Takeaways from Webinar #2

Tourism’s social and economic impacts: insights and lessons on optimising local added values and benefits for all

As part of the WeNaTour webinar series, the second session titled “How can destinations measure and optimise tourism’s socio-economic impact?” was delivered on April 16th, featuring presentations on approaches and solutions for destinations in addressing workforce sustainability, local supply chains, and inclusive growth.

Are you taking part in the WeNaTour E-learning Course? We encourage you to download and use this reflection template to start capturing your key learning points from the webinar. This and other resources will also be available on our dedicated e-learning platform.

Key Takeaways

Here are some of the key lessons shared in the webinar and important takeaways.

To effectively manage socio-economic impacts of tourism, destinations need to understand and address the bigger picture of tourism activities, their reliance and connectivity with various other sectors, and how the money is spent and where it goes.

When tourism is not effectively managed, its socioeconomic impacts can lead to negative outcomes such as:

Economic leakages: tourism revenues leaving the local economy
Mismatched expectations: tourists behaving in an unwanted manner
Burden on local systems: undue pressure on local infrastructure and services
Profit-driven, short-sighted policies: chasing growth at the expense of local well-being

With a holistic perspective on tourism’s impacts and benefits for local societies and economies, destinations and tourism businesses can implement concrete steps to becoming more inclusive in all aspects of tourism development, management and marketing, welcoming a more diverse range of visitors, and incorporating professionals with various backgrounds into the tourism workforce.

To optimise local social and economic benefits, tourism destinations should implement concrete steps to measure and understand tourism’s impacts, and strengthen efforts to support local businesses across the tourism value chain, ensure worker well-being, and address local community needs and concerns through a holistic destination management and stewardship approach.

This webinar has been developed and delivered by:

Ayako Ezaki, TrainingAid

Alessia Fiorentino, Etifor | Valuing Nature

Cristina Caluianu, Sano Turing

Daniele Tonelli, DMO Garda Trentino (Italy)

Watch the Webinar Recording

Additional Details

The webinar series is part of the WeNaTour e-Learning Programme, and the students enrolled in our course will have access to all the proceedings of each webinar, including the video recordings, presentation slides, and follow-up Q&A. In addition to the lessons shared via the webinar, there will be further resources, examples and tools to help you improve your skills.

Enrollment is free and open to any students or professionals interested in learning about sustainable tourism and destination management practices incorporating welfare, nature and innovation in tourism.

To learn more about the e-learning offer and to enrol, please click here.

Join the WeNaTour Webinar Series

Each session is organized by Etifor | Valuing Nature and TrainingAid and features speakers from organisations including Etifor, SanoTouring, Transilvania University of Brasov, Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Nature Tourism Development and Destination Management Organizations like Valsugana Lagorai (Italy), Garda Trentino (Italy), Nassfeld Lesachtal Weißensee (Austria), San Vigilio di Marebbe (Italy).

Full programme at this link