Samoa Tourism Sector Plan 2014-2019.

The Samoa Tourism Sector Plan (STSP) is a national cross-sectoral plan that establishes a framework for the development of tourism in Samoa for the five year period from 2014–2019. The Vision under this Plan is that ‘By 2019 Samoa will have a growing tourism sector, which engages the visitors and people and is recognized as the leading Pacific destination for sustainable tourism’. The sustainable tourism is defined as ‘Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities’. Its objectives are 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; respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance; ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.
The are 5 key strategies and priority actions. 1-Marketing and Research in order to grow demand and yield for the destination and its tourism products. 2- Investment and Business Enabling environment to provide support for growth and investment in tourism related business. From this perspective, the tourism development will also create substantial opportunities to increase the supply and use of local vegetables and fish for use by the tourism sector. The further development of linkages between tourism and primary production would support reductions in imports, but would also have potential to reduce the cost of inputs for the sector. The Government will also work with regional agencies to support the development of linkages between agriculture and tourism.
3- Product development to support product improvements and the emergence of new products to meet market expectations. Among other activities, a Private Sector Support Facility will be established and administered by the Industry Development and Investment Promotion Division of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labor to support businesses and associations in the manufacturing, tourism and agriculture and fisheries sector. Further, incorporating sustainable development principles into tourism product development can support broader environmental and cultural objectives as well as achieve economic benefits. For example the National Environmental Sector Plan (NESP) 2013 – 2016 has as its Goal the ‘improved environmental sustainability and disaster resilience through Green Growth’. The Plan outlines a number of high level development outcomes which can be supported through sustainable tourism development including the protection of land based and marine habitats, the conservation of threatened species and protection of biodiversity, sustainable management of natural resources and increased resilience to climate change.
4- HRD and Training to provide education and training which supports industry and community needs. 5- Infrastructure and access to increase destination competitiveness through increased accessibility, infrastructure use and maintenance.
In order to determine whether the tourism sector is achieving the Strategic Policy Outcomes and Goals, a number of indicators have been established. These indicators can be readily measured and provide the basis for high level sector monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the STSP. The indicators for the STSP have been identified across five interrelated areas of sustainable tourism: Tourism Expenditure and Employment; Market Size and Composition; Visitor Satisfaction; Community Engagement; Environmental Sustainability.