Stakeholder Participation in Tourism Destination Planning Another Case of Missing the Point?

Abstract

A legacy of adverse impacts from tourism activity has led to widespread, and generally well accepted, calls for multiple stakeholder groups, in particular the resident community, to participate in the process of planning tourism activity within a destination. While this notion has infiltrated the rhetoric of governments' worldwide, authors have questioned the extent to which stakeholder participation actually occurs in tourism destination planning practice. Indeed, some authors have claimed that despite the abundance of policy statements and documents endorsing the approach, such examples are still the exception rather than the rule. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate whether multiple stakeholder groups do actually participate in the tourism destination planning processes and determine the underlying motives, benefits and challenges of stakeholder cooperation and collaboration in this context. Focusing on the planning practices of local tourism destinations in Queensland, Australia, it was found that the resident community are often excluded from the planning process and, where they are involved, it is because of planning mandates as opposed to genuine motivations to engage in cooperative and collaborative planning. Additionally, the study found that some stakeholder groups have considerably more power than others and use this influence to limit the involvement of the resident community to token engagement. The research highlights that destination planners and managers continue to 'miss the point' regarding the need for, and benefits of, engaging multiple stakeholder groups in the planning process.

Barriers to Stakeholder Involvement in Sustainable Rural Tourism Development—Experiences from Southeast Europe

“…Fraser et al [3] note that the benefits of participation are felt most strongly if stakeholders are truly incorporated into decision making and final results, and are made more relevant for policy makers. Opponents to this approach are sceptical as they find involvement to be tokenistic [4] or even a simplistic way of creating an illusion of responsibility [5]. Considering this variety in opinion, the perception may also be the result of the respective planning approach and significantly influenced by the circumstances, the timeframe and the provided framework.…”

Assumptions for a Successful Implementation of the Concept of Sustainable Tourism Development: Example of Urban Destinations of the Republic of Croatia

“…In a similar research, Ruhanen (2009) found that during the creation of city tourism developmental plans not all stakeholders of a certain destination participated, among which the local population was not significantly or not at all involved. Barrutia and Echebarria (2015) also point to insufficient local population involvement, which they support by the fact that the locals have too little power to achieve their goals due to institutional barriers and slow implementation, and therefore participate relatively indifferently in the pre-defined developmental plans.…”

“…The operationalization of the sustainable tourism development concept depends on a defined plan within which sustainable development goals should be set to define the administrative structure and partners, determine the ac-Neki gradovi su prepoznali važnost planiranja razvoja turizma, poput grada Barcelone (Španjolska) koji je od 1990. do 2003. godine izradio i proveo četiri strategije razvoja turizma (d 'Angella, 2007). Istovremeno, Ruhanen (2009) je u Australiji utvrdila postojanje razvojnih planova turizma samo kod 30 od 125 uprava gradova. Međutim, stvarna uspješnost strategija je upitna, jer proces izrade (formulacije) strategije nije zahtjevan naspram njene praktične primjene za koju nedostaju potrebna znanja (Ruhanen, 2008).…”

“…Some cities have recognized the importance of tourism development planning, such as the city of Barcelona (Spain) which developed and implemented four tourism development strategies in the period from 1990 to (d'Angella, 2007. Concurrently, Ruhanen (2009) found the tourism development plans only in 30 out of 125 Australian city councils. However, the actual success of the strategy is questionable, as the process of creating (definition) the strategy is not demanding compared to its practical application which lacks the necessary knowledge (Ruhanen, 2008).…”

Congresos - Seminario Destinos Turisticos Inteligentes 2017 - Libro de Actas

“…De forma geral, o debate em torno da governança nos destinos turísticos vem ganhando cada vez mais destaque (Laws et. al., 2011) considerando a importância dos processos de cooperação interorganizacional no planejamento do turismo (Jamal & Getz, 1995;Thimothy, 2010), como também a necessidade da efetiva participação dos stakeholders no processo (Ruhanen, 2009).…”