Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
to seek wage labour in the larger, commercial resorts and tour companies or
else face unemployment.
As the second edition of this chapter goes to press, in the midst of the
worst global downturn for nearly a century, and crippling austerity measures
are leading to a jump in rates of unemployment across southern Europe in
particular, what scope remains, therefore, for strategic state intervention to
challenge the markets and create a business environment in which local tour-
ism enterprise can prosper alongside transnational capital, in accordance
with domestic/national social and economic priorities, and in which flexible
labour regimes are not merely used simply as a means of maintaining a lid
on wages in the tourism and hospitality industries
?
Tourism, capital and the state
In recent years much has been made of the impotence of governments
in the face of volatile financial markets and footloose investors, a perspec-
tive that is understandably reinforced by the crippling austerity currently
being imposed throughout advanced industrialised economies in response
to the 2008 financial crisis. The extension and consolidation of the power
of transnational capital and TTCs cannot however be explained simply as
the inevitable result of the forces of economic restructuring brought about
by post-Fordist capitalism and economic globalisation. The industrial organ-
isation of tourism is conditioned by the actions of governments and, in par-
ticular, dominant political classes within the state. However, while it is
often assumed that the primary role of the state in a deregulated capitalist
market is to ensure an appropriate investment climate for business (Pryce,
1998: 86), this confuses the fact that while states may legislate in the inter-
ests of capital, it does not necessarily follow that they are merely 'executive
agents' of TTCs (Sklair, 2001: 14-15).
State involvement in tourism varies considerably according to the domes-
tic political and ideological conditions which structure the institutional
organisation of state bureaucracies. Direct state intervention usually involves
the provision of large-scale infrastructure projects, such as airports and
transport networks, which precede and prepare the terrain for tourism
development, as well as the establishment of legal and regulatory frameworks
within which tourism can operate (see Chapter 5). Governments in develop-
ing states have traditionally deployed a range of investment incentives in order
to attract investment capital (see Jenkins, 1982a), as evidenced by The Gambia's
decision to reinstate all-inclusive resort holidays (Bird, 2000: 4). More often
than not, however, national governments may incur considerable financial
burdens where the state itself contributes a substantial proportion of invest-
ment capital. In Senegal, for example, the state contributed 90% of the capital
invested in tourism as part of its Fourth Tourism Plan, as well as 52% of capi-
tal to a hotel managed by the French transnational hotel chain, Meridien
Search WWH ::
Custom Search