This paper is an analytical study of tourism plans of China’s Hainan Province and the Syrian coastal region before the Syrian war commenced in 2011. It compares the two types of tourism (in the Mediterranean and the Asia Pacific) and concludes with a
n integrated model of successful regional tourism. The focus is on strategic plans of the last two decades and how they facilitate tourism, specifically, how strategic plans can be translated into sustainable tourism development projects in both regions. The strategic plan in the Chinese case considers environmental, economic, institutional, and social characteristics of tourism development, which determines the necessary infrastructure and environment for the further development of tourism. This is contrasted with the absence of such a strategy in the case of Syria. Data were drawn from in-depth interviews, field observations, and document analysis. Qualitative research techniques were used to analyze the available data and to form a detailed description of the past, present, and future potential for tourism in the two regions. The study measures transportation, land use/land cover patterns, tourism and tourism development, urban development, and strategic plans. It applied the lessons learned from Chinese tourism innovations in Hainan to propose an executive plan for sustainable tourism development in the Syrian coastal region once the present war has ended. This requires the active participation of all relevant stakeholders from almost every domain despite differing interests. It further requires improving the integration of three separate developmental factors (social, environmental, and economic) as complementary rather than conflicting elements.
Keywords; Syrian coastal region, Syria, Hainan province, China, strategic plans, development, policy, planning.
New sciences have greatly contributed in improving analysis processes and
subsequently lead to better understanding of the future. The more knowledge and
information are available, the better planning process will be. Furthermore, better data
lead
s to better decision-making. This is the basis of Geographic Information System (GIS).
Due to its great ability in processing and analyzing extensive and various amount of spatial
data, GIS has solved many obstacles in the research field since it was first launched.
GIS plays an important role in the field of tourism planning as it contributes in
developing new applications that serve modern touristic.
In this research paper, GIS will be used to build an effective system that will improve
touristic planning in Lattakia governorate. A spatial database will be created, that includes
the most prominent touristic places in the city, such as restaurants, hotels, religious and
historical sites.etc.
Each of the touristic attractions will be evaluated, and then a tool , created in GIS
environment, will be used for weighting roads network, in order to determine the touristic
weight for each path in roads network.
Being an integral urban, social, economical and cultural part
of its development plans; states and its administrations
competes in the design, planning and implementation of
sustainable tourism development. Given the importance and
the need to de
velop a meaningful and targeted strategies
toachieve sustainable development in the North region ; this
research handled a collection of different tourism planning
strategeis such as: site planning strategy, merging and
integration strategy, tourism triangle strategy, Hyperlinks
axes strategy and Imaginable planning strategy.
