Protected area policies and sustainable tourism: influences, relationships and co-evolution

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the adoption of sustainable tourism ideas in a Park Authority's policies over a period of two decades in a developed world, category V protected area. There is only limited research on influences encouraging the inclusion of sustainable tourism ideas in protected area policies, or on relationships between sustainable tourism policies and other policy priorities. The paper departs from an approach which considers sustainable tourism policies in isolation, because potentially they are reformulations or extensions of other previous policies, or else indirect outcomes of other policies. There is assessment of influences on the Park Authority's sustainable tourism policies, and of the co-evolution between sustainable tourism policies and other policies. Such influences as government funding reductions and rising concern for community well-being affected the Authority's adoption of sustainable tourism ideas. Incorporation of sustainable tourism ideas in policies occurred gradually. It involved re-labelling established policies as well as reframing and extending those policies. It was often an indirect outcome of policy developments not focused specifically on sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism-related policies co-evolved with, and through, policies for community well-being, actor participation, and sustainable development. The approach used here is relevant for research on policy co-evolution in other policy fields.

保护地区政策和可持续性旅游：影响，关系和共同演化

本文探索了一个发达国家的保护区20年来用公园管理政策来发展可持续旅游的事例。之前鲜有文献针对如何把可持续发展思想纳入自然保护区政策，或如何平衡可持续政策和其他政策。 本文改变了旅游研究把可持续旅游政策看作一个独立部分的现状， 来探究可持续政策对于其他政策的重塑和延伸等间接作用。本文评估了公园管理旅游可持续发展政策，以及这些政策对于其他政策的影响，例如可能导致政府投资的减少以及影响社区福利。可持续发展思想和现有政策的结合是一个循序渐进的过程，包含对现有政策的审视，改革以及延伸。 这通常是政策体系发展的间接结果，并不是发展可持旅游政策的必然结果。可持续旅游政策和社区福利，公民参及社区可持续发展息息相关。因此，本文中提到的方法也可以应用到其他的政策领域。

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable tourism
• protected areas
• socio-economic well-being
• tourism policy
• co-evolution

关键词:

• 可持续旅游
• 保护区
• 社会经济福利
• 旅游政策
• 共同演化

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vicky Mellon

Vicky Mellon is a senior lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. Her research interests include sustainable tourism, rural tourism, tourism and protected areas, partnership working in protected areas, and tourism policy and planning.

Bill Bramwell

Bill Bramwell is Emeritus Professor of tourism at Sheffield Hallam University, UK and Co-Editor of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism. He has edited numerous books on tourism development and tourism governance. His research interests include tourism policy and planning, tourism and environmental politics, governance in tourism, tourism development and society in China, and political economy and tourism development.