Why are cities often ignored when promoting sustainable tourism?

I have often wondered why responsible / sustainable tourism products tend not to be in cities. Surely sustainability in tourism should be as important in cities as in rural areas? Responsible Tourism in Cities will be on the agenda for the first time at the premier South African tourism marketing event Indaba in Durban as a 1-day conference on 6 May 2011 and show-cased in a pavilion for several days with a networking event on 8 May 2011.

Hoping that this will kick-start more awareness of responsibility and sustainability in city tourism, among the many questions to be discussed:

• What are tourism and sustainability issues unique to cities?

• Who are the key stakeholders involved in establishing, developing and maintaining responsible tourism in cities?

• How do 'quality of life' measures for residents correlate with 'best destination' measures for visitors?

Guest-blogger, Gerhard

(Photo: planeta.com)

Risks and opportunities of a waste economy

Municipal waste economies. Are they practical and sustainable?

Here a contribution to the debate as presented at a Waste in Business Seminar a few days ago.

Abstract: Economic Risks and Opportunities of the New Waste Legislation

The new waste legislation in the country is an important driver for change in waste management systems. The question what the economic implications of this new legislation will be has been scarcely addressed though. The City of Cape Town has started with a process of evaluating alternative service delivery mechanisms in waste management. As part of this process, a high-level evaluation of likely economic costs and benefits was done. In this presentation the main results of this economic analysis is presented. It is concluded that waste minimization and diversion from landfill will incur additional economic costs, but that certain mechanisms are more costly than others. A case is made to focus attention on specific larger-scale, lower-cost interventions in partnership with external investors and to spread out the impacts over time.

Full presentation downloadable here.

Quote of the day: On Scarcity and Oil Prices

"..if demand growth resumes in China and other countries at its previous rate, the date at

which the scarcity rent will start to make an important contribution to the [oil] price, if not here

already, cannot be far away."

JD Hamilton, 2008. Understanding Crude Oil Prices. NBER Working Papers.