Applying System Thinking to Golf Tourism

Journal of Travel Research OnlineFirst, published on March 5, 2009 as doi:10.1177/0047287509332335

Applying Systems Thinking to Sustainable Golf Tourism

Arch G. Woodside

Boston College

Journal of Travel Research Volume XX Number X Month XXXX xx-xx © 2009 SAGE Publications 10.1177/0047287509332335 http://jtr.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

This article examines the issues and criticisms concerning golf, tourism, and the environment and considers how golf–tourism–environment relationships might achieve economic well-being for a region while avoiding vicious cycles of destruction to local environments and the quality of life of local residents. The examination proposes the use of systems thinking, cause mapping, and system dynamics modeling and simulations of golf, tourism, and environmental relationships to help achieve workable solutions agreeable to all stakeholders. Sustainable relationships that include golf, tourism, and environmental objectives require crafting government policies via stakeholder participation of all parties that such relationships affect—recognizing and enabling this requirement needs to be done explicitly—to reduce conflicts among stakeholders and avoid system failures. Keywords: sustainable; tourism; cause map; system dynamics; golf

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xamining relationships among golf, tourism, and the environment generates substantial interest and controversy among tourism executives, regional developers, environmentalists, and government policy makers. Supporters of tourism development often fund regional studies and publish reports that indicate that the economic well-being of many regions depend on the tourism industry. For example, the World Travel & Tourism Council reports, “Results clearly show that the Algarve [southern Province of Portugal] is already highly dependent on travel and tourism, which currently represents two-thirds of total GDP and is expected to increase its share by almost five percentage points to 71...