Cook Islands Tourism is currently hosting sustainable tourism planning expert Mr Andrew Sillitoe, who is here scoping a potential carrying capacity project on behalf of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In what would be a first for the Cook Islands, the 'Pacific Tourism Carrying Capacity Tool' aims to identify and optimise the factors that constrain the Cook Islands' ability to host international visitors, with a view to ensuring the long-term sustainability of our tourism industry.

CEO of Cook Islands Tourism, Karla Eggelton, welcomed the potential opportunities the project represents in helping ensure a sustainable approach to tourism development; "While this is an initial scoping exercise only, the development of a tool to measure and optimise our carrying capacity across infrastructure, services, environmental and socio-cultural factors would be invaluable in ensuring a holistic and sustainable approach to tourism development across our islands", says Karla.

Accompanied by CIT's Regenerative Tourism team, Andrew will be meeting with representatives from a wide array of government agencies, private sector, and community groups to identify the key constraining factors specific to visitor carrying capacity and future tourism development. He will then make recommendations to ADB on how to pull these indicators together through the design of a visitor carrying capacity tool, while also identifying other potential projects open to future ADB funding.

More more information please contact Director of Destination Development Brad Kirner on [email protected]