Submitted by San Juan County
San Juan County published a report that concludes the county’s current tourism planning efforts and analyzes the public comments submitted for the Preliminary Draft Destination Management Plan. The draft received over 900 comments that spanned a variety of topics including defining island capacity, addressing affordability and transportation, reconsidering destination marketing efforts, protecting property rights, and many more. One area almost all commenters supported was the need to protect the island environment and quality of life. After reviewing the report, the County Council did not take any action to move destination management planning efforts forward at this time.
Background
San Juan County has long been working to thoughtfully guide visitation that both supports and enhances the unique quality of life, environment, and cultural heritage of the San Juan Islands. In late 2021, the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee asked the County to develop a plan to manage sustainable tourism that could meet the needs of our community, environment, economy, and visitors.
The County’s Department of Environmental Stewardship developed a preliminary draft of the San Juan Islands Destination Management Plan that was available for review and public comment during a ten-week period in August-October 2023. In the following months, County staff analyzed the extensive feedback, assessed further needs and prepared recommendations for next steps. The Public Comment Analysis Report for the preliminary draft plan is now available on the Engage San Juan County project page.
About the Report
The report lays out the planning timeline and process and provides context, both historical and current. The comment summary includes a qualitative analysis which identifies community sentiments and illustrates the handful of “hot topics.” The report also outlines lessons learned during the process and recommended guidance for future work.
Takeaways
In a presentation to the County Council on July 8, County staff noted the rich learning opportunity afforded by the project’s process and brought forward key takeaways including:
Narrow the plan’s focus – It is recommended that actions or elements already in motion elsewhere, and bigger picture items which impact but are outside of the scope of this work, be removed or reframed.
Conduct further analysis and focused engagement – A clearly defined impact assessment and situational analysis is also recommended to be part of any future Plan, to better showcase the balance of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and constraints that must be considered in this tourism management planning process. It is recommended a Sustainable Tourism Leadership Team of stakeholders from the County, Town, local businesses, environmental and social interest, LTAC, Terrestrial Manager Group, and the Visitors Bureau/Chambers be convened to strategically guide any future planning as well as oversee implementation.
Reorganize and reframe any future plan – The key tourism elements should be re-framed into coherent groupings that can move forward more efficiently with better focus. Each grouping will be undertaken with appropriate timing, information, public involvement, and approval processes.
Create more digestible documents – Future outreach should highlight and reiterate the intent of actionable language and the ensuing exploratory process for proposed actions.
The report notes it is critical that the community come together to address why destination management planning efforts are necessary. If the community fails to plan, it should plan to fail in balancing the needs of our environment, economy, and society.
Next Steps
The report highlights the need for sustainable tourism planning for San Juan County and includes recommendations to step back, pivot, and reframe this work in order to advance collaboratively with the community.
Staff recommended that for the duration of 2024, the County observe and learn from subsequent engagement initiatives, including the Communications Survey, the Community Health Assessment, the Land Bank’s strategic planning, the Climate Element and Climate Action Plan development, and the Comprehensive Plan Update, before re-visiting tourism planning in another form. Council accepted the analysis of this draft plan which will be used to inform future efforts in tourism management planning.
More Information
For more information about San Juan County’s sustainable tourism work, please visit the Engage San Juan project page at https://engage.sanjuancountywa.gov/destination-management-plan.
Contact: Angela Broderick, Climate and Sustainability Coordinator, angelab@sanjuancountywa.gov, 360-370-0537
About San Juan County’s Department of Environmental Stewardship
San Juan County’s Department of Environmental Stewardship is responsible for solid waste, marine resources, clean water, cultural resources, and climate and sustainability work. The department offices are located at 1609 Beaverton Valley Road, Friday Harbor, WA 98250. For more information about San Juan County’s Department of Environmental Stewardship, visit www.sanjuanco.com/839/Environmental-Stewardship.
