Emma Wong

Climate change adaptation in the Pacific Island tourism sector: analysing the policy environment in Vanuatu

Tourism is a growing economic sector in the South Pacific providing the region with great potential for economic development. Vanuatu and its neighbouring Small Island Developing States and Territories experience a high vulnerability to climate change impacts. The tourism sector in Vanuatu is particularly vulnerable, and it needs to develop and implement effective adaptation strategies to reduce climate change risks. Policies play an important role by providing the platform on which adaptation can occur and resilience be built. This study examines the policy environment in Vanuatu for its conduciveness to climate change adaptation. It identifies the types of adaptation processes (explicit or implicit) and types of adaptation measures (technical, business management, behavioural, policy, and research and education) and critically analyses the current tourism-related policies for their effectiveness in assisting the sector to address climate change. It is found that the majority of policies identified deal with climate change through implicit adaptation processes and mainly through the use of policy and research and education measures. The authors argue that in order to strengthen the resilience of the tourism industry, the Government of Vanuatu needs to develop and implement explicit climate change adaptation policies for the tourism sector.

Marketing cultural attractions: understanding non‐attendance and visitation barriers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw together the previous academic and industry research on non‐attendance of cultural attractions, followed by qualitative in‐depth interviews to identify commonalities or gaps in the previous research on barriers, constraints and inhibitors, as well as to propose linkages between these.Design/methodology/approach – A multi‐method approach is used – where barriers, constraints and inhibitors are identified by means of thematic content analysis of the literature. A set of probing questions is developed based on these themes and is then examined in in‐depth interviews with individuals that had not visited cultural attractions in the past two years, in an attempt to triangulate data, as well as to identify connections between barriers.Findings – From the literature, eight interconnected barriers to visitation are identified: physical access; personal access; cost; time and timing; product; personal interest and peer group; socialisation and understanding; and infor...

Policy environment for the tourism sector's adaptation to climate change in the South Pacific - the case of Samoa

Samoa and its neighbouring Pacific Island Countries are highly vulnerable to climate change risks because their population and infrastructure are mostly located on low-lying coastal areas. Impacts of climate change are potentially disastrous to tourism, the major economic sector in the region. This research examines the conduciveness of the policy environment in Samoa for the tourism sector to adapt to climate change along three dimensions: stakeholders’ will and commitment, resources available, and policy-making mechanisms [Wong, E.P.Y., Mistilis, N., & Dwyer, L. (2011). A framework for analyzing intergovernmental collaboration – the case of ASEAN tourism. Tourism Management, 32, 367–376]. Samoa is used as an exemplar case study to understand how the Pacific island tourism sector can best adapt to climate change. It was found that the policy environment in Samoa is generally conducive. However, there is a strong need for closer public–private cooperation.

Tourism adaptation to climate change - analysing the policy environment of Fiji

As the largest export sector and a major employer for Fiji, tourism is probably highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to the sector’s dependence on environment and climate. This paper evaluates the conduciveness of Fiji’s policy environment for tourism adaptation to climate change. It analyses how Fiji’s policies (both explicit and implicit) in climate change, tourism, environmental and disaster management address tourism adaptation types as well as characteristics of Small Island Developing States and Territories (SIDST) that make them especially vulnerable to climate change. The paper concludes that Fiji does provide a reasonably conducive policy environment for its tourism to adapt, but some important adaptation issues still remain as policy gaps. The Fijian government shows an intention to integrate climate change into sectoral policies, but it is yet to be mainstreamed into the tourism sector. Most of the initiatives are policy-level adaptation with research and education the second adaptation type relatively well addressed. Other aspects of adaptation, particularly technical, business management and behavioural adaptations, need to be more comprehensively addressed in Fiji. Based on these identified policy gaps, the paper recommends that the tourism sector in Fiji needs to deal with challenges in raising awareness of climate change issues, building financial and human resources capacities and ensuring policy implementation.

Evaluation of policy environment for climate change adaptation in tourism.

Tourism in small island developing states and territories in the South Pacific is crucial to the development of these countries yet highly vulnerable to climate change. Drawing on political science theories, this study critically analyses the policy environment of Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu for the tourism sector’s adaptation to climate change. Three aspects of the policy environment were analysed, namely stakeholder commitment, resource availability and capacity, and presence of enabling mechanisms or processes. We find that Samoa provides the most conducive policy environment among the three for climate change adaptation. The difference can be attributed to political instability and lack of institutional coordination in Fiji; and in Vanuatu, industry players showing little concern for climate change and lack of policy implementation. Stakeholders should take ownership of the climate change issues, and governments better manage the funding from aid agencies and establish policy mechanisms that facilitate adaptation.