Comparing Sustainable Tourism Development of Japan and Switzerland : A Brief Study

"Tourism in International Relations"
Lecture: Drs Usmar Salam MIS
Name: Satwika Paramasatya
Number: 07/253751/SP/22065
Attendance List Number:  27

International Relations

Tourism is a phenomenon industry in the world. Tourism also plays an important role in the social, economic, cultural and political development in destination countries. For example, tourism can provide employment opportunities. Tourism also contributes to a broader cultural understanding by respecting the diversity of culture and ways of life.
Although tourism has both the positive and negative impacts, tourism makes a big deal for countries income. This should be considered by countries which has potencies of tourism. Instead of exploit ting natural resources – which not every country has – they can maximize their tourism. Almost every country has their own uniqueness of tourism, so if they want to optimize the potency, they should apply sustainable tourism development.
As I said before, when we are talking about tourism, we also automatically talk about sustainable tourism development. Modern tourism needs sustainable development to enhance its potency. Modern tourism and sustainable tourism development is a unity. Modern tourism can no longer relying on conservative promotion and cheap strategy. At a situation like now when globalization rules, countries are expected to apply sustainable tourism development comprehensively. By applying it, their tourism will play much more important role for their economic development.
Sustainable Tourism Development itself is defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. It is expected that sustainable tourism development could assist tourism to be developed without harming natural resources which is the future of tourism itself, especially physical environment and society’s structure.
Sustainable tourism development consists of four parts. The parts are economic sustainability, ecological sustainability, cultural sustainability and local sustainability. Each of them can not stand alone because they are a unity. However, each of them has their own specialty and importance which makes them significant.
Economical sustainability refers to make tourism profitable in both immediate and long term. This can be done by performing partnerships throughout the entire supply chain from micro-sized local business to multinational organizations. Beside, economic sustainability also uses internationally approved and reviewed guidelines for training and certification so it can provide financial incentives for businesses to adopt sustainability principles.
Ecological sustainability refers to development that is compatible with the maintenance of essential ecological processes, biological diversity and biological resources. It also refers to guidelines for tourism operations, impact assessment and monitoring of cumulative impacts should be established. Not only ensure that the design, planning and development of sustainable tourism development is worked properly, but also ensure tourism in protected areas such as national parks is incorporated into and subject to sound management plans.
Cultural sustainability is defined by increase people’s control over their lives and compatible with the culture and values of those affected and strengthens the community identity. We can say it would be done by doing education and training programs to improve and manage heritages and natural resources should be established. Tourism also should be initiated with the help of broad based community input. However, the most important part of cultural sustainability is to work actively with indigenous leaders and minority groups to ensure that indigenous cultures and communities are depicted accurately and with respect. Also, strengthen, nurture and encourage the community’s ability to maintain traditional skills.
Local sustainability is designed to benefit local communities and generate income in those communities. Here, the community should maintain control over tourism development and encourage businesses to minimize negative effects on local communities and contribute positively to them. Beside, to ensure an equitable distribution of financial benefits throughout the entire supply chain is also important.
Those explanations give us brief about sustainable tourism development. Now we know that sustainable tourism development is very important for tourism itself. If we want to develop tourism, we need to maintain sustainable tourism development and apply it comprehensively. By applying, we give the tourism chances to improve and serve better for the sake of country’s economic development.
Unfortunately, as we know, some countries have been applying sustainable development tourism in their policy about tourism, while the others have not. There are reasons why countries do and why they do not. This is usually depends on the government of the country. Applying sustainable tourism development definitely needs time and funds. The government must be thinking twice before deciding to apply sustainable tourism development or not. Besides, not all of the countries governments understand about the importance of sustainable tourism development. These governments tend to pay more attention to their natural resources mining instead of tourism. They should be more cautious that tourism can play more important role than natural resources mining.
The countries which apply sustainable tourism development usually developed countries, such as France, Swiss, and Australia. While on the other hand, countries who do not apply sustainable tourism development often come from developing country like Vietnam and Costa Rica. There are also exceptions, like Thailand, who is considered to be developing country but they have been already applying sustainable tourism development comprehensively. This may happened because Thailand is very concerned about its tourism. Their government provides funds to support the applying of sustainable tourism development in order to gain advantages from their tourism.
Here, we are going to compare two countries about how they apply sustainable tourism development, whether they have applied it comprehensively or they have not. The countries which we are going to compare are Japan and Switzerland. Both of them are considered as developed countries. One of them is located in Asia, while the other one is in Europe. They have different tourism potencies, but both of them have been applying sustainable tourism development. In other words, we can say that they already understand about the importance of sustainable tourism development for their tourism’s development.

Japan’s Sustainability Tourism Development
Japan, as the one of developed countries in Asia, does not really care about its tourism, actually. In fact, they care about their industries more than their tourism. The government here realizes that they have to strengthen the economics first, and then if the economics has already stabilized, they give more attention to tourism. In 31 January 2003, Junichiro Koizumi talked about his vision to increase the number of foreign tourists who visit Japan. Then, Koizumi formed Japan Tourism Advisory Council in order to fulfill his ambitions the following day.
Japan finally pays more attention to its tourism by forming special ministry for tourism, MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructures and Transport). It has three divisions which assist the government to make important decision for tourism. The three divisions are:
1. Planning Division
This division is responsible for coordinating tourism research an development.
2. Regional Development Division
This division is responsible for promoting regional tourism
3. Travel Promotion Division
This division takes care of supervising travel agent, the development of tourism and consumers guidance.
About sustainable tourism development, Japan has already tried its best to apply it. In economical sustainability, Japan built new infrastructures in order to secure long term advantages. In ecological sustainability, Japan launched “green tourism” to maintain the environment. Beside, in cultural sustainability Japan make a great move like the local sustainability as well. So finally, we can say that Japan has realized the importance of sustainable tourism development. From these steps, Japan is just one step closer to reach the real sustainable tourism development.

Switzerland’s Sustainable Tourism Development
Switzerland has quite different strategy from Japan. Switzerland’s tourism policy contains five parts, which are (i) Creating good condition for tourism. (ii) Supporting the market’s rise. (iii) Improving tourism objects interest rate. (iv) doing research and development. (v) Initiating International Cooperation.
In economic sustainability, we can find that Switzerland’s government has put tourism as their priority, third after electronics industry and chemical’s application. From tourism, Switzerland gained SF 11,4 billion at 1998, which means tourism contribute 5,3 persen from GDP.
Switzerland has proved that they has applied ecological sustainability by using alternative energy instead of oil. In Zemat, one of Switzerland’s tourism objects, there are no cars with oil allowed so this city was called no-vehicle city because there are no pollution here. Tourists should ride bicycle or just walk for their transportation.
In cultural sustainability, Switzerland keeps conserving their culture by launching Cultural Routes of Switzerland . This program is made to maintain the local heritage in Switzerland. In local sustainability, Switzerland maximize its citizen potency by giving them working field so they can make muffler, clothes and other studs to support the tourism development.

Conclusion
From those explanations, we may conclude that both Japan and Switzerland has done their best to apply sustainable tourism development. Japan and Switzerland have some similarities, like using tourism as their long term program in order to support their economic development. They also preserve their cultural heritage in order to attract more tourists. On the other way, the differences are quite small, like the strategy as Japan has special ministry to take care of tourism (MLIT) while Switzerland hasn’t. This means, Japan and Switzerland have their own way to define sustainable tourism development in order to maximize their tourism potency. It doesn’t matter how they choose their way; the most important thing is how they apply it for the sake of their tourism development.

“Swiss Slow Travel Wins Global Award”. http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/travel/Swiss_slow_travel_concept_wins_global_award.html?siteSect=411&sid=10477501&cKey=1237644099000&ty=st. Accesed on 26 June 2009