Local government: facilitator or inhibitor of sustainable tourism development?

Abstract

Governments at all levels have assumed greater responsibility for, and involvement in, tourism destination planning and development. In the post-Brundtland era local governments in particular have been under closer scrutiny for their role in driving the sustainable development agenda in tourism destination contexts. Yet, a notable research gap still exists despite the increased focus on local government, particularly in terms of empirical research investigating the roles and responsibilities of local government in addressing sustainable tourism development. Given this context, this paper explores the role of local government in facilitating, or indeed inhibiting, sustainable development objectives in a tourism destination context. To assess this issue, it uses in-depth interviews with local government representatives and key destination stakeholders from five local government areas in Queensland, Australia. It shows that local government had assumed responsibility for facilitating the sustainable tourism agenda, due to the absence of strong industry leadership and due to top-down directives from state and federal governments. However, power struggles, tokenistic public participation and the strong influence of the local government authority in local governance structures were found to be inhibitors to sustainable tourism development.

当地政府：可持续性旅游发展的促进者还是抑制者？

各层面的政府被认为对旅游目的地规划和发展是有很大的责任和参与性的。在布伦特兰后的时代，特别是当地政府，在旅游目的地中，对可持续性发展事务职责一直是特别受关注的。但是，尽管对当地政府有着上升的关注，一个重要的研究缺陷还是存在的，特别是关于可持续性旅游发展中当地政府的职责这方面的实际研究。在这领域，该文章探讨了当地政府在旅游目的地里针对可持续性发展目标起到的促进或事实上是抑制作用和职责。为了衡量该职责，文章在澳大利亚的昆士兰州对五个当地政府区域的政府代表和主要目的地利益相关者进行深度面访调查。文章指出由于缺少强烈的产业领导，和由于国家政府至上而下的方针，当地政府应该具有协助可持续性旅游目的的职责。但是，权利争夺，投票制的公众参与，和当地决策结构中的当地政府机构的强烈影响都被发现对可持续旅游发展起到抑制作用。

Keywords:

• sustainable development
• local government
• stakeholders
• planning
• tourism destination

关键词:

• 可持续性发展
• 当地政府
• 利益相关者
• 规划

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Dr Michelle Whitford, who provided comments on drafts of this paper.