Sustainable tourism

Sustainable tourism: Waterfront and Hotel Resorts

The following presentations will he held during the Thematic Group sessions:

1.      Dr. Andreas Masouras – Lecturer at Neapolis University in Cyprus, will give a presentation on “Green Destination Marketing: The case of Cyprus” on Friday the 18th of March at 15.00 and will take place in NICOLINA ROOM (mezzanine).

 2.      Prof. Dr. Dominik Siegrist, Head of Institute, Institute for Landscape and Open Space HSR Hochschule für Technik, Rapperswil, Switzerland will give a presentation on “Sustainable Tourism in Switzerland” on Friday the 18th of March at 16.00 and will take place in NICOLINA ROOM (mezzanine).

The relationship between sustainable tourism and sustainable development of cities has been critically discussed over recent decades and continues to receive increasing attention. The tourist industry in Cyprus, and specifically Pafos, has a tremendous capacity for generating economic growth in the regional area. However, its increasing impacts have led to a range of actual and potential problems and conflicts amongst environmental, social, cultural, economic, and political agendas, creating a need for an alternative and more environmentally sensitive and sustainable approach. Such an approach would respect the physical environment and the social fabric of the town of Pafos while tourism would remain an important part of the local economy and culture.

The market for tourism in Pafos is very dynamic, and demands diversification as well as expansion. Tourism development has traditionally focused on beach resorts and the mass market which has resulted in the replacement of semi-natural vegetation and historic coastal villages with urbanisation, large hotels, roads, golf courses and ancillary facilities, placing high demands on water, sewage disposal, transport and power infrastructure as well as degrading the very landscape which has attracted people over the decades. The need to develop more sustainable tourism, in terms of reducing the use of scarce resources and energy consumption, developing better transport and considering the local economy goes hand in hand with the increasing demand by certain sectors for higher quality tourism offers such as nature tourism or eco-tourism and is leading to interest in other possibilities for the way the landscape might be used and developed.

In its role as European Capital of Culture for 2017, Pafos aims to develop a strategic sustainability plan to reinvent the town and its environs as a cultural/natural landscape to be used as a tourist development engine.  It will implement an extensive urban landscape design intervention plan, with the aim of restoring open public spaces, creating links between important sites and archaeological spaces, and recovering the lost connection with the natural environment, the land and the sea based on aspects of sustainable and eco-friendly tourism development. As sustainability has become an important policy issue in tourism, it is arousing growing discussion and criticism, and an increasing need to understand the nature of sustainable tourism. In such a context, designing a well-managed mass tourism strategy combined with ecotourism and waterfront development will ensure sustainability and recognise the environment as an important tourism asset.

In the workshop we will explore the pressures and risks of tourism in this coastal landscape by sampling several tourism areas squeezed between the sea and the mountains. We will examine the opportunities offered by landscape planning, design and management for protecting the inherited scenic, heritage and cultural characteristics of the waterfront landscape, for repairing past damage from inappropriate development and for developing new possibilities for sustainable tourism. The study will focus on case studies of medium scale along the coast of Pafos. The waterfront of Pafos presents possibilities for sustainable tourism in a place with a superb landscape, important archaeological remains and endangered species. Questions, challenges and themes might include:

  • What kind of waterfront tourism development should/could be accommodated in future in Mediterranean landscapes?
  • Is the heritage and landscape of tourism interesting, characteristic and valuable in its right?
  • How and to what extent can tourism direct the future character of waterfront landscapes?
  • How can the negative effects of already existing tourism development be rectified?
  • How can the landscape be maximised as an asset for sustainable tourism?
  • What does a sustainable tourism landscape look like?
  • How to build a healthy waterfront environment which supports tourist resorts?
  • How to review existing regulations and eliminate those that are unnecessary?
  • How to raise environmental awareness among the public, tourism operators and others involving service provision?
  • How to adapt waterfront management tactics from other countries?
  • How to integrate environmental issues in tourism planning and to develop a national long-term ecotourism strategy for Pafos with an agenda involving all tourism stakeholders?

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Download info file:  LLF2016_Pafos_Sustainable_tourism