Evaluating Waterfront Uses for Tourism and Recreation with Acceptance to Changes: The Case of Manado Waterfront Development Bet El Silisna Lagarense Tourism Dept., Manado State Polytechnic Manado, 95252, Indonesia bet_lagarense@yahoo.com Abstract—In the modern era of increased leisure and recreational activities and increased environmental and heritage concerns, many of the world’s major waterside cities have been redeveloped to meet conservation, recreation and tourism goals. Several attempts to transform the city from a single economic base to a more diversified one involve strategies not simply of diversifying its economic potential, but also of changing the city’s industrial image and replacing it with a new vibrant one. The key issue in this study is that the waterfront development is being undertaken to make the city a pleasant place to visit and to stay, which is attractive not only to tourists but also for the local residents. Tourism and recreation are likely to be important functions of waterfront development and redevelopment. However, waterfront development is always improved for economic reasons while massive changes involving land reclamation that changing coastal environment functions from a demand side became a priority. The waterfront development in Manado, Indonesia, is an example of tourism development in a mid-sized city in a less developed country. This study is aimed to identify common issues in the development and redevelopment of Manado waterfront for tourism and recreation and an acceptance to changes as a consequence of development. The most usual case in the creation of leisure-related activities in waterfront areas is that the waterfront provides opportunities not available elsewhere where leisure activities may flourish and be enhanced. Perhaps one of the major concerns regarding waterfront development and redevelopment for coastal cities is that such developments become very significant and, in fact, they are the main common attribute of coastal cities. This study involves questionnaire survey on the field and on-site observations to provide evidences of waterfront development in Manado, Indonesia. This study confirms that a close relationship with discussion of the recreation and tourism developments has contributed to the changes of the waterfront environment. One question that needs to be addressed, however, is whether an increased demand for the urban waterfront to provide tourism and recreational opportunities will also continue to increase the range of future benefits to the environment and the local community within the areas. This has challenged both private and public sectors and other involved parties to enhance the role of recreation and tourism in waterfront development with a serious attention to both the economy and the environment as well. Key words-waterfront uses; tourism; recreation; development I. INTRODUCTION Waterfront development in Manado has massively expanded the economic opportunities that are ugently required in less- developed countries. However, such develoment is occurring at the coast of adequate environmental protection. The study provides evidence of the links between MSA, waterfront development and tourism planning in a mid-sized city in a less-developed country. Governments and Manado waterfront developers expect high returns from MWD through increasing local revenues and a stronger regional economy. However, the sustainability of the development is debatable. A stronger economy, increased incomes and wider job opportunities are widely acknowledged, but an enhanced quality of life for local people is not yet certain, especially if environmental degradation continues. Successful multi stakeholder engagement practices can enhance awareness which, in turn, can be used to increase the support of various stakeholders and, thereby, enhance benefit-sharing. Greater involvement of multiple stakeholders in Manado Waterfront Development would be expected to enhance their willingness to accept the changes to a broad range of development issues such as tourism development, environment protection, social stability and the economy, leading in the direction of sustainability. This is relevant to the main purposes of Manado Waterfront Development (MWD) which is to create socio-economic advantages both for city residents and the region in which the city is located. MWD has greatly influenced the coastal areas and environmental modification is unavoidable. However, in the case of Manado, waterfront development is being achieved at considerable environmental costs. In a developing country which places economic gains as a priority, the tangible benefits appear to exceed the apparent costs in the short term. However, for the long term, the maintenance of environmental quality is very important. II. THEORETICAL REVIEWS A. Waterfront Development Few authors have examined and discussed waterfront development as an important part of urban tourism planning. In fact, waterfronts in urban centres have great potential to: 1) attract local residents as well as tourists for repeat visits; 2) extend the re-use of heritage buildings; 3) affect the proximity of the central business district on the success of redeveloped areas; 4) link new sites with existing urban transportation systems; 5) include local residents in the benefit sharing of the success of improvement to their areas through employment, better settlements and quality of life (Craig-Smith and Fagence, 1995). More and more people are being drawn to live on the coast due to quality of DOI: 10.5176/2010-4804_3.1.294 GSTF Journal on Business Review (GBR) Vol.3 No.1, November 2013 114 © 2013 GSTF brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by GSTF Digital Library (GSTF-DL): Open Journal Systems (Global Science and Technology...