Model for sustainable tourism development for Least Developed Countries (LDCs)

Despite the various approaches for a sustainable tourism development in Least Developed Countries (LDCs), issues of economic leakage, environmental and socio-cultural degradation associate with tourism continues to persist in many of such countries. Few, if any tourism product are still said to be truly sustainable, or few, if any destination can be called sustainable (Mckercher, 2003). However, tourist destinations to a greater or lesser extent possess a set of capitals or assets, including environmental, human, socio-cultural, economic and political capital for sustainable tourism development (Sharpley, 2009). These capitals can be exploited by a destination in different ways to meet local needs for sustainability and to match developmental objectives as defined by the destination and to take advantage of opportunities offered in the external market. Hence the importance of the tourism economy, an understanding of operational strategies applicable to LDCs is essential. The aim of this paper is to present a model for sustainable tourism developed from Sharpley’s (2010) destination capitals model sustainable tourism. Data was collected from 73 participants, using a self completed questionnaire. Hence, the diverse perceptions of managers SMEs of what sustainable tourism means, it is suggested that not all the components of the destination capitals are found to be accessible to LDCs or has any form of influence over (Drammeh, 2014). Reenforcing the importance and relevance of Sharpley’s destination capitals Drammeh (2014) suggests three types of capitals that seem to be unique to LDCs: Environmental capitals (linked to nature), socio-cultural capitals (linked to culture of the people) and human capitals (linked to local knowledge)