tapaselections

TAPAS Elections

ABOUT THE CHAIR POSITION AND BIODIVERSITY AND ECONOMICS WORKING GROUP COORDINATORS

Over the past few months,the TAPAS Group has sought applications from enthusiastic volunteers to Chair the Group and lead two of our Working Groups:

1. Biodiversity 2. Economics

We have received some excellent applications for these positions, and now the applications are available for review by TAPAS Group members and voting.

Each candidate was asked to describe:

- Their skills and experience in relation to tourism and protected areas. - Activities done in the past that relate to the specific Working Group. - How they propose to further the activities of the Working Group over the next 5 years.

HOW TO VOTE

Please carefully review the information provided by the candidates for the three positions. Then please vote for your preferred candidate, and include your name and email address. (Your details will be held in confidence and will be used only to check voters against the TAPAS group membership list). Where there is only one candidate nominated please confirm whether or not you are happy for this person to fill the described role.

Thank you for being involved in this important process!

The Chair presides over the entire TAPAS Group, and is responsible for guiding and supporting the overall strategy and direction of the group. The Chair presides over meetings of the ExCo and the TAPAS Group membership, provides direction on strategy and annual planning of activities, coordinates fundraising, leads reports to the WCPA Chair and Steering Committee, coordinates linkages with the IUCN Secretariat, other IUCN Commissions, Specialist Groups and Task Forces, and publicly represents the TAPAS Group. There is one candidate for the TAPAS Chair position. Please review carefully before casting your vote.

Dr. Anna Spenceley
Most of my professional life has been dedicated to working on tourism and protected areas. I appreciate that experiencing nature and culture, in its most pristine forms is a privilege. My early wildlife tourism experiences, in both remote and busy national parks, inspired me to turn my academic work and career towards promoting sustainable travel that conserves biodiversity and supports local livelihoods. From an academic perspective, my masters, doctoral and post-doctoral research has focused on tourism and protected areas, and in particular on sustainable tourism and transboundary protected areas. So far in this field I have produced 5 edited books, 20 peer-reviewed journal articles, 3 special editions of peer-reviewed journals, 24 book chapters and numerous case studies, guidelines and technical reports. I have made presentations at over 65 conferences on this theme, including many promoting the TAPAS Group.

Through my research and consulting work I have continued to work on tourism and protected areas, predominately in Africa. My tourism assignments over the past 20 years have mainly included work for international agencies such as the World Bank Group, UN agencies (e.g. UNEP, UNDP, UNESCO, UNIDO) and bi-lateral agencies (e.g. USAID, GiZ). This work has dealt with pertinent issues, such as the development of tourism concession tookits (e.g. for the World Bank Group and the Southern African Development Community); multi-country analyses of sustainable tourism actions and best practices (e.g. for the World Bank and UNEP), tourism plans and strategies for destinations of high biodiversity (e.g. the Maloti-Drakensberg Park World Heritage Site for UNESCO); developing market-related park pricing strategies for protected areas (e.g. for GIZ in Tanzania); developing training course materials for university students and community-based tourism enterprises.

I have had the privilege to be the TAPAS Group Chair since 2010, when the previous Chair Professor Paul Eagles stepped down. Since that time, and with support from many others, I have worked to establish a strong ExCo, to introduce democratic processes into the group, to grow the membership, and revitalize the group’s activities. This process began with the development of the group’s first Strategy (2010-2014) which had core objectives to develop an ExCo 2010, to revitalize the group through diversification and increasing and diversifying membership, strengthening our communication, and building our portfolio of guidance materials on tourism and protected areas. The ExCo initially comprised Paul Eagles, Steve McCool (Capacity Building), and Robyn Bushell (Heritage), and was expanded by co-opting additional volunteers, include Glen Hvenegaard and Ralf Buckley (Knowledge Development), Ron Mader (Communications) and Elizabeth Halpenny followed by Elena Nikolaeva (Membership). This voluntary team invested considerable efforts to shape the TAPAS Group, and realize a series of publications and enhance the Group’s outreach. I introduced democratic approaches to the ExCo, and subsequently the TAPAS Group members elected a new Vice Chair (Sue Snyman) in 2014, and new leads of Knowledge Development (Megan Epler Wood) and Capacity Development (Dan Palezcny) in 2015. I believe that democratic processes and good governance has become one of the strengths of this WCPA Specialist Group, and this will continue into the future. More recently, I proposed the development of two new ExCo positions relating to new Working Groups on Environment and Economics, and the process of seeking coordinator nominations for election are currently underway. Once established, the TAPAS Group will have working groups that reflect the triple bottom line of sustainable development (i.e. Economic Environmental, Social [Heritage & Communities]). With regards to fundraising, I raised over USD100,000 for the third edition of the IUCN WCPA Best Practice Guidelines (of which I am co-editor). I also have co-written a series of proposals with a series of partners for over USD 8 m that (if successful) will support TAPAS Group activities in addition to others working on sustainable tourism.

I believe that I have improved the strategic positioning of the TAPAS Group internationally, through representation of our ExCo and members on the 10YFP Sustainable Tourism Multi-stakeholder Advisory Committee; through representation of the group within the IUCN – Mediterranean Experience of Ecotourism (MEET) program and Ramsar’s Tourism & Recreation Focus Group; and membership of the new Southern African Sustainable Tourism Forum, to advise SADC countries. Furthermore, I have worked with the ExCo members and the broader TAPAS Group membership to promote our outreach. For example, working with the ExCo I lobbied for presentation space at the World Parks Congress for our members (ultimately there were over 125 tourism presentations made), and disseminated our ‘Tourism Journey’ to WPC participants. I also worked to share lessons more broadly through videoing sessions and uploading them to YouTube, and placing presentations on Slideshare. Subsequently, I have compiled a conference report on tourism at the WPC (published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, and a more detailed analysis that has been accepted for publication in Tourism and Hospitality Research. A similar process is now underway for tourism events at the 2016 World Conservation Congress. My efforts to raise the profile of the TAPAS Group (often in collaboration with other ExCo and Group members) have also included presentations at IUCN events (e.g. World Parks Congress, World Conservation Congress), and meetings of the 10YFP on Sustainable Tourism, Global Partnership for Sustainable Tourism, BEST-EN Think Tank and others. I have also supported members to present information regarding the TAPAS Group using our materials at other international events, including Convention on Biological Diversity and other IUCN meetings.

In terms of knowledge development, I have created opportunities for TAPAS Group members to publish their work on tourism and protected areas, including co-editing two journal special editions that encouraged participation TAPAS Group members: The Journal of Sustainable Tourism (2012) on Tourism and Poverty Reduction, with Dorothea Meyer (now also in book form, through Routledge), and Koedoe with Steve McCool, on Tourism and Protected Areas (2014). I also coordinated the development of a Visitor Management chapter written by myself and other TAPAS Group members, for the IUCN book “Protected area governance and management” (2015). With Susan Snyman I am currently coordinating a new special edition of Tourism and Hospitality Research, on “Sustainable and inspirational: A decade of progress in protected area tourism” – relating to the 2014 World Parks Congress streams and cross cutting issues. This has several original research papers written by TAPAS Group members on this important theme. Since 2010 the communication channels and outreach has grown tremendously. I initiated the TAPAS Google Group and its Facebook page (which now has over 1800 ‘likes’). Supported by communications coordinator, Ron Mader, I have also participated in several TAPAS Group webinars on tourism and protected areas. I endeavor to share information that I receive on tourism and protected areas through the various TAPAS Group communication channels, and over the past 5 years have made hundreds of postings to the Google Group, Linked-In Group and Facebook site. I have also begun to promote TAPAS Group activities through my personal blog (annaspenceley.wordpress.com). Whenever the TAPAS Group has been asked to report on its activities, or comment on pertinent draft documents, I have sought guidance from TAPAS Group members and ExCo using these communication channels, and also by circulating online surveys for comment (e.g. for WCPA Annual Reports and strategy development).


 * How you propose to further the activities of the TAPAS Group or the Working Groups over the next 5 years. **

Should I be re-elected as Chair, I propose to give support to the TAPAS Group ExCo members and the membership of over 350 people, to implement the new strategy (2015-20). This will mean: I will continue to support the development of a supplementary series of BP Guidelines, starting with “Community Engagement in Tourism and Protected Areas” (led by Sue Snyman) and Economics (led by Niklas Scheder), and other proponents. I will also support, and submit contributions to the new TAPAS Group Special Editions of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism (on “Benefit Sharing from Tourism and Protected Areas”, led by Sue Snyman and Kelly Bricker; and “Making Protected Areas Sustainable in a Neoliberal World” by led by Susanne Becken and Hubert Job). I hope that more TAPAS Group members will take the opportunity and initiative to develop publications that document and disseminate their work, and I will endeavor to support them through the position of Chair.
 * Maintaining and supporting the TAPAS ExCo, and continuing to engage in regular coordination conference calls.
 * Developing practical annual workplans for the TAPAS Group, aligned with the WCPA Work Plan, with inputs from TAPAS Group members, and with measurable targets.
 * Providing a democratic framework for renewing and revising ExCo members, and ensure a transparent election process for at least one position is held each year, on a rotational basis.
 * Establishing and supporting new Working Groups, with new coordinators responsible for Working Groups on Economics, and Biodiversity and Environment.
 * Supporting Working Group coordinators to strengthening their groups, with each developing its own membership, annual workplan and collaborative activities aligned with the TAPAS Group’s strategy.
 * Raising funds to support activities and actions put forward by TAPAS Group members and Exco members that are aligned with our Strategy.
 * Strengthening existing partnerships, and building new strategic linkages with other institutions working on sustainable tourism and protected areas globally.

The substantial increase in membership (from 18 in 2010 to 352 by the end of 2015) has demonstrated the global interest and relevance of the TAPAS Group to practitioners, academics, public and private sector internationally. I would like to see more of our members actively participating in the TAPAS Group’s activities – particularly relating to knowledge development and capacity building.

* 1 . Please let us know if you would like Dr. Anna Spenceley to continue in her position as Chair of the TAPAS Group:
 Yes     No       If you selected No please suggest possible alternative candidates: