Journal of Sustainable Tourism

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The Application of Geographical Information

Systems (GIS) in Sustainable Tourism Planning: A
Review

Tim Bahaire & Martin Elliott-White

To cite this article: Tim Bahaire & Martin Elliott-White (1999) The Application of Geographical
Information Systems (GIS) in Sustainable Tourism Planning: A Review, Journal of Sustainable
Tourism, 7:2, 159-174, DOI: 10.1080/09669589908667333

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The Application of Geographical
Information Systems (GIS) in Sustainable
Tourism Planning: A Review
Tim Bahaire and Martin Elliott-White
Department of Tourism and Environment, University of Lincolnshire and
Humberside, Brayford Pool, Lincoln LN6 7TS

Decision-making in tourism development and planning is becoming increasingly

complex as organisations and communities have to come to terms with the competing
economic, social and environmental demands of sustainable development. Geographi-
cal Information Systems (GIS) can be regarded as providing a tool box of techniques
and technologies of wide applicability to the achievement of sustainable tourism
development. Spatial (environmental) data can be used to explore conflicts, examine
impacts and assist decision-making. Impact assessment and simulation are increas-
ingly important in tourism development, and GIS can play a role in auditing environ-
mental conditions, examining the suitability of locations for proposed developments,
identifying conflicting interests and modelling relationships. Systematic evaluation of
environmental impact is often hindered by information deficiencies but also tools for
data integration, manipulation, visualisation and analysis. GIS seems particularly
suited to this task. This paper examines the progress tourism related organisations are
making towards the utilisation of GIS and its integration with the principles of
sustainable development in the UK.

Introduction
Planning can be an emotive issue and its associated conflicts are all too
apparent in local newspapers. Recent debates and public enquiries in the United
Kingdom illustrate the centrality of planning to tourism and recreation develop-
ment. Broadly speaking these debates centre around the environment and
legitimacy of development within particular areas. A public inquiry associated
with the use of England’s Lake Windermere by motorised craft, and proposed
developments in Scotland at Aviemore and in the Cairngorms are some of the
most recently publicised examples. In these instances, debate is not simply about
threats to the ecology or landscape but also involves conflict over intangible
values such as tradition, heritage, wilderness and the ‘rights’ of different
land-users. The concept of sustainable development adds further fuel to these
debates but quite often, it seems, at the expense of clarity.
The literature within the field of tourism on sustainability, sustainable
development and sustainable tourism development is now very extensive. It is
therefore not the purpose of this paper to conduct a further review and evaluation
for this would be to retread already well-travelled ground. A key conclusion of
these debates is that there is a need to manage tourism in a sustainable manner,
but there is little evidence to suggest that this is being done systematically in the
UK.
Although interpretations of sustainability vary, tourism planning of whatever
variety presupposes the existence of information on natural resources and
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JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE TOURISM Vol. 7, No. 2, 1999
159
160 Journal of Sustainable Tourism

qualities, cultural/heritage attractions, the manner in which resources are used

by visitors and the economic and social impacts. Effective tourism planning also
requires monitoring mechanisms and feedback information on the effect of
planning decisions on the tourism resource. Furthermore, this information needs
to be disseminated to the various stakeholders, including the community. Much
of this information is inherently spatial, indicating where and how extensive the
tourism resources are, how intensively the resource is used and so on. This
suggests that geographical information systems could be a useful addition to the
sustainable planner’s tool-kit.

Geographical Information Systems in Tourism Planning: What is a

Geographical Information System?
It is not the intention of this paper to explain the technicalities of GIS. Rather, we
aim to review some of its applications which are pertinent to tourism planning.
However a brief description of the nature and functionality of GIS is in order. A
geographical information system ‘is at its simplest level a technology that enables
decision-makers to explore the geographical dimension of data’ (Grimshaw, 1993:
206). Geographical information systems operate on two data elements.
Table 1 Data in GIS

Geographical or spatial data Locational aspects either explicitly (using a standard

geographical frame of reference such as latitude and
longitude) or implicitly (using surrogate spatial
references such as postcode/addresses)
The attribute data Statistical and non-locational data associated with a
spatial entity

Geographical data refers to a known location on the earth’s surface. Usually

this is expressed as a grid coordinate or in degrees of latitude and longitude. Most
organisations make use of implicit geographical references — place names,
addresses, ZIP/postcodes, road numbers and so on; implicit spatial references
can usually be geocoded into explicit spatial references. The representation and
storage of spatial data varies between GIS and although it is usual to differentiate
between raster and vector data models (Goodchild, 1991), the development of
object oriented data structures suggests that such distinctions are increasingly
blurred (Martin, 1996). It is beyond the scope of this paper to explore these in any
depth but raster models store data as a grid of pixels, whereas vector models use
coordinate systems; Tydacs SPANS system is an example of the former, whereas
ArcInfo is an example of the latter. Definitions of GIS generally fall into one of
the five categories outlined in Table 2.
The first two definitions imply that a GIS is defined according to a series of
functions — the absence of one or more would result in its being classed as
something else. Well established GIS, such as ArcInfo, could be regarded as
meeting all these criteria in that they contain the necessary tools and processes
outlined above. Technological advance, particularly in software and hardware,
has resulted in the development of systems which provide a range of searching,
querying, presentation and analytical functions at a lower cost and in a more
GIS in Sustainable Tourism Planning 161

Table 2 Definitions of Geographical Information Systems

Properties of GIS GIS Analytical

Functions
A process A system for capturing, storing, checking, Presentation and
manipulating, analysing and displaying thematic mapping
data which are spatially referenced to the Data Query
earth (DoE, 1987: 132). Spatial Query
A toolbox containing tools for collecting, storing, Database
retrieving, transforming and displaying integration
spatial data (Burrough, 1986: 6). Route finding
A database of spatially referenced entities (Smith et Point in polygon
al., 1987). analysis
An application cadastral information system, marketing Overlays
information system, planning information Buffering
system, etc. Visualisation and 3-D
modelling
A decision support integrating spatial data within a problem-
system solving environment (Cowen, 1988).

user-friendly manner. These front-end or user-oriented (Windows based)

systems (such as Mapinfo and Arcview) operate well with pre-existing data sets
and integrate easily with a range of other software. Front-end systems have
grown increasingly sophisticated and offer an expanded range of options, but a
full range of functions requires either a complete system (such as ArcInfo) or the
utilisation of different makes of GIS. For example, front-end systems such as
MapInfo and ArcView are both capable of the functions highlighted in the
right-hand column of Table 2 with the exception of 3-D modelling. The origin of
recent interest in GIS lies not so much in this functionality but in the relevance of
their application to planning and management within a variety of settings. GIS
are systems which deal with geographical information but they remain a
technology unless they have an application. Table 3 outlines the functional
capabilities of GIS and relates these to tourism applications.
Table 3 Capabilities of a GIS

Examples of functional Examples of basic questions that Examples of tourism applications

capabilities of a GIS can be investigated using a GIS
(After Rhind, 1990)
Data entry, storage and Location What is at? Tourism Resource Inventories
manipulation
Condition Where is it? Identifying most suitable
Map production locations for development

Database integration and

Trend What has Measuring tourism impacts
management changed?
Data queries and searches Routing Which is the Visitor Management/flows
best route?
Spatial analysis Pattern What is the Analysing relationships
pattern? associated with resource use
Spatial modelling Modelling What if ¼? Assessing potential impacts of
tourism development
Decision support
162 Journal of Sustainable Tourism

These applications illustrate the analytical potential of GIS and its relationship
with the decision-making process. The advantages of GIS are well articulated in
the GIS literature (Gilfoyle, 1991) but centre on rapid and easy access to large
volumes of readily updated data, integration of data sets, search abilities,
simulation and modelling capabilities. The use of GIS in sustainable tourism
development and planning demands the development of indicators of sustain-
able tourism development and these imply more and better data. GIS provide a
set of tools which can be used for tourism planning and development. Their
application in sustainable tourism planning is increasingly recognised in the
literature and they can be used to address some of the ‘problems of tourism’
(Butler, 1993) as illustrated in Table 4.

Table 4 Problems of tourism and the potential of Geographical Information Systems

(after Butler, 1993: 33)
Problems of tourism Nature of problem GIS application
Ignorance Of dimensions, nature, power of A key point is that stakeholders do
tourism, i.e. by key decision- makers not have the types of information
and communities needed to assert their point of view.
Using GIS for the systematic inventory
of tourism resources and analysis of
trends can help ameliorate this
problem.
Lack of ability To determine levels of sustainable GIS can be used to monitor and
tourism development given the control tourism activities once levels
fuzziness of the concept of development deemed appropriate
and acceptable by stakeholders have
been determined. By integrating
tourism, environmental, sociocultural
and economic data GIS facilitates the
identification and monitoring of
indicators of sustainable
development.
Lack of ability To manage and control development GIS can be used to identify suitable
— associated with uses, capabilities, locations for tourism development,
capacities identify zones of
conflict/complimentarity.
Lack of That tourism is an industry and GIS can be used to simulate and model
appreciation causes impacts which cannot be spatial outcomes of proposed
easily reversed developments. To sensitize
stakeholders to externalities
associated with their actions, e.g.
visibility analysis, network analysis,
gravity models.
Lack of That tourism is dynamic and causes GIS enables the integration of datasets
appreciation change as well as responding to representing socioeconomic
change, i.e. tourism is just a part of development and environmental
wider development process which capital within a given spatial setting.
can produce intra- and inter-industry GIS sits comfortably on top of
conflict which may destroy the integrated and strategic spatial
tourism resource planning.
Lack of Over levels of appropriate GIS functions as decision support
agreement development, control and direction system - to produce more informed
arguments and (hopefully) facilitate
compromise and resolution.
However, this presupposes the
existence of a coherent planning and
development control framework.
GIS in Sustainable Tourism Planning 163

GIS Applications in Tourism Planning

Although GIS is rarely discussed in the context of tourism, its wider use by
planners concerned with environmental issues and resource management is now
well established (Berry, 1991; Robinson, 1992). GIS has been used to analyse
tourism related issues such as the perception and definition of wilderness
(Kliskey & Kearsley, 1993; Carver, 1997), countryside management (Haines-
Young et al., 1994) and travel costs (Bateman et al., 1996). An early example of the
use of GIS in tourism is provided by Binz & Wildi (cited in Heywood et al., 1994
who modelled the effect of increased tourist development in the Davos Valley in
Switzerland; based on scenario analysis. However, recent publications (Opper-
mann, 1996; Elliott-White & Finn, 1998; Herandez et al., 1997) suggest a growing
interest in GIS applications in tourism. GIS applications are now common place
in the utilities (Mahoney, 1991), land information (Dale, 1991) and planning
(Cowen & Shirley, 1991). Tourism growth is exacerbating an often stretched and
overloaded tourism infrastructure (Cleverdon, 1993) and is itself threatened by
local and environmental pressure groups. GIS can be an effective tool in the
design and monitoring of sustainable development (Holm-Pederson & Ras-
mussen, 1995).

GIS in Tourism Planning in North America: A Brief Literature Review

The use of GIS in regional tourism planning is illustrated by Culbertson et al.
(1994) in the case of Banff, Canada and Colorado, USA. Culbertson et al. (1994)
note the great potential for GIS technology in planning for sustainable develop-
ment, as an extension of its traditional use in environmental analysis. Berry (1991)
provides an early illustration of the utility of this kind of map analysis in the US
Virgin Islands. GIS was used to define conservation and recreation areas and
determine the ‘best’ locations for development; the latter was determined
according to engineering, aesthetics and environmental constraints. Gunn (1994)
provides us with one of the few references to the use of GIS in tourism planning
in South Carolina, USA. In this case GIS was used to audit, analyse and synthesise
information relating to the tourism (natural and cultural) resources in the region.
Using a simple map overlay process Gunn was able to identify those zones with
greatest potential for tourism development; that is, those with opportunities
(active and interpretative) based on natural resources (mountains, forests, rivers
etc.), cultural resources and combinations of both. GIS was used as a means of
consolidating geographical information in order to inform analysis and develop-
ment.
Similarly, Boyd and Butler (1996) demonstrate the application of GIS in the
identification of areas suitable for ecotourism in Northern Ontario, Canada; in
particular natural areas, containing rare or endangered species or habitats in
remote/peripheral areas. Basically they produce an inventory of various
characteristics associated with natural landscapes. GIS was used for inventory
mapping, buffering (identifying areas of human intrusion) and overlays map-
ping.
Williams et al. (1996) also use GIS to record and analyse tourism resource
inventory information in British Columbia, Canada. They argue that competi-
tiveness requires tools beyond traditional marketing and finance techniques to
164 Journal of Sustainable Tourism

manage the development and delivery of nature and heritage-based tourism

experiences, in the context of environmental pressure, resource scarcity, inter-
and intra-industry competition for resources and land-use issues. One of the
problems for tourism stakeholders is that they do not have the types of
information needed to effectively assert their point of view in land-use planning
issues. The systematic inventory of natural and cultural resources is important
to both tourists and the tourism industry. The GIS produced, broadly speaking,
three different types of information: tourism resource maps, tourism use maps,
and tourism capability maps. This enables stakeholders to analyse the resource
set to:
· Identify how much is available and where it is. To help planners and
managers determine the capability of an area for the creation of new
tourism products/services — identifying locations suitable to tour-
ists/tourism.
· Evaluate land-use options. To identify zones of conflict/ complementarity
— access points, water, wildlife habitats etc.
· Monitor tourist resources at risk from poor management, planning
decisions, other sectors (Williams et al., 1996).
The conclusion of these authors is that GIS is an efficient and effective means
of helping the various stakeholders examine the implications of land-use
decisions in tourism development.

GIS in Tourism Planning in the UK

GIS developed later in the UK than the USA, partly because much of the land
is privately owned (responsibility is therefore fragmented), the country is small
and the government highly centralised (Coppock & Rhind, 1991). It is interesting
to note that one of the earliest applications in the UK involved the construction
of Tourism and Recreation Information Package (TRIP) to assist in planning and
policy formulation in Scotland (Duffield & Coppock, 1975).
In attempting to research the application of GIS in tourism planning in the UK
a number of problems are immediately apparent. Identification of those agencies
involved in tourism planning is difficult and where organisations do exist they
are usually multi-agency or partnership arrangements. The Regional Tourism
Boards have very little input into the planning process and their activities are
mainly focused on marketing with some development priorities. Although
individual managers are aware of the potential of GIS they do not have the
financial nor human resources to exploit it. Local authorities have been using GIS
since the late 1970s as land and property information systems for the monitoring
of planning applications and development control. The 1980s and early 1990s
have also been characterised by a retreat from strategic planning and so it is
hardly surprising that there is very little evidence of the use of GIS for strategic
or tourism planning (Thornley, 1993). However, the Department of Environment
(DoE, 1990) now places greater emphasis on monitoring and evaluation and
identifies GIS as a tool in this process for a number of reasons:
· Planning and development in the UK has to deal with existing infrastruc-
ture and geography.
GIS in Sustainable Tourism Planning 165

· Any investment project will create externalities which must be assessed in

a systematic manner.
· Planning and development activity should be executed efficiently.
Consequently it is to academic commentators and the national parks that we
must turn to identify GIS applications. This inevitably introduces a bias towards
rural and remoter areas. This is not necessarily a problem as mountainous areas,
for example, provide key environments for recreation (Heywood et al., 1994).
Such areas are often economically marginal and GIS provides a tool for assisting
policy makers at a variety of spatial scales to develop appropriate strategies. GIS
are being developed in all the English and Welsh National Parks, but the Brecon
Beacons (in Wales) and the Lake District National Parks (in England) are most
advanced (Briggs & Tantrum, 1997). These provide a range of relevant and
existing GIS applications in tourism planning:
· data access and routine work;
· data integration and management;
· resource inventory;
· area designation and map overlays;
· comparative land-use and impact analysis;
· the analysis of visual intrusion;
· community involvement and participation.

Data access and routine

The role of GIS in the automation of routine work such as map production and
constraints checking should not be under-emphasised. The advantages to those
organisations making use of maps can be considerable; in terms of saved storage
space, damage to paper based maps, reduced cost of updating etc. Where
extensive use is made of paper maps, by local authorities, up to 50% of the time
can be spent simply retrieving and replacing them (Palmer, 1991, cited in Briggs
& Tantrum, 1997).

Data integration and management

Tourism planning and management often involves multiple agencies and
complex decision-making. In information terms this necessitates an information
system which is capable of integrating different data sources. For example, a Sites
and Monuments Records Management System being developed using GIS for
the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, links text and spatial data to
facilitate planning and other consultations. The simple ‘crosstabulation’ of
different data sets can be quite useful to planning authorities. In the case of the
Lake District National Park Authority (LDNPA) GIS has been used to integrate
accommodation data from the Cumbria Tourist Board, Population Census and
the Ordnance Survey to examine the ways in which different types of accommo-
dation vary within the quieter areas and the busier central valleys of the Lake
District. Tourist accommodation data was geocoded using postcodes in order to
establish geographical location. By integrating these data with information on
holiday and second homes, recorded in the census, it was possible to produce a
range of thematic maps and examine the balance between tourist and residential
accommodation, and the location and type of accommodation by sub-area. Such
166 Journal of Sustainable Tourism

information is required to inform Local Plan formulation by the National Park

Authority and is accessed relatively easily using their MapInfo based system.
Such resource-based mapping could have been achieved previously but the
process would have been very time consuming and inflexible. The integration of
data from a range of sources and sectors is an important prerequisite in integrated
tourism planning, requiring knowledge of tourism and other resource uses. Data
integration is likely to be a key prerequisite in tourism resource inventory but if
this is to be efficient some consideration will need to be given to the data models
used. Despite technological advancement the integration of raster- (e.g. satellite
imagery) and vector-based data is not easily achievable using some lower-cost
GIS. The Lake District National Park solve this problem by using two GIS —
Tydacs SPANS and Mapinfo Professional.

Resource inventory
A landscape and resource inventory has been developed for the Badenoch and
Strathspey District in Scotland to analyse landscape classes, land use, altitude
and recreational impacts and undertake visual impact analyses to highlight those
areas which are highly visible and those which are not; to inform the management
of those areas which are of a ‘high scenic interest’ and therefore important
elements of the tourist product. Millar et al. (1994) demonstrate the use of this GIS
in evaluating scenery and visual impacts, analysing sensitivity of footpaths, route
planning, optimising location of visitor centres and other facilities in the
Cairngorms. The Cairngorms are arguably the most important mountain
resource in the UK containing unique flora and fauna (which is slow to recover
from degradation) as well as a distinctive topography: both are principal
resources in attracting tourists and sustaining tourist activity (climbing, moun-
tain biking, skiing, hill walking etc.). The tension between tourism and
environmental conservation has been noted and the absence of a coherent
strategy lamented (Countryside Commission for Scotland, 1990). Most GIS are
capable of tourism resource inventory and thereby facilitate the amelioration of
the problem of ignorance identified by Butler (1993: 33). However, the case of the
Cairngorm does indicate that resource inventories do not in themselves produce
sustainable tourism development.

Area designation and map overlays

GIS can be used for the definition and designation of areas for particular
purposes, such as development, conservation, research. The Sussex Downs
Conservation Board, Brecon Beacons National Park Authority (BBNPA) and
LDNPA have all used GIS to delimit tranquil, remote or quiet areas. The LDNPA
made significant use of GIS in the preparation of its Local Plan Enquiry Tourism
in the Lake District National Park. With an estimated 12 million staying visitor days
and 15 million day visits an important policy in the Lake District National Park
has been to differentiate between quieter and busier areas. These designated
areas have been used to resist the expansion of tourism developments viewed as
detrimental to the qualities of those areas (Fishwick & Clayson, 1995). GIS have
enabled planners to develop management and control strategies associated with
different resource uses and capacities. Whilst GIS is not an essential prerequisite
GIS in Sustainable Tourism Planning 167

for this, it does allow many more factors to be taken into consideration and goes
some way to dealing with the lack of ability problem identified by Butler (1993:
33). From a planning perspective the availability of GIS enables more effective
development control. The organisational ethos of the Lake District National Park
ensures that the GIS functions in the interests of conservation and control.

Comparative land-use and impact analysis: Suitability analysis and

buffering
Healey et al. (1988) used GIS to illustrate the impact of conservation (SSSI)
designations upon the local resource base of the Scottish island of Islay. This
study focused on the impact on forestry and agriculture but the methodology
could be extended to include tourism as illustrated below in the Lake District.
GIS can be used for suitability analysis which designates areas which are
suitable/unsuitable for developments. The existence of constraints within the
landscape may be used to delimit those areas which are unsuitable, or more or
less suitable, to particular developments. In the 1994 Lake Windermere Speed
Limit Inquiry GIS was used to support the LDNPA’s proposed 10 mph (16 kph)
bylaw. The bylaw was designed to promote the quiet enjoyment of the National
Park and it was argued that the use of power boats on the lake was incompatible
with this aim. The National Park Authority used GIS to identify those land uses
and areas adjacent to the lake which suffered noise disturbance as a result of
power boats; these included residential areas, informal recreation (footpaths etc.)
and educational and tourist facilities. It was determined that a power boat coming
within 500m would constitute a disturbance and so 500m buffers were created
around each identified land-use, using their SPANS GIS. The analysis demon-
strated that virtually all of the lake was classed as noise sensitive. This analysis
was incorporated into the planning officers’ proof of evidence presented at a
public enquiry; as a compromise the effects of 250m buffers were also modelled.
The use of GIS was particularly useful to the LDNPA’s case but although its
bylaw was upheld at the public inquiry, the decision was overturned by the then
Secretary of State for the Environment and was the focus of a legal dispute. Once
again this demonstrates that sustainable tourism planning is a political rather
than a technical process. GIS can be used in discussion over levels of development
but does not necessarily ameliorate the lack of agreement.
In another example from the Lake District, the proposed expansion of the
White Cross Bay caravan park at Bowness on Windermere was refused after
another public enquiry. The owners of the park requested an extension to their
season but this was refused on the grounds that it would disturb the habitat of
over-wintering wildfowl. Scientific research (Cooke & Watmough, 1988) had
demonstrated that certain species of wintering wildfowl (Goldeneye, Coot and
Mallard) would be disturbed if humans moved within 280m (of Goldeneye). GIS
was used in a similar buffering operation to identify those areas which were
within the specified distance of the nesting sites. The whole of the White Cross
Bay area fell within the potential disturbance zone and the Inquiry Inspector
supported the LDNPA’s refusal of development. In this case the GIS was used to
evaluate the potential impact of tourism expansion on the natural environment.
However, it should be pointed out that it was assumed by the LDNPA that the
168 Journal of Sustainable Tourism

conservation of wildlife took precedence over tourism and there was little or no
assessment of the economic value of the conflicting uses of geographical space.
The value system of the National Park Authority predisposes it to use GIS to
inhibit the expansion of tourism; it is debatable whether this constitutes
sustainable tourism planning in the broader sense.

Visual impact analysis

A key facet of GIS is its ability to produce three-dimensional visualisations of
areas before and after proposed developments. The application of visual impact
analysis seems particularly pertinent to sustainable tourism where the obtrusive-
ness of proposed developments may need to be minimised. The production of
perspective and 3-D views of proposed developments can be invaluable in
evaluating proposals and alternatives. Visual intrusiveness is as much associated
with the surrounding terrain and land-forms as it is with the development itself.
Indeed the surrounding topography may provide satisfactory screening. Selman
et al. (1991) provide a case study of the Aonach Mor skiing development in
Scotland, east of Fort William in the Nevis Range. Selman et al. produced a digital
terrain model (DTM) to produce a visibility analysis of the development, as well
as the impacts of the development on vegetation and competing land-uses (Sites
of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), forestry, footpaths). This tool would be useful
not only in examining potential tourism developments but also developments
by other land-users which may be detrimental to tourism. This can again be
illustrated in the context of the Lake District National Park, where the LDNP’s
responses to proposed forestry schemes within the National Park and wind farms
outside the park were assisted by GIS. GIS can be used to identify those
points/areas from which proposed developments would be visible. This kind of
analysis can be made more ‘real’ by integrating this information with distance
(the effects of some developments may be negligible from a certain distance),
topography (slope/aspect), existing land cover and rights of way. The area to the
south of the Lake District National Park offers considerable potential for
wind-powered electricity generation. Although wind farms may become tourist
attractions in their own right, it was considered that the cumulative effect of these
developments, although outside the park, might detract from the views from the
national park. Similar analyses were instigated as a result of the proposed nuclear
waste disposal facility at Sellafield to the west of the park boundary. Visibility
analysis allows these effects to be analysed more effectively. These kinds of
analysis are useful at providing impressions as well as quantification of the visual
impact — particularly when extended to 3-D images. Such analysis and
presentation was not feasible before suggesting that visualisation is a key
function of GIS and is a useful addition to tourism planning. The danger is that
visual impacts may be minimised at the expense of less tangible ones unless the
technique is used as part of a broader analysis of potential impacts.

Community involvement/participation
The previous examples are perhaps suggestive of top-down and technocratic
planning. This is hardly surprising as environmental impact procedures have
been criticised for deficiencies in public participation: the process is intrinsically
GIS in Sustainable Tourism Planning 169

complex and necessitates large volumes of data (Bisset, 1988). However, GIS can
be used to enhance public consultation and participation, in particular where this
involves allaying fears, informing and illustrating argument. Hughes and
Schirmer (1994) demonstrate the use of GIS and multi-media technologies to
enhance public participation in the Western Isles of Scotland, associated with a
proposed super-quarry on the Isle of Harris.
Hughes and Schirmer (1994) note how public consultation and participation
processes can be enhanced by the use of various data types, including
photographs, free text, video and sound. These kinds of data can now be
integrated in some GIS software, such as Arcview. The Brecon Beacons National
Park held a series of parish meetings to discuss what local residents wanted in
their local plan and planners used GIS (MapInfo) to produce large scale maps to
provide focus and facilitate resident discussion (Thomas, 1996). The Brecon
Beacons National Park have taken these ideas further in their Meithrin Mynydd
(nurture the mountain) project. The aim of the project is to reconcile uses of the
mountain and produce a plan for sustainable management. The project has
consulted widely using a variety of participation techniques, with GIS being used
for demonstration purposes at public meetings. However, despite the rapid
development of telematics, GIS is still more likely to be used for exhibitions rather
than diffused to the wider public via telecommunications networks. The Brecon
Beacons project comes closest to the notion of sustainable planning in the sense
that it is interactive and inclusive of community opinion. It is too early to evaluate
the outcomes of this project but some general issues are worthy of discussion.

Discussion
It is often assumed that access to information and knowledge is fundamental
to the development process and that the application of information systems, such
as GIS, will improve decision-making and productivity within tourism planning.
Furthermore, it is often implied that policy-making is increasingly complex and
that key policy makers now require sophisticated decision-support tools, such as
those offered by GIS, and that improved information flow will produce ‘better’
policy outcomes. Unfortunately, politics (power and influence) often take
precedence over information and knowledge in tourism planning and develop-
ment (Mowforth & Munt, 1998; Elliott, 1997). GIS may influence the analytical
process within tourism planning but may not necessarily influence the final
decisions or improve outcomes. The case of GIS applications in the Lake District
National Park illustrates this quite clearly. Moreover, information systems such
as GIS overwhelmingly handle quantitative data and tend to rationalise planning
knowledge from certain kinds of data and data sources, which tends to be
interpreted in predetermined technocratic contexts. The significance of this kind
of data is often unquestioned by planners themselves, whereas other (more
marginal) groups possess (qualitative) knowledge which is not easily quantified.
Indeed, the valorising of certain kinds of data over other sources is an ideological
process, which raises issues of gender, ethnicity and social class bias. Modern GIS
can integrate data from a variety of sources and may be tolerant of fuzzy data
sets, but an analysis of GIS applications in tourism suggests that there is a
170 Journal of Sustainable Tourism

preference for hard rather than soft data. This raises a further point about control
of information input and flow.
Thus, GIS is not asocial, nor is it neutral. GIS is persuasive and as such it is used
ideologically — to persuade, subjectify and dominate. Information systems are
not simply information tools but can be used to legitimise choices already made
and thereby support the policy initiatives of dominant regimes or elites. A critical
analysis of GIS would need to ask who controls the manner in which it is used
and in whose interests it serves. The analyses of tourism development by
Mowforth & Munt (1997) suggests that it would be naive to assume otherwise.
The manner in which GIS is incorporated into the planning process will reflect
and transmit the planning culture and associated power relations. In the previous
case studies GIS use reflected the organisational goals of those employing it.
However, as Castells (1989: 438) reminds us, information technologies such as
GIS ‘could be used, and can be used, in the pursuit of different social and
functional goals, because what they offer, fundamentally, is flexibility’. Assump-
tions, perceptions, objectives and views about the scope of GIS will vary and
consequently planners and policy makers socially construct the manner in which
it is employed. Thus GIS could be a powerful tool to enhance citizen participation
in tourism planning and development but in itself is unlikely to transform the
existing decision-making environment. Following from Castells (1989: 353) and
others (Graham & Marvin, 1996) it is logical to argue that social mobilisation,
political decisions and new institutional strategies are needed to transform the
agendas of tourism planning. The technological innovations associated with GIS
need to be supplemented with ‘social innovation’ if the practice of tourism
planning is to become more sustainable. A key development in this respect is the
advocacy of citizen participation. Following Harris et al. (1996: 214) the primary
goals of participatory GIS would be:
· enhancement of community/development planner interaction in research
and policy making contexts;
· the integration of local knowledge with exogenous technical expertise;
· the spatial representation of relevant aspects of local knowledge;
· genuine community access to and use of, advanced technology;
· the education of expert planners about the importance of public involvement.
In this sense then, GIS would need to be part of a broader methodology which
seeks to ensure that spatial planning incorporated the inhabitants and users of
geographical place. Consequently if GIS is to be used in a more participatory
manner, associated with the community models of Murphy (1985) and others, it
must satisfy a number of prerequisites (Harris et al., 1996). Firstly, it should enable
the knowledge of local people to be incorporated not only into the information
system itself but also into the policy-making process. Secondly, as Chrisman
(1987) argued ‘GIS should be developed on the primary principle that they will
ensure a fairer treatment of all those affected by the use of the information
(equity)’ (cited in Harris et al., 1996: 1367). The pursuit of these goals is a reflection
of the policy-making context and the institutional goals of those employing the
technology. Although GIS permits visualisation and consideration of alternative
development scenarios, it would be naive to regard it as objective, as scenarios
are socially constructed. Finally, citizen participation in planning is only feasible
GIS in Sustainable Tourism Planning 171

if those who come to the table do so on the basis of equal access to the information
used to inform debate and an ability to use that information effectively. Without
this, non-hegemonic groups will be disadvantaged relative to hegemonic ones.
Thus the use of GIS in community involvement has to extend beyond the
visualisation tool advocated by many: rather the community has to be empow-
ered to utilise the information. This raises issues about access not only to GIS
output, but also hardware, software and expertise. If the costs of GIS are such
that non-profit-making organisations, residents groups, lobby groups, environ-
mental groups and other social movements cannot acquire access, then the
technology will simply reinforce the status quo. Although costs continue to fall
in these areas, data costs remain high and the common perception is that systems
such as GIS can only be operated by ‘experts’.
The manner in which GIS was employed in the Brecon Beacons National Park
illustrated how the tool can be used to moderate conflicts and, potentially, reduce
uncertainty over policy outcomes. Here the application of GIS involves a political
process where the community is consulted and policy-making appears to be
interactive. However, the influence on the decision-making process may still be
marginal, although clearly having some impact, unless resources are provided
to enable citizens to participate effectively.

Conclusions
The evidence reviewed in this paper suggests that GIS offers considerable
scope for sustainable tourism planning and development, whether this follows
the ecotourism or sustainable management paradigm. GIS has been used for
resource inventory, data integration, spatial analysis and modelling and to
facilitate community involvement. GIS may be regarded as technical but its
application in planning terms is not necessarily technocratic. Thus, we would
concur with Millar et al. (1994) that:
GIS offers a powerful tool for providing information to support decision-
making in [sustainable tourism] planning and management, and to promote
integrated management of resources based on sensitivity to their use and
the needs of local communities and visitors. (Millar et al., 1994: 120,
emphasis added)
Developments such as GIS and associated technologies (GPS, remote sensing,
etc.) are seen as a means of improving decision-making in tourism planning, by
making information more accessible and usable. However, a fixation with
technical solutions can lose sight of the fundamental power relations which exist
within the planning context. As Pickles (1996: 234) reminds us:
On the one side, GIS is claimed to enhance access to information and
therefore potentially (and inherently) can be used to enhance democratic
practices. On the other side, GIS is seen to foster the interests of particular
users and to produce increasingly constrained and controlled public
spheres.
The use and impact of GIS is a function of the nature of the tourism planning
process. In itself GIS is unlikely to alter the political character of policy making
172 Journal of Sustainable Tourism

and thereby produce a more sustainable tourism planning practice. Moreover, those
groups and interests which cannot marshal the resources and expertise to participate
in the process may be further marginalised by the application of a specialist system.
The cases demonstrate what can be achieved with the effective use of this technology
but may be contested as illustrations of sustainable tourism. This is not because the
examples are fundamentally flawed but is related to the problematic of sustainability
alluded to earlier. It is important to recognise that the manner in which GIS is applied
reflects the ideologies of the organisations which invest in it. Information can be used
to support the status quo, whereby those in power have the resources necessary to
generate information to support their case, is frequently used as a rationalising tool
and then as a legitimising device. We should recall the old adage that ‘statistics don’t
lie, statisticians do’; the manner with which any tool is used depends upon the core
values and ethics of users and the organisation. There is also an assumption, implicit
in our argument perhaps, that information is used to inform action, in operational
and strategic planning, and to inform the way in which tourism is managed, in the
interests of the community. The extent to which information is incorporated into
decision-making and whether this process is a rational one can clearly be questioned
(Campbell, 1995). In planning practice the relationship between information and
decisions is often weak, simply serving a symbolic rather than an instrumental role,
and often little information is used in decision-making (Campbell & Masser, 1995).
We have yet to see whether sustainable tourism planning will be any different. The
outcomes of sustainable tourism planning will be based on interaction, compromise
and negotiation. Whilst this should caution against the unrealistic expectations of
many, it does suggest that GIS can play a useful role in an integrated planning
process.
Sustainability too is impregnated with values. Thus, until such values become
integral to tourism planning, it is unrealistic to assume that technologies per se will
make much difference. Therefore, the manner in which GIS is applied should reflect
the strategic goals of integrated sustainable tourism planning.

Acknowledgements
This paper was based on interviews with key personnel in a variety of
organisations. However particular thanks should go to John Clayson, GIS officer
at the Lake District National Park Authority. The authors wish to acknowledge
the useful comments of the editors and the anonymous referees.

Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Dr Tim Bahaire, Department of
Tourism and Environment, University of Lincolnshire and Humberside, Bray-
ford Pool, Lincoln LN6 7TS ([email protected]).

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