Collaborative Tourism Planning in Ireland: Tokenistic Consultation and the Politics of Participation

Abstract

This article explores the political structures that shape Irish tourism development and decision-making. Drawing on two controversial cases of tourism development in the West of Ireland—Mullaghmore and the Cliffs of Moher—this article illustrates how a limited consultation approach dominated by short-termism and political expediency has hitherto resisted any intentions among local communities and sustainability advocates to increase public participation in tourism planning. A comparison of these two cases reveals how the particularities of the Irish political system and the prevalence of a producer-orientated development paradigm combined to reinforce an exclusionary approach to tourism planning. This was further compounded by the persistent marginalization of local knowledge as well as a systematic lack of research on hosts' and visitors' attitudes. Ultimately, the argument presented is for greater recognition and social scientific engagement with the issue of political power structures and cultural practices that underpin tourism governance and the development of tourism destinations in Ireland.

Keywords:

• Sustainable tourism
• politics
• power
• public participation
• tourism governance
• Mullaghmore
• Cliffs of Moher

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Environmental RTDI Programme 2000–2006, administered on behalf of the Department of the Environment and Local Government by the EPA.

Notes

Henceforth Ireland.

Controversial visitor centre developments include: Wicklow Mountains National Park (1990), Blasket Islands (1992), Aran Islands (1992), Boyne Valley (1997), Giant's Causeway (2009) and Doolin Cave (2010).

Ireland was the last European country to ratify the Aarhus Convention in June 2012. It promotes citizens' involvement in environmental matters to improve enforcement of environmental law. See http://www.environ.ie/en/Environment/News/MainBody,30480,en.htm (accessed 15 May 2012) for details of Ireland's ratification of the Aarhus convention.

In the mid-1990s, management responsibility for Ireland's National Parks went from the OPW to the NPWS.

Irish planning authority's final court of appeal.

The CoM attracted 940,455 visitors in 2007. This dropped by 20% to 720,000 in 2010 and rose to 809,474 in 2011.

Massive land redistributions, carried out from the 1870s onwards under the Land Acts, divided the nation's land more or less evenly amongst Ireland's farmers. As a result, 15% of Irish citizens now own farmland, a very high percentage compared to Britain (FEASTA, 2003).

Irish prime minister.

Contrary to predictions made by politicians such as Bertie Ahern, visitor surveys (n = 345) revealed that the ‘The Ledge’ (wow factor) was one of the least favourite displays in the interpretative area.

See Rau and Hennessy (2009) for a case study of a transport-related conflict in the West of Ireland, which shows some similarities to the cases discussed in this article.