Development of a scale to assess the social impacts of tourism within communities

Project Member(s): Jonson, P.

Funding or Partner Organisation: CRC for Sustainable Tourism (Cooperative Research Centre In Sustainable Tourism)

Start year: 2004

Summary: This project builds on previous CRC projects to provide a tool for measuring the social impacts of tourism and to develop indicators for Green Globe. The project aims to identify the social impacts of tourism in different scenarios and then to suggest indicators. It will test and refine instruments used in these previous studies and investigate the value of methodologies, other than community surveys and community focus groups. The study aims to develop a simple method for measuring the social impacts of tourism that can be used in conjunction with economic and environmental assessment techniques as part of a tool-kit to gauge the â healthâ of tourism in a region. This is important to ensure that tourism is sustainable. The kit will be useful for comparing tourism in different regions, and for assessing changes in social impacts over time when new tourism development occurs. Through such comparisons it will be possible to learn what factors are associated with a â healthyâ tourism region, and where possible, these can then be implemented in regions in which warning signs of negative are observed. Ultimately, the project will develop strategies to ameliorate the impacts of tourism

Keywords: its a shared grant between Victoria and Murdoch universities and UTS

FOR Codes: Tourism

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.