William H. Shoaf
Vice President & General Manager
Sundance

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Travel and Tourism is the largest industry in the world and is expected to double within the next twenty years. Sundance is a small piece of this immense global enterprise - an arts community located in the mountains of Utah dependent upon tourism for its economic survival.

Over the past 15 years, Sundance has struggled with maintaining a balance between the arts, nature and commerce. The struggle is one of seeming contradictions - creating a community in a fragile environment, introducing the free thinking aspects of an artistic colony into a very conservative host culture, and accommodating the commercial needs of the resort within the culture of the community. We have come to realize that these contradictions are the strengths and future of Sundance.

We believe the failing of resorts and hotels to assimilate within host communities is the transient nature of the business: guests who stay a day or a week; employees that view the industry as an "entry level job" to be done for a year or two and move on; developers that view real estate only in terms of location and investment. There is a lack of connection with the land, the host culture and the people who visit or work at the property. But in reality, a resort or hotel is a micro community - a place where people work, sleep, eat and participate in social and recreational events. A mixing bowl where people of other regions and countries come to visit and are exposed to the host community's culture.

A community speaks of generational commitments, of efforts that include and enrich cultural heritage, of stewardship of the land and its assets, of focus on long term viability versus short term gains and of people at all levels involved in the future of the project. By moving our view of the resort to focus on its roles as a community, the business ethics of the project move closer to the mind set of sustainability.

At Sundance, the focus is the Arts. The ethics and values are about continuing the growth of a community where art is developed, explored and discovered. The realities are the need for successful commercial enterprises to support the community. We believe the stronger we hold to these core values of the community, the higher the level of financial success. To date, this belief is working.

The notion of Sundance as an "eco-resort" or "eco-community" is a bit uncomfortable. We have built homes, hotel rooms and support buildings at the base of a mountain valley, we and the people that visit Sundance use fossil fuels, we are clearly on the grid, we create trash - lots of it. We have done our best to minimize our impacts, but we are an impact. Our initial efforts were in the area of minimizing the negative ecological impacts of Sundance. We minimized the number of cars, improved recycling, investigated better energy conservation measures, and used composting for food waste. All of these efforts paid off. However, with a community versus resort view, these efforts seemed a trade off. Clearly, we needed something more permanent - a system and ethic that kept a balance between commerce, community culture and the environment.

This need moved Sundance to expand its environmental efforts from just ecological damage control to the formation of environmental enterprises.

The average resort or hotel revenue flow has a five to seven time multiplier effect within the host community. Because of the nature of the tourism business, the majority of the money spent in a hotel is money that comes from another geographical region and is "new" to the host community. Since the services provided by a resort are of an immediate basis - meals, lodging, entertainment, recreation - the effect of this "new" money is felt quickly within the host community. Food purchases from local purveyors, wages and tips earned by the hotel staff, fees paid at local golf courses, etc. New money with an almost immediate flow-through to the community - one of the main reasons developing areas look to tourism as a key industry.

We had spent considerable energy focusing inwardly upon the environmental practices of Sundance and had given little thought to the practices of the people we did business with. We had been operating as an island within the community instead of utilizing our economic and social influence to educate and improve the overall community we lived in. When we changed our paradigm to view the health of the entire community as our responsibility versus what happened only within our walls, we discovered a powerful tool - the economic multiplier of our purchases. A simple set of ethics developed that we now use in our relationships with our suppliers:

• We place our money where our beliefs are.
  
  
• We support and put into business people who are dedicated to ecological manufacturing, packaging and food production.
  
  
• While price is a consideration, ecological ethics are too and both get equal status.
  
  
• If someone we do business with does not have knowledge about environmental issues and techniques, we work with them so we both benefit.
  
  
• We ask that our business partners ask their partners to do the same.
  
  

In addition to the economic influence of our community, we also came to realize that we had another opportunity to impact the long term sustainability of our area - by sharing the efforts and spirit of the residents and employees with the guests of Sundance. Over 250,000 people visit Sundance each year, which allows us the opportunity to expose and educate our guests on issues of the environment. Our efforts are keyed to certain thoughts:

• Environmental efforts should be easily obtainable to the average consumer. The more esoteric, the lower the chance for transfer.
  
  
• Modeling is better than lecturing.
  
  
• Give guests an opportunity to participate in the programs and information about the effects.
  
  
• Educate the staff and let them participate in the development of programs.
  
  

The issues confronting Sundance are not unique. The integration of the hotel and resort business into host communities in a way that provides for sustainable tourism is a key problem. The dynamics of tourism - the economical impact, the introduction of vast amounts of people from other countries and cultures, the physical impact to the infrastructure of a community and the impact on surrounding natural habitats - all can be overwhelming to a community.

The question is not if tourism and its impact will continue. The question is whether the impact will serve both the good of the community and the industry. It is a situation of choice.

The choice in the planning and development stage is to have the needs of all players in equal focus - the developer, the community, the environment, and the culture. Each of these parts must have a say and must have its needs respected. In the planning stage, the classic mindset of negotiation must be replaced by accommodation and resolution. The issues must be worked past compromises to creative cooperation amongst the various elements.

The choice in the building stage is placing concerns for the environment in the forefront; it is making decisions based on the long term impacts of the buildings and their surroundings. The evaluation of building materials, energy systems and site planning from an environmental focus must be joined by an evaluation of the interaction of the people that will use the space.

The choice as to the ethics and values governing the operation of the hotel is the most important decision. Ethics and values determine the true degree of sustainability that will be achieved. Developments that do not have as a basis, balanced operating ethics that include the needs of commerce, environment and community, cannot achieve sustainability. They will, as a matter of course, take more from their host community than they give back.

Tourism is a powerful agent of change. It can revitalize an urban area or create a new city. It moves quickly and with far reaching impacts. It is something to be respected, but not feared. The challenge for the future is one of balance - finding the middle ground between mega properties and zoning that precludes any form of development. Difficult, but certainly not impossible.

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