NEW APPROACH TO COMMUNITY BENEFIT TOURISM IN THE PACIFIC ISLANDS
The new website for the Oceania Sustainable Tourism Alliance (OSTA) has just been launched: www.oceaniatourismalliance.net.
‘OSTA is an opportunity for sustainable community-benefit tourism in the Pacific Islands modeled on the USAID funded program, the Global Sustainable Tourism Alliance (www.gstalliance.org)’ said Steve Noakes, Director of Pacific Asia Tourism Pty Ltd, one of the Founding & Managing Partners of the OSTA.
The other three Founding & Managing Partners are The Foundation of the People of the Pacific International (Fiji), Counterpart International (Washington DC), and Victoria University (Melbourne, Australia)
Like the GSTA, the OSTA program aims to allows tourism destinations in developing countries such as the South Pacific access world-class expertise with proven success in addressing sustainable development challenges.
The OSTA Mission: Working with Pacific Communities through sustainable tourism programmes to deliver economic growth, community benefit & connection, cultural & environmental stewardship and adaptations to climate change.
The Australian Government has noted that many South Pacific countries continue to face a difficult future. Patchy economic progress is often insufficient to cope with ethnic and social tensions and rapid population growth. Most of the island countries have limited resources, and therefore limited capacity to deal with these pressures. Governance is poor. Imported national institutions can find it difficult to deal with traditional practices, especially in relation to authority structures, land ownership and land use. Local loyalties often take priority over national interests and challenge principles.
Tourism is already a major contributor to the economies of the Pacific Islands – some 50% of GDP for the Cook Islands and Palau, and high in numerous other destinations such as Fiji and Vanuatu explained Noakes, who is also an Adjunct Professor in Sustainable Tourism at Australia’s Griffith University. He said that sustainable tourism has significant potential to contribute more to the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals in the Pacific context – a key guiding principle of the new OSTA.
The key objective of the OSTA is to encourage Community-benefit tourism – resulting in Reducing Poverty, Stimulating Economic Growth, Promoting Natural Resource Stewardship, Conserving Biodiversity and adapting to climate change through Regional & Global Partnerships and Collaborative Actions.
OSTA Contacts:
Counterpart International: lelei@counterpart.org
Foundation of the People of the Pacific International: rex.horori@fspi.org
Pacific Asia Tourism Pty. Ltd.: steve@pacificasiatourism.org
Victoria University: terry.delacy@vu.edu.au