Successful sustainability and resilience methods are varied in each destination. Morrison (2019) states that sustainable tourism is now a major role of the national DMOs, which specifically promote and operate practices and programs for encouraging sustainable tourism. As COVID-19 dominated all industries worldwide, resilience became a significant global term including in the tourism industry. To absorb disturbance and re-organise the social-ecological system, sustainability is essential for resilience since the process requires maintaining the same structures, functions, identity and feedbacks (Baggio et al., 2015). Moreover, sustainability is also crucial after resilience to keep maintaining the achieved level of the industry.
My favourite DMO and destination with the best practice of sustainability and/or resilience
The DMO in Houston called Houston First Corporation (HFC), or Visit Houston, is “the official destination management/marketing organisation for the city of Houston” (Visit Houston, n.d., para1). HFC is a local government corporation and owns and manages several tourism-related facilities in Houston such as Hilton Americas-Houston Hotel, George R. Brown Convention Centre, and 10 city-owned properties, surface parking, and underground (Visit Houston, n.d.). Although Houston is famous for attractions including Houston Space Centre, Museums and events (Visit Houston, n.d.), the city is also known as a progressive place for environmental initiatives (Visit Houston, n.d.). Houston First supports the framework for preserving the green environment of Houston which is honoured as the No.1 municipal purchaser of green power in the nation by the EPA's Green Power Partnership (Visit Houston, n.d.). The city also consists of the Office of Sustainability aims to achieve the sustainability and resilience of Houston (Green Houston, n.d.). Houston’s Climate Action Plan implements to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions, meet the Paris Agreement goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, and lead a global energy transition” (Green Houston, n.d., para 1), while Resilient Houston “helps the city to mitigate flooding risks and improve climate readiness” (Green Houston, 2020, para 1). Houston’s general framework towards sustainability and resilience is effective in the tourism industry since the sustainable approaches reduce pollution and conserve the environment including 25% of total electricity is from wind energy in Houston (Visit Houston, n.d.), and resilience increases the level of health and security and tackles the issue of climate change which is a serious problem in tourism industry recently (Sharpley & Telfer, 2014).
The best practice of sustainability and/or resilience
While Houston launched the special office for sustainability and resilience, it is fundamentally important to keep the overall quality of the city and environment, which the UNWTO state that it is important to “make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity” (UNWTO, 2005, para3). However, in terms of tourism sustainability, the best practice in Houston is a strong partnership with other countries and businesses. Maintaining close relationships with all stakeholders including community residents, tourism stakeholders and external stakeholders are vital components for sustaining and improving the quality of tourism in destinations (Morrison, 2019). A partnership can also create consistent/sustainable economic contributions to both destinations, which has become a responsibility for all businesses to improve and sustain the level of operations and financial performance (McKinsey, 2014).
The partnership with Mexico is an example including the Greater Houston Partnership. Visitors from Mexico is the biggest source of international tourism in Houston (Chicago Tribune, 2016) and the connectivity between them has been strengthened by business and cultural relations (Houston Airports, 2016). For example, “Houston provides more nonstop flights to Mexico than any other city in the nation”, and “Houston Aviation Director Mario Diaz joined Mayor Sylvester Turner, the Greater Houston Partnership, Visit Houston and top Houston-area business executives” (Houston Airports, 2016, para1). Moreover, international tourists, especially Mexicans, are attracted to Houston as a weekend shopping destination, the city’s greatest source of international tourism (Chicago Tribune, 2016). As these examples suggest, a partnership can contribute to maintaining and improving the socio-economic aspects of Houston. Perhaps, a partnership can be one of the competitiveness for creating a sustainable destination in tourism.
The relationship also helps the resilience of the city. For example, business-related trade missions (Cision, 2016) and easiness of transportation between Houston and Mexico (Houston Airports, 2016), as well as medical tourism in Houston, where attracts “16,000 to 20,000 international patients arrive for treatment every year” (Chicago Tribune, 2016, para11), can all promote a further financial benefit to Houston and helps the city and community to revive socio-economically.
Why this is the best practice
Wang & Pizam (2011) claim that there are 4 pillars for sustainability which are ecological, economic, socio-cultural, and political environments. The best practice of my choice is more towards the latter three pillars. The Greater Houston Partnership aims for economic growth and social development on a global scale (Greater Houston Partnership, n.d.). The partnership also has a program called Houston Next to accelerate the progress across the areas of impact include:
· Strong, diverse economy
· Great quality of life
· Opportunity for All
· Racial Equity & Justice
(Greater Houston Partnership, 2020, p.3)
The partnership and program in Houston, with the environment conservation plan by Green Houston, sufficiently meet the criteria for sustainability. In terms of tourism, the partnership involves the mayor of Houston to lead a trade delegation to Mexico City, which focuses on “strengthening the relationship in terms of tourism and medicine, with potential agreements between the Texas Medical Centre and some Mexican hospitals” (Houston Public Media, 2016, para3). This emphasizes the continuous growth and sustainable development of tourism. Furthermore, the partnership also actively engages in COVID-19 response, which substantially helps the resilience of all industries from the pandemic including tourism, in addition to some improvements including health and safety measures (Greater Houston Partnership, 2020).
Benefits and consequences for consumers
In terms of partnerships, the main consumer for Houston is the partnered city like the city of Mexico. The enhanced relationship between Houston and Mexico brings benefits to each other. For example, easiness of travel such as increased direct flights between the cities (Houston Airports, 2016) can reduce the travelling time and stress. Increased connectivity can also bring many visitors to Houston that helps more Mexicans to participate in sports tourism, medical tourism and shopping tourism, which are all main tourism segments in Houston (Houston Public Media, 2016) and one of the international market segments that have been “demonstrating growth potential in recent years” (Morrison, 2019, p.570). An increased occasion for popular tourism types in Houston including sport tourism, such as for the Super Bowl (Houston Airports, 2016), medical tourism to Texas Medical Centre (Houston Public Media, 2016), and shopping tourism in Houston that offering tax refunds for international visitors (Chicago Tribune, 2016), certainly increases the satisfaction of travellers, thus increases travelling to Houston which helps to achieve sustainable tourism and resilience. The partnership also spread the use of Spanish in Houston for websites and SNS, restaurants and shopping centres (Chicago Tribune, 2016), which stimulate to attract a greater number of Hispanics including Mexicans due to its convenience. Even educational program is now offering to “develop communicative and critical thinking skills” in Spanish due to the increased Hispanic communities in Houston (University of Houston, n.d., para2). The stronger relationship is improving the tourism environment for visitors from Mexico so that they can feel more comfortable and experience greater satisfaction. On the other hand, some possibilities could cause a few disadvantages to other international visitors. For example, the partnership provides positive effects to Mexicans but might cause negative consequences for other international visitors such as the decreased chance of sports, medical and shopping tourism opportunities.
Benefits and consequences for the destination, tourism industry and the residents
The enhancement of tourism by the partnership sufficiently benefits stakeholders including the tourism industry and residents in Houston. The partnership between Mexico enhances tourism, particularly international tourism, and Morrison (2019) states that international tourism can bring in new income to the country, which domestic tourism then recycles and redistributes the new income within the country. In the case of Houston, the partnership with Mexico stimulates more export, i.e., international tourism, in Houston, which creates new income for the city. This process enriches the city and the US through domestic tourism by redistributing the new currency internally. The growth in tourism through the partnership also increases the labour opportunity in Houston (Morrison, 2019). The more visitors arrive in Houston, the more tourism-related infrastructure, facilities and services are required, hence more people are needed as international tourism increases(Morrison, 2019). Moreover, an increase in the number of visitors positively impacts the stakeholders in Houston as well. For example, hotels, restaurants and tourism-related attractions and entertainments, including shopping malls and medical centres for the case of Houston, can economically benefit as more currency is spent with increased visitors (Morrison, 2019). Although generally, the partnership can increase international tourism and positively contribute socio-economically to the destination, tourism industry, and residents, increased tourism can, coincidentally, provide both advantages, such as increased quality of life, better resources and cultural exchange, and disadvantages, such as cultural imperialism and increased terrorism and prostitution (Sharpley & Telfer, 2014). Environmental problems are also caused by the increased tourism developments including tourism infrastructures, transportations and facilities (Sharpley & Telfer, 2014), which can interfere with sustainability, hence “the concepts of ecological limits, sustainable resource use and defined carrying capacities” (Sharpley & Telfer, 2014, p.260) are now widely accepted, and Houston launched the Office of Sustainability for minimising the environmental issues, and achieving the sustainability and resilience, to protect the city of Houston and stakeholders (Green Houston, n.d.).
How can this best practice be encouraged for other DMOs
It is important to show the actual effect of partnership for encouraging other DMOs. The pandemic is appropriate timing for showing the power of partnership. According to the Greater Houston Partnership (2020), Houston continued to progress through both domestic and international business relocation and expansion in 2020. Furthermore, despite the time of economic challenge, “the Partnership and its regional allies assisted in 21 economic development projects, accounting for over $704 million in capital expenditure and over 3,200 new jobs to the region” (Greater Houston Partnership, 2020, p.8). A quick shift of business recruitment missions to a virtual setting for both domestic and international is also possible under the umbrella of partnership. Moreover, the partnership brought 86 inbound delegations from 28 countries for further growth of the region’s international connectivity and “despite travel restrictions, the Partnership continued to host key visits with our partners around the globe virtually” (Greater Houston Partnership, 2020, p.8). These economic and political contributions to Houston can positively stimulate the socio-cultural aspects of the city, which reinforces that partnership can contribute to sustainability and resilience through economic, the main contribution that partnership can make, socio-cultural and political dimensions. Perhaps, the partnership was crucial in the pandemic, otherwise, a greater number of people in Houston was affected by the crisis. Partnership in Houston emphasises that further growth of the connection with other nations and businesses are the key to further growth of the city and sustainability/resilience through multiple dimensions.
The organization that should be in charge of encouraging more sustainable and/or resilient practices by DMOs
Local DMO should be in charge of encouraging Houston’s practice towards sustainability and resilience. Although a partnership is a powerful solution to improve particularly economic pillar of destinations, which, therefore, is required to be encouraged throughout the nation by national-level DMO, a city-level initiative should be encouraged by the local DMO (Morrison, 2019). Moreover, fostering partnerships and building teams within DMO’s communities is one of the fundamental roles of local DMOs and coordination tools to bring parties together to deepen the understanding of DMO’s practice on communities including sustainability and resilience (Morrison, 2019), emphasising the importance of partnerships for encouraging DMO’s practice. Partnering and team building are effective ways to encourage more people to visit destinations and to develop more industry partnerships, which are also useful to spread the practice of DMOs to visitors and other industries (Morrison, 2019).
Furthermore, public-private partnerships (PPPs) can further encourage the practice of DMOs because they are efficient in promoting initiatives, sharing information, enhancing an image, and expanding social responsibility within public and private sectors, and the destination i.e., Houston (Morrison, 2019). Houston First has not specifically formed PPPs (Houston First, n.d.), however, the partnerships in Houston such as the Greater Houston Partnerships are similar to PPPs and are certainly effective for promoting the practice of sustainability and resilience by the DMO in Houston (Greater Houston Partnership, 2020).
If I were in charge of this organization, strategies, tactics and actions that I would use to encourage more sustainability and/or resilience
To encourage more sustainability and resilience, relationships with the local community and stakeholders are fundamental. It is certainly a priority to bond a strong partnership with the local community and stakeholders to plan the most suitable and appropriate way for destination management including sustainability and resilience. Morrison (2019) states that there are nine critical activities for bonding a good relationship with the local community
and stakeholders. The activities for connecting with the community and stakeholders are different but relatively similar in context, and some of the steps are critically important for sustainability and resilience including:
· listening and analysing opinions of the community and stakeholders
· communicating with the community and stakeholders
· gaining support from the community and stakeholders
(Morrison, 2019)
Foster a strong partnership with local communities and stakeholders deepens and encourage the understanding of the practice of sustainability and resilience in Houston. Perhaps spreading partnerships in a wider area of Houston can trigger further recognition of the importance of sustainability and resilience, hence possible to encourage more sustainability and resilience in Houston.
My role in supporting and improving sustainability and/or resilience of tourism destinations as a consumer
Consumers are one of the main segments that benefit from partnerships in terms of tourism, which means that stronger partnership develops greater benefits to consumers; thus improving the partnerships is vital. Destinations prefer to learn the satisfaction of consumers from partnerships since, theoretically, developing partnerships are effective to attract more visitors, i.e., to achieve sustainable tourism (Sharpley & Telfer, 2014). Therefore, providing reviews and comments of satisfaction for visiting is fundamental for improving tourism in destinations including partnerships. If the effects of partnerships critically satisfy consumers, the understanding of the importance of partnership becomes deepen and the quality of partnership improves. This increases the level of satisfaction of consumers and perhaps attracts more visitors, which leads to sustainable tourism.
In addition, improving sustainable tourism can influence the resilience of the destination. For example, a greater income from increased visitors leads to achieving economic resilience, overcoming poverty alleviation through increased tourism and income leads to socio-cultural resilience, and reducing pollution through sustainable development leads to environmental resilience.
DMOs should focus on opinions from consumers to achieve sustainable tourism and actively collect them by appropriate methods, which includes both qualitative and quantitative methods, such as interviewing and surveying (Morrison, 2019).
Conclusion
Partnerships play a critical role in the sustainability and resilience of destinations, including during the pandemic. The two concepts are vital processes since the beginning of COVID-19, and local DMOs are in charge of spreading the recognition of the importance of the concepts. Houston is one of the cities currently achieving successful sustainability and resilience from tourism, especially in the area of events and conventions (Click2Hsouton, 2021., Skift, 2021). Shopping and medical tourism, in addition, help further in achieving sustainability and resilience. Houston has special organisations that explicitly work towards sustainability and resilience, which has a partnership with the DMO. Despite that complete resilience requires more time, the continuous contribution of Houston and the DMO towards sustainability and resilience is indispensable to achieve a complete recovery from COVID-19 and for the further growth of tourism and the city.
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