Community Tourism News

Duncan, British Columbia October - December, 2010

Community Tourism Is skills development

Smart Economic and advocate for
programs that
Development
p r io r i t iz e
infrastructure and
ow and why should this

H be, you ask. It’s the

Ahwahnee principle of
the thing, I say.
supportive
services for all
local enterprises.
One of the
The original set of
key smart
principles that led to the
principles that has
Ahwahnee Principles of Smart
relevance for the Photo by Les Bazso, Postmedia News
Economic Development was
development of tourism at the overhead speaker. Sometimes
a d o p t ed by th e L oc a l
community level is fostering and you want to pound the pavement
Government Commission of
investing in local and drink with the locals.”
Sacramento, CA in 1991 and is
entrepreneurship. Grasping the The real challenge for
known simply as the Ahwahnee
opportunity by meeting a need community tourism planners is
Principles. This code focussed
with just the investment of time how to bring needs like this into
on community livability and
is the epitome of this principle. the open so potential
encouraged complete, self
A recent news paper entrepreneurs can work their
sufficient, pedestrian and transit
article on Vancouver’s Tour magic. This is where the smart
oriented community
Guys illustrates how this works. principle of inclusive
development. The principles
The Tour Guys, a new startup, particpatory visioning becomes
were an early manifesto of what
take people on walking tours of important. Tourism planners
has become known in the
downtown Vancouver for must engage entire communities,
Planning profession as New
“free!” Well not really, they not just established tourism
Urbanism.
“pass the hat” at the end of a 2 businesses, so that the aha! light
The Ahwahnee Smart
hour walk. It’s a problematic bulbs can be turned on.
E c o n o mi c D e v e l o p m e n t
business model, but it’s not
Principles followed in 1997. The www.lgc.org/ahwahnee/econ_principles.html
without precedent and it could
principles carry forward the
lead to an established fee www.vancouversun.com/travel/Vancouver+To
themes of compact and ur+Guys+business+takes/3477971/story.html
structure.
distinctive communities leading
The need they saw was
to smart economic development.
that many Vancouver visitors
Community distinctiveness is
want “to get a sense of the city Inside This Issue
certainly a desirable attribute in
life beyond what they see from a
tourism development. They also Community Tourism Is
moving bus [or trolley] seat and Smart Economic
promote investment in human
hear through a crackling Development. . . . . . . . . 1

C’est la Fin, Merci Bien

et Bons Voages à
Vous Tous .. . . . . . . . . . 2
“Clearly the problem of man and nature is not one of providing a decorative
background for the human play, or even ameliorating the grim city: it is the necessity
of sustaining nature as source of life, milieu, [destination],teacher, sanctum, challenge
and, most of all, of rediscovering nature’s corollary of the unknown in the self, the
source of meaning.”
– Ian McHarg, 1992, from The Plight in Design With Nature

Com m unity Tourism N ew s is edited and published four tim es a year by M ichael E . K elly, A ICP, M CIP in
Duncan, B ritish Colum bia. The new sletter m ay be freely copied and distributed to others w ith due credit
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