Planning for urban tourism: a critique of borough development plans and tourism policy in London

The paper presents a critique of tourism policy in London in the context of local environmental plans and central government policy for tourism and hotel development. Rationales for local authority tourism policies are assessed in relation to city‐level planning imperatives and local land‐use plan formulation. A comparative analysis of borough development plans and the treatment of tourism is based on a survey of London's 33 unitary authorities. The paper presents a World City case study of urban tourism from the position of the environmental planning process and in the light of the highly concentrated distribution of hotel provision and tourist activity in London. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The activation of local service suppliers by incoming tour operators in a “developing” destination – the case of Madagascar

This article elucidates how organised tourism initiated by the international tour operator system can involve local actors in a developing country with a young tourism industry. The empirical basis is incoming tour operators in Madagascar with the focus on their policies and practices in getting involved with local tour operators and individual providers of service by the realisation of their programs for international markets. The study adopts a qualitative approach based on personal interviews with incoming tour operators located in the capital city of Madagascar. The central theoretical frameworks applied are primarily from the research literature on partner selection and cooperation in exchange relationships (channels of distribution) and contract theory and the results are discussed within in the wider perspective of local competence development and sustainable tourism. The findings demonstrate that incoming tour operators have a quite limited involvement in the cooperation with local actors and uncover the problems linked to partner-specific, local attraction-specific and context-specific factors. The study offers an insight into a field that has been scarcely illuminated empirically by research and it is believed that the results have relevance beyond the geographical context of the research.     

Local community perspectives towards dark tourism development: The case of Snowtown,South Australia

This paper critically examines the perspectives of a local community towards dark tourism development. Based on the infamous case of the Snowtown murders in South Australia, this preliminary study observes the local community's perception towards dark tourism development and adopted a qualitative methodology using observation and interview. The findings revealed that attitudes towards the development of dark tourism varied considerably depending on residents' length of immersion in the area. Whilst long-term residents were predominantly against the development of tourism involving Snowtown's recent dark past, others, particularly those that had moved to the area after the perpetrators of the Snowtown murders were caught (post-1999), were welcoming of the idea. The study posits that official tourism bodies in South Australia need to respond to the demand for dark tourism in Snowtown and provide the area with appropriate tourism infrastructure. However, due to the highly contrasting resident opinions towards dark tourism, it is also imperative that they consult the local community in future decision-making processes.     

Tourism mobilities from emerging world regions: a response to commentaries

This paper examines the operation and function of resort enclaves in the context of Third World tourism. The emergent linkages and inevitable tensions which develop between external capital and local entrepreneurship are examined through case studies of Indonesian resort enclaves on the islands of Bali, Lombok and Pulau Bintan in the Riau archipelago. The authors argue that the whole notion of enclavity is inherently unsustainable, marginalising local entrepreneurs and widening the economic, cultural and social gaps which already exist between hosts and guests.     

Local Implications of Tourism: A Case Study from Western Norway

This article traces different types of tourism that developed in a municipality on the west coast of Norway and how these types of tourism interact with the local community. For the local community tourism represents both an opportunity, and a source of conflict. The paper shows how structures in the tourist sector changed over time and how two kinds of tourism developed - round-trip, coach based tourism in the main village, wintersports and biking in the mountains. While coach tourists hardly cause a problem for the local population, their short stay in the village at the same time makes it difficult for the local farmers to exploit the historical and cultural resources they possess.While the mountain area used to have mostly Norwegian winter tourists, over the last decade the cultural history of the railway has been used effectively to attract tourists also in summer. This traffic is the source of conflict between actors in the mountain area and the municipality in the main village, a conflict about reindeer hunting and, at the same time, a conflict about diverging identities and control over the area.     

Community Participation in Tourism Planning and Development in the Historic City of York,England

This paper examines two potentially contradictory trends in tourism planning in cities; the emphasis on partnership and public participation. Public–private sector partnerships are part of the post-Fordist planning orthodoxy in the UK and involve a coalition of local and non-local agents and particularly elite groups. These partnerships are often one step removed from urban government and raise issues about accountability and local democracy. The tourism literature on community tourism development and community involvement is underdeveloped in the context of urban tourism. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that local urban social movements can be influential in the development process and that planners and developers need to embrace these interests if sustainable tourism products are to be developed. The considerable growth in cultural and heritage tourism and recreational shopping has created tensions within tourist historic cities, which may be amenable to resolution through public participation. In York, heightened civic awareness of the role of tourism in the local economy and the intensification of competition for investment/consumption, demands a re-evaluation of its tourism strategy. These participatory policies are far removed from the more radical models of public participation but may be all that is achievable in a competitive climate dominated by entrepreneurial city management.     

Applying relative deprivation theory to study the attitudes of host community residents towards tourism: the case study of the Zhangjiang National Park,China

Host community is one of the most important stakeholders involved in tourism development. Their attitudes and supports for tourism are highly significant to underpin the sustainable development of the industry. However, host community has not been attached adequate importance, and is usually marginalised to be a salient disadvantaged group in the process of tourism development. Although relative deprivation theory (RDT) provides a powerful theoretical tool to analyse the attitudes of disadvantaged social groups, the theory has rarely been documented in tourism literature. This paper takes the case of tourism development in the Zhangjiang National Park, China, and applies RDT to empirically examine how and why host residents suffer from the relative deprivation problem resulting from tourism development and attempts to unveil its influence on their attitudes towards tourism development. The study indicates that there exists a close and negative correlation between the locals' relative deprivation and their attitudes towards tourism development. The more host residents suffer from relative deprivation, the more negative their attitudes towards tourism are, and vice versa. Furthermore, the Relative Deprivation Index proposed in this study proves to be simple and effective in quantitatively depicting the spatial differences/heterogeneity of relative deprivation issues in the case study area.     

Confrontations and concessions: an everyday politics of tourism in three ethnic minority villages,Guizhou Province,China

As a state-promoted livelihood diversification approach for ethnic minority communities in rural China, tourism development influences household and community assets in diverse ways. Focusing on three case study villages in Qiandongnan Hmong and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province, we compare the livelihoods of one village without tourism to date (but slated for tourism development in the near future), one with a ‘medium’ level of tourism, and another where tourism is in full force. Our analysis of the transitional characteristics of these communities focuses on agriculture, income-related activities, cultural norms, and social relationships to shed light on the everyday politics of ethnic minority households under different stresses and demands from local government and state-controlled tourism businesses. We find that confrontations have arisen due to tourism expansion and state tourism planning directives among a wide range of stakeholders: Zhailao elites, core and peripheral tourism communities, country-level governments, local residents, and tourists. In turn, local residents have made broad concessions ranging from resignation to unwelcome changes in their livelihoods and new income inequalities, to acceptance of certain tourism-based changes and reallocation of resources. In sum, we find that villagers’ everyday politics involves coping with or challenging new tensions in diverse ways, yet at times marginalisation remains.     

Understanding tourists' itineraries in emerging rural tourism regions: the application of paper-based itinerary mapping methodology to a wine tourism region in Michigan

In recent years, many rural areas have turned to tourism as a way of reviving their communities. One challenge to such efforts is that community leaders in these areas often have limited experience with tourism and consequently lack the knowledge and resources to best facilitate sustainable tourism initiatives. Moreover, an influx of tourists to an area puts new demands on infrastructure. Information about tourists' itineraries can help communities to address new challenges that result from tourism, however using emerging technologies such as GPS and Internet-based map surveys can be expensive and require expertise many rural tourism planners do not have. Paper-based itinerary mapping methodology can be a cost effective way of providing local officials, tourism planners, and businesses with important information to inform decisions about how to invest limited resources. This study applies paper-based itinerary mapping to an emerging wine tourism area in a rural county in the US state of Michigan. Because it involves tourists travelling from place to place within a region, wine tourism is particularly well-suited for itinerary mapping. Results provide specific recommendations to local officials, tourism planners, and businesses. Moreover, the study offers an example to researchers interested in conducting studies that use paper-based itinerary mapping methodology.     

The role of the tour operator in South America: Argentina,Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay

The role of the tour operator in the supply chain has focused traditionally on the dominant position of companies situated in the generating countries of Europe and North America; despite recognition of the tour operator located in emergent receiving countries, the area has not been discussed extensively. This paper investigates the opinions of 37 tour operators in four emerging countries in South America, with a view to evaluating the nature and level of contact with foreign tour operators and suppliers. It assesses the degree of internationalisation that occurs, and the extent to which tour operators are involved in the process of tourism development. The paper confirms the role of the receiving tour operator within the distribution chain, but concludes that in terms of stimulating tourism development there is a need for more research into the relationships between government and the wide range of organisations involved in the process. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multinational hotel development in developing countries: an exploratory analysis of critical policy issues

Multinational hotel companies, often integrated with tour operators, travel agencies and other businesses in tourist‐generating or tourist‐receiving countries, play a key role in the development and continuity of an international tourism industry in developing countries. In order to take advantage of benefits and minimise the unwanted adverse effects from multinational hotel involvement, developing countries need the planning, implementation and evaluation of carefully designed policies linked to their particular objectives. This paper reviews the potential benefits and costs of multinational hotel companies and brings together previously scattered critical policy issues in relation to them, while suggesting possible options for developing countries to follow. Seven critical policy areas are identified: establishment of the need for foreign investment; deciding on forms of involvement; deciding on the scale of hotel development; supporting sectoral linkages; supporting indigenous employment/training; monitoring business practices; and determining foreign investment incentives and regulations. It is argued that policies should be worked out in these areas and co‐ordinated in order to achieve a balance between the benefits and costs of multinational hotel involvement in developing countries. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A system dynamics approach to explore sustainable policies for Xidi,the world heritage village

The relationships between heritage, tourism and community are complex and inter-related. Although the heritage system was initially proposed and set up for conservation, the enthusiasm for heritage conservation derives from its potential as a resource providing economic benefits, such as through the tourism industry. Although tourism development brings incentives to the heritage owners and other stakeholders to preserve the heritage, it also changes the nature and universal value of the heritage. In addition, neither the conservation of heritage nor heritage tourism necessarily brings benefits to the community. Yet, the policies are often formulated from one particular approach and lack a systematic and dynamic view and often lead to counter-intuitive results in the long run. This study attempts to develop a holistic system dynamics model of the Xidi world heritage village and analyse the interaction of the social, economic and heritage sectors to examine policies to achieve the goals of development and conservation. The study shows that conservation alone is not enough, policies which attempt to target the needs of the local community, including providing economic opportunities, can be a better choice if the development is carefully planned and effectively controlled to avoid the over-consumption of resources.     

Post-2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup: oversupply and location of luxury hotel rooms in Cape Town

An excess of hotel rooms in cities preparing to host a mega-event such as the FIFA Soccer World Cup is not a new occurrence. Between 2007 and 2010 the number of five-star hotel rooms in Cape Town increased by 50% and four-star hotel rooms by 20%. A spatial database of three-, four- and five-star hotels was compiled for the hotel sector of Cape Town. This paper reveals the global–local nexus of luxury hotel development in Cape Town (South Africa) and three different contexts in which the oversupply of hotel rooms must be understood. First is South Africa as a developing country engaged in hosting a hallmark event and engrossed in concomitant inflated tourism-related expectations. Second is the vulnerability of Cape Town's hotel sector with its overdependence on long-haul holiday tourists from a narrow northern-hemisphere market experiencing the worst economic recession since the 1930s. Third is the favourable economic trends in South Africa from 1999 to 2007 that have trapped hotel developers in a ‘fallacy of composition’.     

The Power of Tourism: A Metamorphosis of Community Culture

The commodification of culture for tourism can result in fundamentally changing a community's structure. Focusing on one rural Atlantic Canadian community, this article examines the transformation of longstanding stable forms of human and social capital that have bonded a local community over two centuries, and in so doing helped to ensure sustainability. Transformations induced by tourism development may dramatically transform such cultures. To avoid corrosive transformation of local culture, careful management plans that protect community values must become the focal point of the plan. This paper discusses the commodification of the culture process as it has unfolded and transformed local culture in a case study rural community. Results of the study show that while local culture may be a community's most valuable asset, the commodification of local culture for tourism may, in reality, impede a community's efforts to achieve sustainability. Cultural-based tourism development invokes transformation, whereas the traditional community culture dies away while attempting to simultaneously create a new culture based on the icons of the traditional one. This may be described, metaphorically, as a death–rebirth-like process. This research suggests that conventional notions of cultural tourism as a means of community sustainability without regard for traditional practices and values may not be appropriate.     

Not a ‘museum town’: discussions of authenticity in coastal Denmark

ABSTRACT

This article investigates community perceptions of authenticity in connection to the fishing and tourism sectors and the relationships therein. Inspired by fieldwork in three Danish coastal communities, the article attends to discussions on fishing, tourism, and change, in which residents referred to ‘museum’ or ‘museum town’ as shorthand for an undesirable transformation. The article answers: (1) what are the underlying concerns of becoming a ‘museum town?’ and (2) how is authenticity employed by community members in connection to desirable and undesirable outcomes of transition? The analysis probes the ‘museum town’ expression as a means to understand host communities’ relationship to the fishing and tourism sectors and their expressed interest toward authenticity. Empirical material from semistructured interviews and ethnographic field observations initiates the thematic analysis, which then continues with a theoretical reflection on authenticity. Coastal community members understood authenticity through demonstrations of realness, waterfront and community activity, and a desired independence for the fishing industry. Being authentic required a working fleet, which carried deeper implications for transformation and the complementarity of tourism, as opposed to its suitability as a substitute for the fishing industry. Calls for the fishing industry to remain independent highlight the importance for cross-sector dialogue for local development.     

Local Government Tourism Planning and Policy-making in New South Wales: Institutional Development and Historical Legacies

Local government has an important role in tourism planning and development but has been criticised for not being more proactive. Impediments to local government involvement in tourism planning and policy-making include lack of community interest; lack of resources; lack of appropriate research and information; lack of commitment to implementation; lack of co-ordination and communication; and lack of technical expertise. This paper argues that these impediments can be more accurately viewed as consequences of deeply embedded values, beliefs, ideas and perceptions about local government roles and responsibilities. The paper reviews the historical development of local government in New South Wales, Australia, with respect to tourism, and discusses the influence of institutional history on how tourism is dealt with in that state.     

‘Cittáslow’ eco-gastronomic heritage as a tool for destination development

Slow Food has gained considerable attention as a social movement trying to counteract increasing globalisation in eating habits and food production. Cittáslow, a network of towns, are working with qualitative local urban development, based on similar principles as Slow Food. The ‘slow’ movements could be expected to have influences on tourism development. This possible connection has been neglected in the scientific tourism literature. Based on a study in three Cittáslow towns in Northern Italy, this article concentrates on how destination development is conducted in a Cittáslow context, unveiling some contradictions between the commercial sides of tourism and the non-commercial ethos of the Cittáslow movement. The studied towns were involved in various efforts in the field of sustainable planning, thereby also improving destination specific resources and local identity. One example is their focus on ‘slow’ events, mainly based on local gastronomy. Tourism marketing was, however, only of secondary importance; which mirrors some scepticism towards mass tourism and commercialisation, and even against marketing as such. Despite this, the Cittáslow concept may have an indirect potential for tourism development by improving product development and increased visibility. The risks involved concern gentrification and overexploitation.     

Beyond sustainability: optimising island tourism development

This paper aims to identify the current challenges facing the sustainable development of island tourism and to develop a new conceptual approach to sustainable development based upon optimisation. The optimisation process for island tourism will be discussed through the development of a new life cycle model — the multifunctional interactive process cycle that is calibrated using a set of 15 island tourism status indicators. The paper also seeks to explain how a complex and dynamic tourism system can be developed that takes a destination towards an optimal sustainable state to satisfy both visitors and the local community. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Research Note: Addressing Tourism Public Policy Issues through Attitude Segmentation of Host Communities

Resident attitudes are important in identifying the impact of tourism within communities and in determining local policy, planning and management responses for the development of tourism. Additionally, tourism policies established are vital for the marketing of cities, regions and countries. This paper examines tourism public policy, with particular reference to the importance of addressing host community interests and involving host communities in public policy decision making. It outlines a segmentation study undertaken on New Zealand residents' views on tourism and how these segments can be applied to tourism policy making.     

Post-Conflict tourism development in Sri Lanka: implications for building resilience

The 30?year war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had a considerable impact on the country's tourism industry. Yet, despite the war, the industry continued to exhibit a high level of resilience and since the end of the war international visitation has increased rapidly. This study, using a comprehensive review of literature and a series of interviews, examines the impact of the war on the industry as well as the government's post-conflict responses. Despite the rapid increase in international tourism numbers various concerns have been raised that government policies are likely to advantage large tourism operators and developers at the expense of small businesses in the informal sector. The development of the industry may also be at the expense of livelihoods of poorer members of society in other industries. A concentration on large-scale developments may reduce the resilience and therefore sustainability of the industry.