, like dan­deli­on seeds? Image by akirE­Varga (CC0) via Pixabay.

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