An enhanced framework for regional tourism sustainable Adaptation to climate change
Abstract
Tourismis not only contributing to climate change but also vulnerable to risks induced by changing climate regime.
Sea level rise, extreme events, loss of biodiversity, water stress among other direct and indirect impacts pose
potential danger for the tourism industry. Although mitigation to reduce GHGs is equally important, adaptation
is urgent. The need for urgent adaptation to climate change has triggered tourism stakeholders and the research
community to develop generic adaptation framework(s) for national, regional or local tourism destinations.
These frameworks are used to guide tourism policy makers in the adaptation process with an aim of reducing
destination's vulnerability and to increase their resilience. Whilst some destinations are already implementing
planed adaptation using these frameworks, caution has been raised that current adaptation strategies sought are
far from sustainable. Assuming that the frameworks are the guiding tools for adaptation we hereby question
their suitability in achieving sustainable adaptation. Sustainable adaptation in this context refers to those
approaches that reduce destination's vulnerability and increase resilience without jeopardizing its economic
viability, social justice and environmental integrity. This paper reviews the existing tourism specific adaptation
frameworks based on the basic principles of sustainable adaptation and the wider discourse on sustainable
development. Claims are laid on how the existing tourism adaptation frameworks fail to fulfil the basic principles
of sustainable adaptation. Further attempts are made to propose an enhanced Regional Tourism Sustainable
Adaptation Framework. The framework is a significant contribution in two ways. First it contributes to the new
school of thought, on sustainable adaptation, where knowledge is lacking and secondly, it provides a practical tool
for sustainable adaptation that may be used by destination managers and policy makers in the adaptation process.
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/103http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211973614000300
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211973614000300
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/An-enhanced-framework-for-regional-tourism-to-Njoroge/dbebdeb8203a286827f9d0e1abdfcfd7e89f5684
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262260795_An_enhanced_framework_for_regional_tourism_sustainable_Adaptation_to_climate_change