Collaborative approach for developing a more effective regional planning framework in Egypt: ecotourism development as case study

Kenawy, Emad Collaborative approach for developing a more effective regional planning framework in Egypt: ecotourism development as case study. PhD thesis, University of Liverpool.

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Abstract

In Egypt, as in most developing countries, highly technical plans are drawn up, but nobody puts them into practice. They always end up gathering dust on the shelves of national agencies or local government without being utilised to make improvements to local economic or environmental well-being. The main flaws in the current plan-making process are centred on central government’s monopoly in decision-making; fragmentation between government agencies leading to multiple and often conflicting spatial plans for the same location; and an absence of effective negotiation mechanisms between various stakeholders. These problems can be clearly demonstrated with reference to ecotourism planning. Such plans are being developed in highly sensitive regions, both environmentally and culturally, and there is a wide spectrum of stakeholders who are affected and influenced by any ecotourism development. Ecotourism development planning is a complex issue to the extent that it is beyond the capacity of any one stakeholder acting alone to resolve. These arguments are circular and very unlikely to be solved without effective collaboration between relevant stakeholders; such collaboration may avoid the costs of resolving long-running conflicts and improve the implementation rate of plans. The most appropriate starting point for this is focusing on the planning process by ensuring that development plans properly reflect stakeholder interests and deal with their conflicts through face-to-face dialogue. Therefore, the main aim of this thesis was ″To design a practical framework for operationalising a collaborative planning approach in regional planning using ecotourism development as a case study″. A case study approach was adopted to examine whether the formulated conceptual framework could be applied in practice. Evidence from the case studies was drawn from a critical documentary review of three Egyptian ecotourism planning initiatives, combined with observation and semi-structured interviews with 67 ecotourism experts and stakeholders. Gaps in operationalising stakeholder engagement in the current planning processes as well as the barriers which have hindered the efficiency of stakeholder participation were identified from this evaluation. The final part of this thesis attempted to provide a number of recommendations to fill in these gaps and mitigate the barriers. The most important contribution was that of developing a practical framework for collaborative ecotourism planning that could be used to enhance stakeholder engagement during the planning process, for regional development in general and ecotourism in particular. This framework attempted to provide a methodology and guidelines on the operationalisation of stakeholder engagement during the planning process, designed to increase the likely success of plan implementation.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	alt_title: Collaborative Ecotourism Planning Date: 2015-05-07 (completed)
Subjects:	?? GE ??
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	03 Aug 2015 09:37
Last Modified:	17 Dec 2022 01:53
DOI:	10.17638/02011007
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/2011007