Tourism provides a major economic development opportunity for many countries and a means of improving the livelihoods of its residents. Both the public and private sectors involved in tourism depend on planning to achieve sustainable tourism development that respects the local community, creates appropriate employment, maintains the natural environment, and delivers a quality visitor experience. However, many tourism destinations have pursued development without proper planning and without considering the many impacts such development will bring to the community.

Tourism has many potential benefits it can be an important source of jobs for nonmetro communities, especially for those that are economically underdeveloped. Because jobs in the tourist industry often do not require advanced training, local residents with few skills can readily work as food servers, retail clerks, and hospitality workers. Tourism also not only offers business opportunities to local residents, but it can serve as a vehicle for marketing a place to potential residents and firms, as today’s tourist may return later to retire or start a business locally. Many of these risks, however, can be mitigated if proper planning is employed at the outset of tourism development. There are different factors which play very important role in tourism development such as:

• The planning of tourism;
• The marketing of tourism;
• Tourism and local development;
• Sustainable tourism development; and
• Economic and other effects of tourism.

First of all we will discuss here tourism planning approaches to achieve the goals and objectives of tourism development for a destination. For the purposes of discussion, a tourism destination can mean an entire country, a region, an island, a resort area, or a single project. The tourism plan is generally a formal document to guide both public sector and private sector development activities. Destination planning includes many different forms of planning such as economic development planning, land use planning, infrastructure planning, and social services planning and involves many groups with different perspectives including governments, private investors and developers, and local communities.