The Analysis of The UK Tourism Sector - Essay Example

?Analyse the roles and influences of the various actors and groups involved in policymaking for tourism Introduction The UK tourism sector, an underrated yet major revenue earner, occupies an important position within the country’s economy. It is one of the six largest industries in UK, while being third largest amongst the export-earning businesses (Department for Culture Media and Sport, Government Tourism Policy, 2011). The sector also shows almost annual ?90 billion direct spend, while including nearly 200,000 other industry forms 80% of which comprise of various SMEs (ibid). It generates almost “?114bn per annum and supporting 2.65m jobs” (Tourism-Alliance, Tourism: Britain’s best opportunity for sustainable economic growth and new employment, 2010, 1). Thus, tourism, for any State, creates job opportunities, bringing in money, while forming a cost-effective measure to revive ‘run-down communities’ (ibid). A sustainable and well-managed tourism sector is environmentally advantageous for the country, subsequently assisting in elevating the quality of lives for the local inhabitants. Thus it is imperative that public policies on an economic sector as important as tourism be carefully framed, keeping in mind various aspects like economic development of the chosen location, sustainability of the entire project, amongst many others. Policies, in both public and private sectors, provide a framework for making decisions, and help to connect the process of strategy planning with actual implementation (Wheelen and Hunger, 1990). Tourism policy is can be viewed as "a set of regulations, rules, guidelines, directives, and development objectives and strategies” (Goeldner, Ritchie & McIntosh 2000, 445). In tourism policymaking, the focus would involve around creating guidelines for the development of sustainable tourism along with a plan for future measures and developmental route (Jenkins 2000). The Tourism industry in any country includes other business sectors like hospitality services, museums, heritage sites, various events, and transportation, thus making it imperative that besides the governmental authorities, various actors and groups form other business sectors remain involved or taken under consideration while framing policies for tourism. This essay will examine the various actors and groups that remain involved in tourism policymaking, the levels of influence of the various groups involved in tourism policy-making and how this has changed over time, and evaluate the linkages and/or partnerships that exist between groups involved in tourism policy-making especially in the context of UK tourism policymaking. Discussion A brief analysis of tourism industry in UK: UK tourism primarily is domestic based, and figures (fig 1) show that UK residents make more than “1bn overnight trips and day visits” annually, which comes to a count of nearly of 17 trips per person residing in UK, subsequently leading to almost ?67bn being circulated within UK economy each year (Tourism-Alliance, Tourism: Britain’s best opportunity for sustainable economic growth and new employment, 2010, 1). Fig 1: Domestic Tourism Expenditure by Destination. Here we find that redistribution of expenditure within UK tourism occurs mainly from urban centres like large cities and towns, and moves towards small villages and communities that live near the sea. (Source: Tourism-Alliance, Tourism: Britain’s best opportunity for sustainable economic growth and new employment, 2010, 1). In the arena of international tourism, UK is a popular destination, with large number of foreign visitors coming in each year. These overseas tourists act as a booster for the UK economy (as shown in fig 2), as they bring in annual revenue worth almost ?19bn (which is worth more than the revenues earned from North Sea oil). Of the revenue generated the foreign tourists, nearly “?3.5bn goes straight to the Exchequer through Air Passenger Duty and VAT to help fund health, education and other public services” (ibid, 2). UK being a popular international destination, it is also the hub for three leading international airlines, three large tourism retailers. Along with this London also hosts the famous annual World Travel Market (a convention for global travellers). With tourism becoming an integral part of modern lifestyle, the financial gains from this market is huge, with a potential of further rise in the future in the revenue earnings generated from this sector. In 2010, it was seen that nearly all regions within UK earned around ?5bn as annual income from tourism expenditure, while providing job opportunities for more than 100,000 people within the industry and other related sectors (ibid). Fig 2: Revenue earned from Tourism that can be used in providing public services for UK residents, and the employment opportunities created by this sector makes Tourism an important part of UK economic system (Source: Tourism-Alliance, Tourism: Britain’s best opportunity for sustainable economic growth and new employment, 2010, 2). The above figures show the importance of tourism in terms of a revenue earner for the UK government, thus making it important that tourism policies framed promote sustainable tourism and remain ‘tourist’ oriented in their framework. However, in the recent context, it must be remembered that policymaking in tourism is not a static process. The government’s role in the framing of this public policy has presently undergone substantial changes. Besides taking into account economic benefits, the government now must work towards creating a large network of partnerships, synergetic relationships with various stakeholders, including the public and private actors and groups involved in policymaking (Rhodes, 1997, 43), while aiming at providing maximum development, in terms of economic, environment, and socio-cultural advancement, for the local residents (Hall, 2000). In this context, we will examine the various actors and groups involved in the process of policymaking (the stakeholders), their levels of influence and the links that exists between the groups. Tourism policymaking and various stakeholders (actors and groups) involved in it: Relationship between policymaking and actors/groups involved in the process: Sustainable tourism refers to a long-term tourism that is well co-ordinated, with engaging, economically, socially, and environmentally, viable for the local residents. Goeldner, Ritchie, and McIntosh (2000) in their papers distinguished the main objectives of any tourism policy as being able to provide high-quality tourist experiences, which would bring in optimum benefits to the local (‘destination’) stakeholders, without harming the socio—cultural and environmental environment of the destination location. A "[local destination] generally comprises different types of complementary and competing organizations, multiple sectors, infrastructure and an array of public/private linkages that create diverse and highly fragmented supply structure" (Pavlovich, 2003, 203). Thus, to work out effective tourism policies there must be an integration of the three main objectives with and the different actors and groups (stakeholders), holding varying levels of interest within tourism planning. The World Tourism Organization or WTO, delineates three stakeholder types that are seen within the tourism sector, which are the business or industry association groups (entire hospitality sector; transportation) environment or social protection groups, local communities (residents, local business associations) and local authorities (1993). In a policy network, any policy making (in this case tourism policymaking) is the outcome of the various interactive sessions between the actors and groups involved in policymaking, (Kenis & Schneider 1991). In the recent times the society can be described through ‘functional differentiation’, and the private sector now have greater roles in policymaking (Marsh 1998). The State authority does not play a superior role any more, and has become a mere actor with equal powers as the other involved actors and groups in any public policymaking process. In this context Marsh opines that "Public policy making in networks is about cooperation and consensus building ... policy failure may result from the absence of key actors, the lack of commitment to shared goals by one or more actors or insufficient information or attention" (1998, 9). Actors form to be one of the most important aspects within policy networks, and the type involved in policymaking, influences the nature of the created policy network. Another important aspect of policy networks is Structure, which denotes the relational nature between the various actors. The major variables within the structure of a policy network include: actor/group Numbers; the Nature of the Relation that exists between the actors of group involved; Strength of the relation that exists between the actors of group involved; Nature of Interactions between the actors/groups over a long time period; and Centrality which denotes the actor or groups having greater power, as outcome inducers, or even as initiators of the various policies (Scott 2000). Policy network models are of two kinds and in the first type, the relations between the actors/groups within the tourism sector are treated as one single unit; which the second type the relations are so treated that they revolve around one actor, which becomes the analytical unit (egocentric). Besides these two, there are various other network models, that tend to compile the actors/groups into different subgroups, and then the subgroups within the network systems form the analytical unit (Burt, 1980). All of the aforementioned models are applicable in tourism policymaking, as for example, if an egocentric model is applied, then there would be an analysis of a specific relationship in a destination location, or even the evaluation of an organization in the destination location. Governmental involvement (public sector actors and groups) in tourism policymaking: A look at the history of UK’s approaches to tourism policymaking at a national level (Tyler and Dinan, 2001) distinguishes certain basic characteristics. These are: greater stress put on financial returns from tourism, persistently less importance attached, to developing partnerships with private partners and bringing in new changes with the organization. UK, over the years has poor legislative guidelines for creating and enforcing different policies and associated services. Policymaking had always remained as “sub” departmental zone for many decades (Hope and Klemm, (2001). Stevenson and Lovatt (2001) in their papers also identified this problem, and stated that policymaking in UK tourism have always been relegated to local authorities (LAs), and to the community level interpretation of tourism. Without any form of a strong policy in place and a lack of guidance from the national government, LAs over the years acquired high levels of independence to formulate policies. Over the years, the UK LAs have adopted various kinds of approaches while making policies for tourism. Their objectives are reflected through a variety of strategic plans having varying focus points, and the general nature of these policies and their objectives reveal unawareness about effective policymaking and complex strategy formulation (Stevenson and Lovatt, 2001). In the host of policies adopted by the LAs in UK, some of the socio-cultural aspects have been covered; however, the main aim had always been to earn increased revenue. Policies created at level of the local authorities have generally included various kinds of promotion activities for the tourist, provision of information for the tourist, making policies to attract more visitors, development of the location and management of the visitors and in the recent times, there has been rising interest in building successful private/public working relationships. Indirect policymaking activities by the LAs to promote tourism included building better infrastructure and providing high quality service to the visitors to enhance their overall experience from that particular destination (Stevenson and Lovatt, 2001). Nevertheless, for quite some years now, there has been no “major direct impact on their engagement in tourism service provision which continues to be discretionary, minimally funded and delivered on the margins of larger service areas” even though modernisation has set within the tourism industry and the national government have started showing remarkable interest in this area. In the recent times as already mentioned there has been a change in the “political and economic climate and the role of government in tourism has undergone a dramatic shift from a traditional public administration model which sought to implement government policy for a perceived public good, to a corporatist model which emphasises efficiency, investment returns, the role of the market, and relations with stakeholders, usually defined as industry” (Hall, 1999, 274). The government, both at the national level and the LAs, are now focussing on creating partnerships with the private sector, in order to carry out various tourism related activities, which has led to “a huge range of non-predictable, evolving relationships” (Tyler and Dinan 2001, 211). It has led to an increase of negotiations between various people within the public and private sectors, and amongst the various actors/groups involved in tourism policymaking. Within the public administration of any state, the various actors involved in tourism policymaking (as indicated by Chaperon and Bramwell, 2011, 151-165) are as follows: The Ruling Assembly The Tourism Minister The National Tourist Office Regional Tourism LAs or Local authorities As we have already discussed, the tourism policymaking in UK, until recently, had been in the hands of the LAs, owing to a lack of interest at the national level. The political aspects of tourism work at various levels and they operate at the international levels (OECD, World Travel and Tourism Council, WWF, Greenpeace); supranational levels (like ASEAN or EU); national levels (British Sports and Allied Industries Federation, English Sport’s Council); regional levels (Scottish Tourist Board, Scottish Confederation of Tourism); local levels (Calgary Economic and Development Authority); and individual levels. The links that exist between the actors and groups functioning at the supranational, national and local level makes way for effective implementation of the tourism policies. The policies that are framed by the actors and groups at supra-national levels, decide on the amount of funds that are to be allocated to a country at national and regional levels for their economic, environmental and socio-economic development. There is a trickle-down effect of the allocated funds, where we find that funds from the supranational levels move to the national-regional levels that finally reach the local levels, thus making the ones at the lower rung (local or individual) dependant on those the actors or groups at higher levels for their monetary support. The governmental role in tourism involves: 1. Linking the varying levels within the private and governmental sectors, in order to avoid misuse and duplication of the available resources, while creating common objectives on policymaking (Chaperon and Bramwell, 2011, 151-165). 2. Here in the planning section the government must chalk out national level plans that would include figuring out the correct rate of growth for tourism, acquiring and allocating funds from public resources, while distinguishing the particular sectors to be developed with UK tourism (ibid). 3. Framing of appropriate laws and regulatory measures to prevent illegal immigration (ibid). 4. Create a basic framework for other non-governmental actors to function in the tourism sector (ibid). 5. To provide various kinds of financial incentives, like tax subsidies, loans at low interest rates, promote FDI, effective marketing to generating interests amongst the tourists (ibid). 6. According protection to the tourists is another area that the government must provide in order to attract more tourists (ibid). Private sector groups and actors in tourism: As per Chaperon and Bramwell, there are three main forms of interest groups under the private sector that are involved with the policymaking of tourism, at the global, national, and local levels (2011, 151-165). Here the authors have listed the different stakeholders with their varying interest levels: Non-producer actors and groups Producer actors and groups Actors and groups with single interest Global levels World Travel and Tourism Council Actors and groups having general environmental or social concerns like WWF, IUCN. Specific (often locality based) environmental or social issues, like ECPAT. National levels Various associations on tourism; trade and tourism unions Various organisations that accord consumer and environmental protection, like National Trust Specific issues, like protecting mangroves from being randomly destroyed, in an area with plans for an upcoming airport. Local levels Business associations that are regional/local based, local chambers of commerce Associations of the local residents. Actors or groups fighting against the development of tourism in a specific location From the above list, it is clear that there are various actors and groups involved in the process of policymaking, with which the governmental authorities must collaborate to successfully create and implement a tourism development programme within any country. Collaboration is necessary to create effective tourist policies as: Tourism tends to create a puzzle of various actors/groups where no one particular body or actor is in supreme control in total control. It leads to a power diffusion, which is more democratic in nature and hence more effective; Close links between the actors /groups are essential to develop effective policies and implement them. Many actors and groups acting in collaboration within a sector and well placed in it, help to bring in positive changes within that sector; Since collaboration brings about various actors and groups, there is a collaboration of various people with different levels of expertise and knowledge, which leads to ‘constructive attitudes’ and greater accumulation of knowledge wealth (Chaperon and Bramwell, 2011); This process disallows the decisions to left in the hands of a few political leaders, bureaucrats or powerful business groups operating in the tourism sector; This collaboration also reflects a change in the attitude of the government, showing its inclination to be modern in nature with the blurring of any existing distinction between private and public sectors in the tourism, leading to the creation of a positive image of the government in the eyes of the public. The policies in such cases, also become more socially accepted (ibid); In cases of an emergency or a financial problem, if a strong collaboration exists between the private and the public sector, instead of a complete bankruptcy, there can be resource sharing; Collaboration with the social and environmental actors/groups leads to greater focus on various issues other than economic ones, which affect the development of the destination source. It helps the actors to recognise the significance of issues like protecting the environment, and the socio-cultural traditions of the local inhabitants. Strong collaboration between the private/public actors in tourism policymaking also helps to bring a focus on various non-tourist activities, even in a popular tourist destination. Conclusion The tourism in UK is undoubtedly a large revenue earner (both in terms of domestic and foreign visitors) for its economic system, yet had been neglected at the national level for many years, with tourism policymaking left in the hands of the LAs. With LAs ruling supreme, the primary focus in the UK tourism policies were mainly on making economic gains. However, recently with a change in perspectives on policymaking and policy networking, there have been many transformations, where slowly various stakeholders, other than the LAs and a handful of politicians and powerful business houses, are coming into prominence. Under such circumstances, the UK government must work towards creating strong collaboration between the various actors and groups, functioning within the tourism sector to create effective policies and develop sustainable tourism that aims at protecting the environment and the sociocultural traditions of the local residents, yet brings in financial gains. 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