This website is designed to provide the tourism industry, researchers and consultants with information on sustainable and responsible tourism. You are welcome to download any documents that you find useful, and use the links provided.

If you would like to obtain other information or assistance, my contact details are at the bottom of the page.

Dr Anna Spenceley is an independent consultant and researcher who works on responsible tourism and sustainable development issues, mainly in emerging economies.

Based in South Africa, she specializes in biodiversity conservation, sustainable livelihoods, certification, fair trade, transboundary protected areas, poverty alleviation, integrated and triple-bottom-line assessments.
Anna consults for institutions including the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Netherlands Development Agency (SNV), Columbia University, Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa, and the International Ecotourism Society.

During a recent postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of the Witwatersrand, she compiled a new book “Responsible Tourism: Critical issues for Conservation and Development’, which is to be published by Earthscan in partnership with the IUCN Southern African Sustainable Use Specialist Group (SAUSUG) in 2008. Her doctoral research saw the development the Sustainable Nature-Based Tourism Assessment Toolkit (SUNTAT) – designed to address the environmental, socio-cultural and economic sustainability of nature-based tourism enterprises. The work was conducted through the International Centre for Responsible Tourism.

Anna is a director of the International Centre of Responsible Tourism – South Africa, and a member of a number of professional associations including the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Tourism Task Force, the IUCN-WCPA Transboundary Protected Areas Taskforce and the IUCN’s Southern African Sustainable Use Specialist Group.

NEW BOOK: Responsible Tourism: Critical issues for Conservation and Development

All too often conservation efforts are seen to be in conflict with local livelihoods and resource use. As more land and natural resources are incorporated into protected areas ‘responsible tourism’ is often invoked as a way to serve both conservation ends and support local livelihoods and promote economic development. Yet does it actually work in practice?

Employing a series of case studies by practitioners from across southern Africa - one of the testing grounds for the idea that responsible tourism can promote biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation - this book provides a comprehensive, evidence based examination of the range of issues of what works and what does not.

The book opens with an overview of the issues, examines what sustainable and responsible tourism mean in practice and how they can contribute to conservation, poverty alleviation and local economic development.

PART 1 provides a rich examination of policies and institutional activities in responsible tourism by governments, donor agencies and non-governmental organizations in South Africa, Madagascar and Mozambique.

PART 2 considers nature based tourism across southern Africa, looking at local economic development, local benefits from tourism (such as equity and employment), supply and demand for responsible tourism, the economics of wildlife tourism, transfrontier conservation areas, ecological impacts of tourism and a host of other issues.

PART 3 looks at community based tourism in more detail with case studies of various projects drawn from across the region including Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and from as far north as Tanzania.

The book concludes with a detailed synthesis of the key findings with implications for policy, management and the business side of tourism.

This is an essential reference and a unique and rich source of cases studies and salient insights for professionals and academics from across conservation, development and tourism.

Links :
Earthscan - www.earthscan.co.uk
Download Earthscan flyer here (690 KB, pdf file)
Download the contents list here (79 KB, pdf file)

Contact details

Dr Anna Spenceley

Durban, South Africa
Telephone/Fax: +27 (0)31 2085523
Email: annaspenceley@hotmail.com
Skype: annaspenceley

Updated June 2008