Tourism, Regional Development and Public Policy: Introduction to the Special Issue

The demand for tourism has become more globalized in the last few decades due to the improved technologies of information and communications, better transportation facilities and liberalization of international borders. The traditional tourism destinations now face a more competitive environment, for an increased number of possible destinations have emerged. This environment is further deepened by an increase in the number of products and services available to the preferences of visitors.

The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) expects a 4% annual increase in international arrivals for the next 20 years. UNWTO's Tourism 2020 Vision forecasts that the top receiving regions in 2020 will be Europe, East Asia and Pacific and the Americas. This may be taken to imply a not-so-bright future for Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. However, the market shares of the latter group of regions are expected to increase within the same Vision, for these regions are expected to display a tourist arrival growth of 5% annually, which is higher than the expected world average growth rate of 4.1% per year (UNWTO, 2008).

Local suppliers will be able to benefit from this increased mobility as long as they remain competitive vis-à-vis other regions through product differentiation and productivity enhancements. Even though the demand for tourism is becoming global, the supply is inevitably local, since the consumption of goods and services takes place through the interaction of consumers and producers (OECD, 2006, 2008).

What is presented by suppliers is a basket of goods and services that constitute an experience for the visitor. Obviously, the more unique an experience is, the more demanded it will be and the more productive the local supplier will become. Therefore, in order to increase productivity, the suppliers have to innovate by creating new goods and services or coming up with methods to combine traditional goods and services into unique experiences. Such innovative process is highly localized to the geography of the supplier and requires considerable creativity. Hence, local creativity is identified as a major source of productivity and is, therefore, of substantial importance in a locality's global competitiveness (OECD, 2008).

Creative act is a social process and may include tourists as active contributors. Tourism takes on a more creative face as the consumption of creative activities gains a higher portion in the experience presented to the consumer by the local supplier. Such social dimension emphasizes the role of interaction with other people, institutions and other various social structures which may have a previously accumulated stock of knowledge and resources that are usable in the creative process. Then, the quality of experience is a function of creativity and interactivity of the local actors, among which the local suppliers are prominent (Pine and Gilmore, 1999; Richard and Wilson, 2006).

In this context, creativity may contribute to the development of entrepreneurship, enhance an innovative environment and lead to a higher productivity. Therefore, tourism has a unique and little-explored position as one of the main drivers of creativity in the economy, and it has a well-deserved place right next to technology and demand (UNCTAD, 2008).

The tourism industry, as one of the main drivers of creative economy, gains more importance in growth policies both at the national and regional levels. New tourism policies, unlike traditional strategies, should aim to increase the competitiveness of the local through supporting increased quality of experience and promoting innovation in tourism services. However, there exists a limited discussion on this issue in the literature. Therefore, Regional Studies Association Research Network on “Tourism, Regional Development and Public Policy” has planned to organize a series of workshops that aim to examine the diversity of tourism in Europe, and its implication for the socio-economic development and public policy. This issue of “European Planning Studies” contains a selection of five papers from the first workshop of the series. The workshop was hosted by the Ege University in İzmir, Turkey, which was held from 2nd to 4th April 2008. The meeting attracted an audience of around 80 people from different backgrounds including academics, policymakers and regional administrators as well as students. The programme featured 26 papers. All the papers in this issue were refereed. We thank all the referees for their prompt responses, and we are honoured to be the guest editors for this special issue.

The primary objective of this special issue is to introduce, motivate and examine the diversities in the tourism industry from a regional development perspective. The papers in this issue cover various case study experiences from different countries. The views expressed in these articles promise to improve our understanding of tourism in a new aspect that goes beyond the mass tourism mentality.

In the first paper, Pennie F. Henriksen and Henrik Halkier conducted a case study of a destination management organization, Top of Denmark, in order to determine the factors that drive or hamper the changes in tourism policy from localized marketing towards regional innovation strategies. In their paper, they focus especially on the role of stakeholder networks and knowledge processes in overcoming the spatial fragmentation and product conservatism. They find that the issue of localism has been overcome by establishing and operating Top of Denmark as a network-based body.

The second paper, by Armando Montanari and Barbara Staniscia, deals with the relationship between quality agriculture and wine-and-food tourism on the Apennines of central and southern Italy. They argue that depending on the production methods, food can also become a cultural point of reference, an element of regional development and a touristic resource. Their results suggest that tourism linked to quality agriculture is not only an economic lever, but also a type of contemporary sustainable development. The authors view the process to be at its initial phases and suggest from bottom-up approach that it needs further public support.

The third paper by Craig Webster, Bernard Musyck, Stelios Orphanides and David Jacobson examines the willingness of the professionals in Greek Cypriot tourism to cooperate with their Turkish Cypriot counterparts in the industry. They argue that there is clear evidence that the Greek Cypriot hotel managers are unlikely at present to cooperate with the Turkish Cypriot counterparts. On the other hand, the Greek Cypriot tour operators and tourist agencies are willing to collaborate with the other side. They conclude that the tourism agencies and tour operators are the most important actors in terms of fostering cooperation between tourism professionals in the two entities in Cyprus.

The last two contributions come form Turkey and are related to the tourism industry in the Aegean Region and Izmir, respectively. Firstly, Yaprak Gülcan, Yeşim Kuştepeli, Sedef Akgüngör's paper focuses on the significance of the tourism sector in the Aegean Region in comparison with the rest of the nation. The results of their location-quotient estimations suggest that the Aegean Region is highly specialized in the tourism industry. The findings verify that the value added created by the hotels of the Aegean region is higher than the country average. By using an econometric model, the study illustrates that the public investments in tourism have been the significant tools to create higher value added in the region between 1995 and 2001. Finally, Özlem Önder, Aykan Candemir, Neşe Kumral examine the determinants of the demand for international tourism in Izmir, using time-series data. The findings suggest that the prices and income of the tourist generating countries are the main determinants of the demand for tourism. The local factors related to Izmir's level of development and the transportation of the public capital stock have no significant effect. The authors argue that the government should encourage alternative forms of tourism development besides mass tourism.