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originating in a region or locality where the quality and reputation is linked
to the geographical origin (European Commission, 2013a). Examples include
Champagne, Parma ham and Scotch whisky, and these products bring tour-
ists to these regions. As noted by the European Commission (2013a) geo-
graphical indications can 'create values for local communities that are deeply
rooted in tradition, culture and geography'.
Government funding of regional tourism initiatives can be vital to estab-
lishing new projects and partnerships. In 2010, the provincial government in
Ontario, Canada, reorganised the province into 13 Regional Tourism Organi-
sations (RTOs) and three northern sub-regions with each RTO being led by
one organisation. The new RTOs are independent, industry-led, not-for-
profit organisations, which take a key role in providing regional leadership
and coordination. They work with industry to increase tourism through
strategic planning, research, product development, training, investment
attraction and marketing. The annual funding for the tourism regions is
CDN$40 million. The development of the RTOs came out of the recommen-
dations of a 2009 Tourism Competitiveness Study, which included the find-
ing that there were many different organisations involved in marketing at
the regional level and many direct marketing organisations were focused on
marketing and not the management and development of the regions as des-
tinations (Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, 2013). Partner-
ships are becoming more prominent in regional development. Canadian
Badlands Ltd, for example, is a not-for-profit Alberta Corporation based in
south-eastern Alberta and it includes 62 municipal governments cooperating
to develop a strategic regional tourism development plan (Canadian Badlands,
2013). In Australia, the national government has a Tourism Industry Regional
Development Fund, announced in June of 2012, with funding of $48.5 mil-
lion over four years (Australia Government, 2013). Tosun and Jenkins (1996)
note that in many developing countries, most of the tourism development is
a product of central planning. A shift to a regional planning approach would
require decentralisation of power. In the context of Turkey, the authors rec-
ommend that the country draw lessons from the United Kingdom where
tourism planning is sub-national. 'Unless there is a mechanism to manage
and control tourism development at a sub-national level, tourism growth
may not be sustainable and contribute to national development, although it
may continue to contribute to the balance of payments' (Tosun & Jenkins,
1996: 530).
International tourism development policy for regional development is
demonstrated through the EU (Kauppila
et al.
, 2009). The most significant
financial interventions for tourism development used by the EU are struc-
tural funds and cohesion funds (Davidson & Maitland, 1997). These finan-
cial instruments are used with the EU's Regional Development Policy to
strengthen economic and social cohesion within the EU and to reduce the
disparities between the regions of the EU. The main structural funds, which
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