Policy Formation
Appalachia Sustainable Tourism Collaboration will endeavor to:
Increase grassroots empowerment and diffuse the concentration of power to allow a more democratic process, greater buy-in, and better implementation, and later sound management of policy that improves tourism experiences, environmental stability, creates a diversified economy, and the revitalizing of rural Appalachia while preserving small town character.
Appalachia Sustainable Tourism Collaboration would like to known as fair voice of reason with no group think or hidden agendas. Our Guiding Principles and Core Values enable us to have the patience to learn the content of a person's character as we help create dialogue that starts with listening and understanding many different visions, and ends with everyone's piece of the pie getting bigger.
ASTC will attempt to be a mediator and provide news and resources for stakeholders to digest. To us, it's not about an agenda, its about helping people have a voice.
However, ASTC takes an interest in economic development, with a focus in Nature-Based Tourism found within the Hospitality and Tourism service industry. We are attracted to this because of the amazing potential in rural Appalachia. We hope to help make the best policy possible to prevent problems later in the century.
ASTC identifies market failures and then finds pragmatic solutions to eliminate them.
ASTC has not become a binary thinker (one side is right, the other is wrong), but instead pushes for critical thinking with policy.
Policy Formation is a fluid process that should not be put into concrete stages, but it helps us understand things better.
Below are 7 topics with Policy
Here we list issues for stakeholders to learn more about. There is no calendar.
Here we list resources to help stakeholders learn more in hopes of becoming more empowered. We have a calendar that will have training and education on policy formation. Below the calendar are resources by state that may help you.
Meeting (Scoping and Commenting)
We have a calendar to help you find opportunities in policy formation. Below the calendar are events and activities by state with their dates to safe you time.
This is what happens during the late stages of meetings. The Adoption process could take weeks or years. Here policy becomes law or at least an oral contract between neighbors.
Here a Memorandum of Intent (MOI) Intent may be created between 2 parties to let all know who is responsible for what. The more stakeholders that are involved with adoption the better. This puts ASTC at odds with those who believe domestic policy formation should be done quickly by those in power because they know what is best for the masses. We like a lot of folks involved because it increases the odds the next phase will go well.
Here important stakeholders get their pictures taken with shovels and hard hats. Later the heavy lifting begins. It can actually take years to implement a policy. ASTC will have volunteer opportunities for stakeholders on our calendar. These volunteer opportunities will be more dog and pony shows and public relations events.
Here the Honeymoon stage of a brand new policy is nearly gone. ASTC is the most biased towards Management because this is where the most engaged stakeholders need the most help, and sadly they may be neglected because it is not news worthy, and many stakeholders are focused on other important issues. There will be many important volunteer opportunities here because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
In this stage, policy might be changed to react to new stakeholder interests. The change could bring about the final stage.
It's important to realize that not all Policy is designed to be sustainable. In fact, there are times when Policy is designed to be terminated after so much time or after meeting it's objectives. However, at times policy can be reversed by stakeholders.
This page will simply have news and announcements about the termination of policy.
Thank you for visiting Appalachia Sustainable Tourism Collaboration!
We hope the site helps you with your vision for your community.