Presentation on visitor management given at National Taiwan University

1. Rethinking Visitor Management for the
21st Century
Stephen F. McCool
Professor Emeritus
The University of Montana
National Taiwan University Internet Version
25 March 2011

2. Competing Demands
 Rising visitor use collides with diversifying
expectations for forests
Rising visitor use collides with
diversifying expectations for forests

3. Preserve environment and allow
visitor use?

4. Objectives
partially
competing,
partially
overlapping

5. Creates dilemmas and confusion
for managers

6. Implications
 We manage in a new world of complexity,
uncertainty and change
 Recreation management and planning is in a crisis
 Implementation and monitoring remain problematic
 It is in a crisis because
 Of lack of funding
 Declines in organizational capacity
 Mindsets or mental models for managing recreation

7. What I Will Try to do Today
 Emphasize a change in looking at our
management
 Discuss reasons for why management of
visitors is in crisis
 Suggest how we can re-think our approaches

8. Given the Variety, Complexity and
Uncertainty of the Context, The World of
Nature-based Tourism …
 Is wicked
 Conflict/confusion over goals
 Scientific uncertainty about relationship between
causes and effects

9. And is messy
Problems are connected,
cannot solve one problem
without affecting other
problems

10. And while international travel is
growing rapidly,
It is also increasingly competitive

11. Fundamental Propositions about Nature-
based Tourism
Application of systems
thinking helps integrate
varying disciplines and
forms of knowledge

12. Live in a complex, uncertain environment
which is also politically contentious

13. Tourism
experience is
dependent upon
heritage values
present

14. Need a framework to “work through” issues

15. Mental models determine how we respond
to life’s situations

16. A Mindset or Mental Model
 Is termed a paradigm
 Develop out of prior success in dealing with
problems
 But may not be applicable in the future
 Future is no longer like the past
 What was successful in the past may lead to failure
in the future
 Are difficult for followers of a current
paradigm to understand and change to

17. Paradigms in Real Life

18. Some Mental Models in
Visitor Management
 Managing for activities vs.  Identifying a carrying capacity
managing for experiences vs. identifying acceptable
conditions
 Incremental/ad hoc
decision-making vs. using a  Site focused vs. regional level
framework management
 Conceiving of planning as a
 Focusing on biophysical technical exercise vs.
attributes vs. focusing on building professional
values competencies
 Focusing on the average  Destination (end state) is static
visitor vs. understanding vs. destination dynamic
diverse motivations  Focusing on events not
 Thinking of recreation understanding the system
planning as separate from underlying the events
implementation

19. Mental models
often serve to models we use to frame tourism
 The mental
handcuff our
development questions are often barriers to
thinking
achieving goals

20. What is a Planning Framework?
 Focused on recreation/tourism
 Not law or regulation
 Guidelines, a process, propositions, steps
 Notion of “working through”
 Helps frame/define the problem
 Forces explicitness
 Not mechanistic

21. What Makes a Good Framework?
 Salient – not all frameworks address all issues
 Conceptual soundness – defendable theoretical
foundation
 Technical – translated into practice well
 Knowledge, skills, abilities
 Administrative feasibility
 Ethical – who wins and who loses
 Identifies trade-offs
 Pragmatic
 Efficiency – biggest bang for the buck
 Effectiveness – does it help achieve larger order goals
Adapted from Brewer, 1973

22. Some Examples of Tourism and Visitor
Management Frameworks
 Carrying (Visitor) Capacity based Frameworks –
1960s +
 Social, Biophysical, Facility
 Recreation Opportunity Spectrum based Frameworks
 Recreation Opportunity Spectrum – 1970s
 Tourism Opportunity Spectrum – 1990s
 Water Recreation Opportunity Spectrum – 2000s

23. Some Examples of Tourism and Visitor
Management Frameworks
 Limits of Acceptable Change based Frameworks
 Limits of Acceptable Change – 1980s
 Visitor Impact Management – 1980s
 Visitor Experience and Resource Protection –
1990s
 Tourism Optimization and Management Model–
1990s
 The Benefits Based Management – 1990s
 Placed-based Frameworks – 2000s

24. Principal Question Addressed
 Carrying Capacity
 How many is too many?
 ROS
 What settings exist and what should be provided?
 LAC
 How much change from a desired condition is acceptable?
 BBM
 What experiences should be provided?
 Place-based
 What meanings are attached to this place?

25. Some Characteristics of Useful
Frameworks
 Jointly developed
 Managers, scientists, constituencies
 Focus on understanding the system
 Structure our thinking
 Integrate public and technical knowledge

26. Management that is
compartmentalized

27. Or
Integrated?

28. Evolution of Recreation and Tourism
Planning Frameworks
 Command/Control to Collaborative
 Generic to Issue/Place Specific
 Reductionistic to Realistic
 Implicit to Explicit
 Sites to Areas to Regions

29. Frameworks Only Work …
 Organizational will
 People are not rushed, distracted, careless or
ignorant
 Technical capacity and proficiency
 Inclusive of differing values and systems of
knowledge
 Open and deliberative
 Effectiveness rather than efficiency
 When thinking is at the systems level

30. Conclusions
 Driving forces and context mean that trade-offs will
be made
 Raise the need for a framework to structure thinking
 Mental models or paradigms may hinder effective
solutions
 Frameworks help decision makers work through
complex issues
 A variety of frameworks exist, but vary in suitability

31. Conclusions
 Collaboration important aspect of success in
framework development
 Institutional capacity is an issue
 Managerial proficiency
 Scientific expertise
 Constituency understanding

32. Thank You
Steve.McCool@CFC.UMT.EDU