Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
the tourism industry. This policy issue has generally been resolved through the
restructuring of national and regional tourist organisations not only to reduce their
planning, policy and development roles and increase their marketing and promotion
functions, but also to engage in a greater range of partnerships, network and collaborative
relationships with stakeholders. Such a situation has been described by Milward (1996)
as the hollowing out of the state in which the role of the state has been transformed from
one of hierarchical control to one in which governing is dispersed among a number of
separate, non-government entities. This has therefore led to increased emphasis on
governance through network structures as a 'new process of governing; or a changed
condition of ordered rule; or the new method by which society is governed' (Rhodes
1997:43).
Awareness of the need of tourist organisations to create links with stakeholders is, of
course, not new. The community tourism approach of P.E. Murphy (1985, 1988)
emphasised the importance of involving the community in destination management
because of their role as key stakeholders, although in actuality this often meant
collaboratively working with industry and community-based groups in a destination
context rather than through wider public participation mechanisms. The difficulty in
implementing community-based tourism strategies is reflective of wider difficulties with
respect to effective destination management and tourism planning (Davidson and
Maitland 1997), namely the diffuse nature of tourism phenomena within economy and
society and the problem this creates with respect to co-ordination and management.
Nevertheless, while collaboration clearly has potential to contribute to the development
of more sustainable forms of tourism in that they can create social capital, it has to be
emphasised that the goal of partnership, as emphasised by a number of western
governments which have restructured their involvement in tourism in recent years, need
not be the same as an inclusive collaborative approach.
In the case of the United Kingdom, for example, many of the partnerships established
between government and business in the 1980s and early 1990s as part of urban and
regional development programmes have been heavily criticised for their narrow
stakeholder and institutional base. Goodwin (1993:161) argued that in order to ensure
that urban leisure and tourism development projects were carried out, 'local authorities
have had planning and development powers removed and handed to an unelected
institution. Effectively, an appointed agency is, in each case, replacing the powers of
local government in order to carry out a market-led regeneration of each inner city'.
Harvey (1989a) recognised that
the new entrepreneurialism of the smaller state has, as its centrepiece, the
notion of a 'public-private partnership' in which a traditional local
boosterism is integrated with the use of local government powers to try
[to] attract external sources of funding, new direct investments, or new
employment sources.
(Harvey 1989a:7)
In this case, partnership does not include all members of a community: those who do not
have enough money, are not from the right lifestyle, or simply do not have sufficient
