Papago Park is home to the Phoenix Zoo, desert Botanica

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Interpretation of

• Johnston, Robert and Timothy Tyrrell, A Dynamic
  Model of Sustainable Tourism, Journal of Travel
  Research 44 (2), November 2005124-134.
• A presentation to theBEST Education Network
  Think Tank VIIInnovations for Sustainable
  Tourism JUNE 21 - 24, 2007, Flagstaff, Arizona,
  USA

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Elements of the JTR Article

• Two Basic Equations about the road to
  sustainability
• (1) Resilience (of ecosystem)
• (2) Objective (of industry or residents)
• One Map of the Solution
• A road map that satisfies the objective about
  the trip not and the resilience equation.

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Consider this trip

• You start from Las Vegas with full tank of gas
  and want to see as many different tourist
  attractions that you can before your tank is
  empty.
• To see a wide range of diverse attractions you
  will need to drive farther, but you will see
  fewer attractions. By staying near staying near
  LV you could see more nearby attractions, but
  they will be less diverse.
• What route will you take? and
• Where will you be when you run out of gas?

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Consider this trip
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Consider this trip

• Optimally you will want to balance seeing more
  diverse sites (positive) against driving greater
  distances (negative) and seeing fewer (negative)
  attractions over the course of your trip.
• In tourism development you will want to balance
  generating jobs, wages and profits (positive)
  against damaging the local ecology (negative)
  over the course of time.

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Consider this trip

• Something like sustainablity can be introduced
  into this story if you could trade the benefits
  received from visiting the attractions for
  gasoline. For example if you were a travel
  photographer, you could sell photographs and use
  the money to buy gasoline.
• You would reach a sustainability if you took just
  enough good photos to pay for the gasoline needed
  to get you to the next attraction.
• Notice that sustainability does not mean you stop
  traveling when you reach any particular
  destination. Sustainability would require
  constant travel.

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Consider this trip

• Both the travel photographer case and the tourism
  development case can be formulated in terms of
  specifying an objective and describing how ones
  status changes with time and use of resources.
• The solution can be drawn on a map (either a road
  map or phase diagram)
• For the tourism development case in the JTR
  article the equations were
• Resilience (of Ecosystem)
• Objective functional (of industry or residents)

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Environmental Resilience

• The equation describing the total per-period
  change in environmental quality combines the
  negative influence of visitors V and the positive
  influence of natural growth h(X)
• (1)

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Sustainability

• indicates the change in environmental
  quality from period to period, which may be
  positive, negative, or zero.
• Sustainability of environmental quality occurs
  where 0 (i.e., no change in environmental
  quality over time).
• This implies finding one of the balance points
  between natural growth and visitor damage. (There
  may be many.)

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Industry Objective

• The tourism industry wishes to choose the number
  of visitors (V) in each time period to maximize
  the sum of discounted profits over time.
• (2)

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Residential Objective

• Residents wish to choose the number of visitors
  (V) in each time period to maximize net benefits
  from profits, wages, congestion, traffic,
  environmental quality discounted over time.
• (2a)

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Photographs from the Okavango Delta, August 2006

• Photographs taken in the concession areas of Jao
  (Kwetsani Camp), Moremi Park (Little Mombo Camp),
  and the Linyanti (Kings Pool Camp). They provide
  a general sense of humans impact and place in
  the environment, and what the feel of the
  northern Delta is like.  A few show the vehicle
  tracks, which are just about the only sign of
  people you ever see once you leave camp. Others
  show the camps themselves, and a few try to give
  you a sense of the expanse and wildness of the
  place.

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Okavango Delta, Botswana Africa
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Okavango Delta, Botswana Africa
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Ecosystem Resilience of the Okavango Delta

• To the extent that the more isolated, northern
  Delta concessions have shown little decline in
  ecological quality, and no sign of diminishing
  wildlife populations, one would say that this is
  the sign of a resilient ecosystem. It appears to
  be maintaining itself at a relatively pristine
  level, regardless of the minor human impacts.
• The more southerly Delta locations, however, seem
  to be showing progressively increased signs of
  human impact. While still "pristine" by the
  standards of most places, ecological quality
  seems to be less resilient than in the less
  disturbed northern areas.
• Also, populations of the some more rare species
  (Rhino, Wild Dog) are found almost exclusively in
  the north. (Rhino have recently been reintroduced
  to the Moremi wildlife reserve, and seem to be
  doing well). In the south, these species are
  either absent or very rare - again suggesting a
  more resilient ecosystem in the North.

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Okavango Delta, Botswana Africa
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Photographs Taken in Phoenix Arizona, 2004

• Phoenix, the fifth largest city in the US, is
  home to the Diamondbacks (MLB), Cardinals (NFL),
  Suns (NBA), Coyotes (NHL) and Mercury (WNBA).
  Downtown Phoenix is home to Phoenix Civic Plaza,
  the Convention Center, Phoenix Symphony Hall, US
  Air Arena, Chase Field, The Harberger and Orpheum
  Theatres, Arizona Science Center, a variety of
  museums, symphony, orchestra and ballet companies
  and theatre groups. South Mountain Park is the
  largest municipal park in the country. Papago
  Park is home to the Phoenix Zoo, desert Botanical
  Gardens. The Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix is
  the sixth busiest airport in the world for
  airport operations and 12th busiest in the world
  for passenger traffic (7th in the US). Over
  31,000 employees work at the airport. There are
  23 domestic and international airlines operating
  at Sky Harbor, the two largest are Southwest and
  US Airways.

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Phoenix, AZ
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Phoenix, AZ
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Social and Economic Resilience of Phoenix Arizona

• The City of Phoenix is easily accessible to
  travelers and migrants. While much of the native
  ecology of the region has been replaced by
  residential subdivisions, the social and economic
  systems are changing and adapting rapidly to
  growth in the residential and tourist
  populations.
• Also, populations of the more rare species of
  restaurants, services and retail outlets are
  thriving and the competition among new
  entrepreneurs is creating a very robust economy,
  benefiting the local population with high
  employment, a diverse workforce and low prices.

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Implications of our dynamic model of
sustainability

• There are two separable components of
  sustainability that need careful attention
• 1 The Objective over time
• 2 The Resilience of the system
• Once these are defined solutions are map-able.
• Tourism Sustainabilty is not limited to
  environmental systems.