Tourism Development Policy Analysis and Master Planning Implementation

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the tourism development policy and master planning implementation for Granville Island, a prominent public market and cultural center in Vancouver. The analysis focuses on the Granville Island 2040 Master Plan, examining its four key strategies: improving access, expanding the public market and creating a market district, embracing arts and innovation, and restoring and sustaining the public realm. The report identifies existing problems, such as traffic congestion and parking issues, and potential threats related to economic stability and competition. It assesses the impact of these issues on the visitor experience and the overall development of Granville Island. The report also offers recommendations for the sustainable development of the destination, emphasizing the promotion of tourism products and the implementation of the master plan's strategies. The analysis includes an overview of the policy's commitment to social and environmental sustainability, and the importance of arts, culture, and innovation in attracting visitors and fostering community unity.

TOURISM DEVELOPMENT POLICY ANALYSIS AND MASTER
PLANNING IMPLEMENTATION OF GRANVILLE ISLAND AND ITS
SURROUNDING NEIGHBORHOOD
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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Policy analysis of Granville Island 2040 Master Plan...............................................................4
2.1 Existing problems (including cause and effect).....................................................................8
2.1.1 Relation to sector 2..........................................................................................................8
2.1.2 Relation to other sectors..................................................................................................9
2.2 Potential Threats (including cause and effect).....................................................................10
2.2.1 Relation to sector 2........................................................................................................11
2.2.2 Relation to other sectors................................................................................................11
2.3 Impact on visitors experience and Granville Island development.......................................12
3.0 Planning implementation and Recommendation for development of the destination.............14
4.0 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................17
References:....................................................................................................................................18
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1.0 Introduction
Granville Island is a public market and shopping district situated at the heart of Vancouver,
British Columbia and is around 14 hectares in size. Earlier it was used as an industrial
manufacturing area used to assemble equipment for mining, forestry and shipping. During the
Second World War, the area was used to produce heavy-duty wire ropes. After engulfed by a fire
during the mid-1950s the island was closed. Later, the management of the site was assigned to
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) during the 1970s and gradually started
transforming from an industrial wasteland into a premier cultural and artistic centre of
Vancouver.
The island is now a popular tourist destination buzzing with millions of visitors from Vancouver
and around the globe, each year. The Granville Island area has been projected by CMHC as a
culinary destination as a contribution of several independent food retailers and is used to host
arts and cultural festival throughout the year. CMHC has commissioned the Granville Island
2040 report in an attempt to device a comprehensive vision for the island. The report contains 4
strategies in order to address the challenges faced in present times and to ideas of developing the
area in future.
The present study analyzes the strategies of the CMHC report and along with observations from
a field trip, attempts to identify some persisting issues and potential threats in the Granville
Island and their impact on tourism (Su, Bramwell & Whalley. (2018). The study also discusses a
possible recommendation for the sustainable development of the area to promote tourism product
and tourism destination for Granville Island, with the endeavour to implement the strategies.
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2.0 Policy analysis of Granville Island 2040 Master Plan
The policy of Grandville Island 2040 Master Plan is based on four basic pillars such as
 Plan regarding the arts and culture
 Plan for the usage of the land
 Plan for future transportation
 Plan to evaluate the economy of the region and governance review
Apart from these three pillars, the policy has also provisioned the commitment to social and
environmental sustainability. In addition, as a part of the societal improvement, special attention
has been prioritized on fostering the culture and optimum collaboration with localized First
The success strategy analysis also consists of four multi-dimensional strategies for overall
success. The strategies are as follows:
Strategy 1: Improve access:
This strategy consists of the following approaches:
 Establishing an elevator from the Granville Street bridge to the heart of Granville Island
 Forming new bridge across Alder Bay so that the public transit, pedestrian, cycle and
ferry access to the Island can be increased
 Broadening the of private vehicle transport, increasing the parking areas so that the public
realm and alternative land usage scopes can be enhanced (Granvilleisland, 2018).
It has been assessed that presently, Granville Island has been poorly served by its transport
communication mode. The modes of transportations used from and to Granville are imperatively
lower in numbers that used generally in the city (Alvarez, Yuksel, & Go, 2016). Only a single
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bus route is found serving the Granville Island that is also running infrequent manner on an
interval of fifteen minutes. However, the city bus passes Granville Street Bridge after every two
minutes. Hence, it would be efficient to connect Granville Island to this strong bus route corridor
to enhance the visitors’ rate of visits to Granville Island through this improve transit service
(Bianchi, 2018).
Strategy 2: Expand the Public Market &Create a Market District
 Refreshing and expanding the public market by the integration within a Market District
 Making the region a major food destination of the sustainable food business, along with
the production and processing of the local food
 Expanding small to large-scale independent business in the non-food sector which would
be specialized in local design and manufacturing.
It has been recognized that the Public Market in Granville Island has been a major attraction. The
market has been identified as the major reason behind both the national and international
travellers visiting Granville Island (Saarinen & Rogerson, 2014). Hence, this market has been
defined as the economic engine for the Island. The rental revenue generated from this market
offers relative support towards the high valued cultural activities and arts of this Island (Torres-
Delgado & Saarinen, (2014). The expansion process would also introduce diversity or variety of
products that would definitely draw greater attention. Hence, the plan for the expansion strategy
of the market needs to be initiated on an immediate basis that can help the island to generate
more revenues and gain stability.
Strategy 3: Embrace Arts & Innovation:
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 Establishing art craft and innovation hub for gathering and improving the community
unity and dynamism.
 Enabling the whole community to be more dynamic in the areas of resilient arts, crafts
and national culture
 Linking the art and design with the innovative approaches and technological
advancements so that the contemporary values and cultural dimensions can be reinforced
in the cultural centres.
 Improving the existing facilities and shared services with the support of cultural partners
so that stewardship of the arts can be highly fostered.
In the statement of Muresan et al. (2016), it can be noted that tourists are more devoted to arts
and culture activities. Tourists prefer visiting places that have a strong cultural influence, as it is
counted as one of the major tourist attractions. Hence, Granville Island shall also emphasize
relative on the aspect of rising strongly on its art and cultural influence to attract new visitors
(Woosnam, Draper, Jiang, Aleshinloye & Erul, 2018). Therefore, the major focus of the island
would be to engage a wider community of creative thinkers to foster interdisciplinary
connections between designs, arts, culture, exploration of creative influence and services (Din,
2018). Thus, the provision of required stewardship of arts and cultural activities would be
required.
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Strategy 4: Restore & Sustain the Public Realm
This strategy has been focused on multiple numbers of areas as follows:
Proposed To-do list Proposed impact
Making of a central plaza and naturalizing the
south part of the Alder Bay to replace the
public parking areas
Creating new cultural and economic
opportunity and promoting urban sustainability
with the promotion of environmental
sustainability as well.
Political changes, to deliver effective
management and leadership tactics
To manage the crucial success factors while
reforming the changes of the Island
Providing potential plans, recommendations, to
manage the financial need while conducting
the project.
To meet short term and long term goals of the
development plan
Conducting extensive research and
development for engineering and civil works
To analyze the feasibility of the project and
employing additional flexibility for all
stakeholders associated with the proposed
venture.
Establishing an interim Granville Island 2040
Implementation Committee after the release of
the Granville Island 2040 Plan
To control the project activities across the
region
CMHC’s active participation for exploring the
options for renewing the previous governance
structure
To strengthen the decision making and
accountability
Reinforcing the staffing in the CMHC- To effectively carry out the expanded mandate
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Granville Island project. as mentioned in the published report so that
potential outcome can be attained.
Preference towards the public realms has always been a significant vision of Granville Island as
a part of its success (Gupta & Dutta, 2018). The elements of public realms like public spaces,
building historic character, preservation of crucial ingredients make Granville Island a much-
loved gathering destination. In the consideration of Mowforth & Munt (2015), an equivalent
occurrence of society is probably only in built-up surroundings where individuals distribute a
community realm that enjoys this preference and visibility.
2.1 Existing problems (including cause and effect)
* From Master plan & personal observation
The island is connected with the main Vancouver city by highway 99, passing right through
Granville. It allows a good amount of private vehicles to access the area causing congestion and
parking problems.
2.1.1 Relation to sector 2
The chosen sector has the Maritime Market and the Net Loft which is marketplaces. The traffic
congestion could be challenging for the development of an integrated market area and culinary
spot.
It has been identified that the major serious problem has been the combination of the supremacy
of private transport as the mode of access to Granville Island. Alongside the excessive traffic and
congestions for parking has accompanied the popularity of the island. The only largest usage of
the island is presently threatened by excessive vehicular circulation and parking, which tends to
occupy almost a quarter of the land use. Hence, as per Stylidis, Biran, Sit & Szivas (2016), the
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existing pressure of congestions imposes issues on freedom of movements crosswise the intact
public realm of the island. Hence, it can be stated that the risk of land erosion due to a lack of
public space would increase with the passage of time (Stylidis, 2018).
As per Roberts, Hall & Morag (2017), the degree of transport based issue is found obvious in
terms of public opinion the outcome of which has been less or more evenly separated amongst
those who prefer decreasing or eliminating the private transportation access and the ones that
prefer calling for an enhancement in the parking to benefit their individual entrance to the
Granville Island. In spite of the former confrontation, it has not been probable to tackle the
existing pressure or problems related to the sudden climate change or generate fresh prospects
that can respond positive to the shifting cultural, economic and generational interests devoid of
the lessening of automobile traffic based congestions and parking (Poudel, Nyaupane & Budruk,
2016). Hence, the primary focus of the sector would access the time period it would take to
reduce the excessive dominance of private transportations.
2.1.2 Relation to other sectors
The fundamental challenge Granville Island is facing related to the continued success and future
upliftment in its economic stabilities. In the statement of Singh (2017), as compared to the other
sectors, Sector 2 is the least efficient in terms of management and organization to endure correct
people management. It has been determined that Granville Island itself generates self-financing
operation and CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) had considered Granville
Island at no cost to before the taxpayers of the region since right from 1973, the initial
investment made by the Canadian Government (Granville island., 2018).
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As per the consideration of Moghavvemi, Woosnam, Paramanathan, Musa & Hamzah (2017),
the economic activities at the present sector of the island have been stable, however, the growth
margin is found levelled off. This circumstance has specifically imposed long-term threats
towards the sustenance of Granville Island’s economic state (Martínez-Pérez, Elche, García-
Villaverde & Parra-Requena, 2018). Moreover, with the purpose of addressing this, there had
been a figure of recent conditions that require being taken into deliberation, counting: the
properties of head-lease, enhanced rate of competition rate, flat growth of sales margin in the
Public market or other sector, inadequate night-time commotion and the recent incapability of
accessing the financial segment to support fresh development (Richards, 2018). In addition to the
latter statement, an increasing rate of commercial competition has been witnessed cross wide
Vancouver, counting the neighborhood surroundings and also the expansion of premium
supermarkets offering special and high-quality food items (Bojanic & Lo, 2016). This
enhancement and improvements in the sectors tend to intimate and in certain instances offer
another choice to the shopping experience of the customers in the Public Market and the modern
trade outlets on the specific island. In a similar manner, the speedy enlargement of the bistro
alternatives in the other sectors provides stiff rivalry to the restaurants operated in the Sector 2
market of the Island’s (Chen & Rahman, 2018).
2.2 Potential Threats (including cause and effect)
* From Master plan & personal observation
Highway 99 is a heavily used road to access Granville. It can cause an extreme bottleneck at the
entry point and too much pressure on the Granville Bridge. There is a need to create additional
bridges to connect the area with the mainland and reduce private vehicle usage.
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2.2.1 Relation to sector 2
It has been determined that the rental income from the Public Market has been the explicit
contributor to the budget of this sector. However, the rental income generated from the Public
Market has also been levelled off over the span of last few decades or more. Hence, as per the
statement of Sher, Bagul & Din (2015), flattened revenues tend to create a direct influence on
enhancing the competition rate from the retail outlets and its operations. This relatively had a
higher profit margin as well as the propagation of agronomy market that exits at a larger range
throughout the island (Korstanje, Raj & Griffin, 2018). Therefore, the sector is supposed to
undergo a vast financial treat with the passage of time. By 2040, the sector would incur huge
financial struggle if it fails to explore more tourist income side other than relying explicitly on
the income of the public market. Moreover, according to Stylidis, Biran, Sit & Szivas (2014), an
inherent revenue limitation has been experienced in the Public Market, which has offered a
smaller scale of income to its independent vendors. Furthermore, Nunkoo (2015) claimed that a
perception predicted for 2040 also circulates the fact that the enhancing figures of tourists might
impact the feasibility of the Public Market’s anchors who are actually serving the domestic
market. The specific group of greengrocers and small vendors might face a sudden decline in the
overall sales margin of the market. Since this sector 2 heavily depends on the revenue generally
by the Public Market, therefore, sudden fluctuations in this segment would impose a significant
financial threat towards sector 2.
2.2.2 Relation to other sectors
In the consideration of Komppula (2014), it has been determined that the climatic change has
always been a threat in the Granville Island including its every sector. It can be stated that
climatic changes often impose the threat of raising the sea level above the average level, which
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often creates a flood in the area and other related damages like property loss, financial loss,
emotional trauma, etc. Giaoutzi (2017) determined that the climatic changes in the sector have
affected the agronomy segment. However, Granville Island’s climate is fortunate enough to be
surrounded by considerably the warm Pacific Ocean (Van der Wagen & White, 2018). The east
coast side of the island is also covered up by the central mountain ranges from experiencing
heavy rainfall. Nevertheless, the west coast of the island is relatively exposed to the westerly
winds, which carries a high degree of moisture.
It has been identified that by 2050, Granville Island's summer precipitation degree is forecasted
to decrease by almost 10% (Web.viu.ca., 2018). This sudden fall in the precipitation level would
also create a significant impact on its southern eastern cost as well where the majority of the
population resides. Moreover, the forecasters also predicted that the sudden decrease in the river
runoff in the late summer would also enhance the summer drought possibilities (Huibin, Marzuki
& Kostopoulou, S.. 2018). Therefore, increasing rate summer drought possibilities would impact
on decreasing water resources, which would create a further challenge for water supply to
support the irrigation activities. The sector is not a separate legal entity and thus, it cannot even
borrow the financial capital investments as well. The issues of financial instability in the
upcoming future raise the uncertainties related to its diversification strategy, visitors’ footfall
rate, and management programs, commercial and non-commercial. Hence, it can be stated that
the entire Granville Island including all its sectors are going under a future threat of agronomy
instability due to future climatic challenges.
2.3 Impact on visitors experience and Granville Island development
Parking would be considered as a significant element of transport accessibility to Granville
Island. On the other hand, the influence regarding the numerous attempts suggested in the
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