Tourism,Public Policy and Regional Development: A Turn from Neo-liberalism to the New Regionalism

Abstract

The use of tourism as a driver of economic development is widely acknowledged. In New Zealand and internationally, tourism is used overtly as a mechanism by which governments are able to address a variety of national, regional and local development objectives. In this paper, we present a critique of recent responses in New Zealand to the task of guiding tourism development from a strategic and collaborative sustainable development perspective. As argued in this paper, the roles and responsibilities of government in tourism were reinvented during the 1980s and 1990s. These changes, inspired by a neo-liberal political ideology to deregulate the New Zealand economy and to restructure the state sector and local government, ultimately included the tourism sector. More recently, however, public sector policy initiatives indicate a shift towards a more pro-active role for the local state (local and regional government) in managing tourism development. This shift, informed by a New Regionalism policy framework, anticipates a devolved tourism planning mandate that fosters longer-term strategic and collaborative planning of the sector in order to enhance the contribution of tourism to sustainable community wellbeing. We reflect on the likely effectiveness of a devolved tourism planning mandate and interrogate the role and potential of tourism to contribute to regional development, as framed by the political philosophies of the New Regionalism.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Amin

(1999) An institutional perspective on regional economic development, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 23(1), pp. 365–378

Anderton

(2000a) Regional Development Strategy. Paper prepared by the Office of the Ministry for Industry and Regional Development for the Cabinet Economic Development Committee, Wellington, New Zealand. 15 May, 2000.

Anderton

(2000b) Implementing the Regional Development Programme. Paper prepared by the Office of the Ministry for Industry and Regional Development for the Cabinet Economic Development Committee, Wellington, New Zealand. 26 June, 2000.

Baragwanath

B. L.

(2003) Fortress-dwellers to global players? Globalisation and New Zealand: description, discourse and action. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. Lincoln University, New Zealand.

Brohman

(1996). Popular Development: Rethinking the Theory and Practice of Development. (Oxford: Blackwell).

Burns

(2004). Tourism planning: a third way? Annals of Tourism Research, 31(1), pp. 24–43

Cooke

Morgan

(1993) The network paradigm: new departures in corporate and regional development. Environment and Planning D Society and Space, 11, pp. 543–564

Craig

(2001) Broadening social dialogue: the experience of the Flemish region of Belgium, OECD, Local Partnerships for Better Governance, pp. 309–339 (Paris: OECD).

Dalziel

(2002). New Zealand's economic reforms: an assessment, Review of Political Economy, 14(1), pp. 31–46

10.

Dalziel

Saunders

(2003) Regional economic development planning in New Zealand: who owns it? Australasian Journal of Regional Studies, 9(3), pp. 259–279

11.

Dalziel

Saunders

(2005) Regional partnership for economic development, in: Rowe

J. E.

(Ed) Economic Development in New Zealand. pp. 87–105. (Aldershot: Ashgate).

12.

Dalziel

Matunga

Saunders

(2006) Cultural well-being and local government: lessons from New Zealand, Australasian Journal of Regional Studies, 12(3), pp. 267–280

13.

Danson

M. W.

(2000a) Regional development and the ‘New Regionalism’ in England, Regional Studies, 34(9), pp. 857–873

14.

Danson

M. W.

(2000b) Debates and surveys, Regional Studies, 34(5), pp. 471–478

15.

Dredge

(2005) Local versus state-driven production of ‘the region’ regional tourism policy in the Hunter, New South Wales, Australia. In Rainnie

Grobbelaar

(Eds) New Regionalism in Australia. (pp. 299–319). Aldershot, UK and Burlington, USA: Ashgate.

16.

Eberts

R. W.

Erickeck

G. A.

(2001). The role of partnerships in economic development and labour markets in the United States. OECD Local Partnerships for Better Governance, pp. 251–279 (Paris: OECD)

17.

Elcock

(2003). Regionalism and regionalisation in Britain and North America. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 5(1), pp. 74–101

18.

Elliot

(1997) Tourism: Politics, and Public Sector Management London: Routledge.

19.

Gibbs

D. C.

Jonas

A. E. G.

Reimer

Spooner

D. J.

(2001) Governance, institutional capacity and partnerships in local economic development: theoretical issues and empirical evidence from the Humber sub-region. Transactions of the Institute of the British Geographers, 26, pp. 103–119

20.

Giddens

(1998) The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy. (Cambridge: Polity Press).

21.

Hall

C. M.

(2000) Tourism Planning. (Harlow: Prentice Hall).

22.

Hall

C. M.

(2007) North—south perspectives on tourism, regional development and peripheral areas, in: Muller

D. K.

Jansson

(Eds) Tourism in Peripheries: Perspectives from the Far North and South, (pp. 19–37). Wallingford: CABI International.

23.

Healey

(1999) Institutional analysis, communicative planning and shaping places, Journal of Planning Education and Research, 19(2), pp. 111–121

24.

Henderson

(1996) Economic Reforms: New Zealand in an International Perspective. (Wellington: New Zealand Business Roundtable).

25.

Jessop

(1998) The rise of governance and the risk of failure: the case of economic development, International Social Sciences Journal, 50(155), pp. 29–45

26.

Jones

Shone

M.C.

Memon

P. A.

(2003) Emerging Tourism Planning Processes and Practices in New Zealand: A Local and Regional Perspective. Report Number 52. Tourism, Recreation Research and Education Centre (TRREC). Lincoln University, New Zealand.

27.

Keating

(2002) Governing cities and regions: territorial restructuring in a global age, in: Scott

A. J.

(Ed.), Global City Regions Trends Theory Policy. (pp. 371–390). London: Oxford University Press.

28.

MacLeod

(1999) Entrepreneurial spaces, hegemony and state strategy: the political shaping of privatism in lowland Scotland, Environment and Planning A, 31, pp. 345–375

29.

MacLeod

(2000) The learning region in the age of Austerity: capitalizing on knowledge, entrepreneurialism and reflexive capitalism, Geoforum, 31(2), pp. 219–235

30.

MacLeod

(2001) New regionalism reconsidered: globalization and the remaking of political economic space, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 25(4), pp. 804–829

31.

Memon

P. A.

Shone

M. C.

Simmons

D. G.

(2005) Strategic planning for tourism development in New Zealand, in: Simmons

D. G.

Fairweather

J. R.

(Eds) Understanding the Tourism Host- Guest Encounter in New Zealand: Foundations for Adaptive Planning and Management. (pp. 217–244). Christchurch: EOS Ecology.

32.

Milne

Ateljevic

(2001) Tourism, economic development and the global-local nexus: theory embracing complexity. Tourism Geographies, 3(4), pp. 369–393

33.

Ministry of Economic Development (2006) Boosting the Impact of Regional Economic Development. Cabinet Paper (Wellington: Office of the Minister for Economic Development).

34.

Ministry of Tourism (2007) New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2015 (Wellington: Ministry of Tourism).

35.

Morgan

(1997). The learning region: institutions, innovation and regional renewal. Regional Studies,, 31(1) pp. 491–503.

36.

Müller

D. K.

Jansson

(2007) The difficult business of making pleasure peripheries prosperous: perspectives on space, place and environment, in: Muller

D. K.

Jansson

(Eds.), Tourism in Peripheries Perspectives from the Far North and South. (pp. 1–18). Wallingford: CABI International.

37.

Parks

Elcock

(2000) Why do regions demand autonomy? Regional and Federal Studies, 10(3), pp. 87–106

38.

Pearce

D. G.

(1992) Tourist Organizations. (Harlow: Longman Scientific and Technical).

39.

RTONZ (2003) Regional Tourism Organisation of New Zealand Strategic Plan 2003–2006. Prepared by Destination Planning Ltd (May 2003)

40.

Schöllmann

Dalziel

(2002) Rediscovering Regions: Regional Development from a Central Government Policy Perspective. Paper presented to the New Zealand Association of Economists Conference.

41.

Schöllmann

Nischalke

(2005) Central government and regional development policy: origins, lessons and future challenges, in: Rowe

J. E.

(Ed) Economic Development in New Zealand, pp. 47–68. (Aldershot, UK & Burlington USA: Ashgate.

42.

Shone

M. C.

Horn

C. M.

Simmons

D. G.

Moran

(2005). Adapting to tourism community responses to tourism in five New Zealand tourism destinations, In Simmons

D. G.

Fairweather

J. R.

(Eds) Understanding the Tourism Host-Guest Encounter in New Zealand: Foundations for Adaptive Planning and Management, (pp. 83–106) (Christchurch: EOS Ecology).

43.

Storper

(1995) The resurgence of regional economics ten years later European Urban and Regional Studies, 2(2), pp. 191–221

44.

Storper

(1997). The Regional World (New York: Guildford Press).

45.

Telfer

D. J.

(2002) The evolution of tourism and development theory, In Sharpley

Telfer

D. J.

(Eds) Tourism and Development Concepts and Issues, (pp. 35–78). (Clevedon: Channel View).

46.

Thomas

Memon

P. A.

(2007) New Zealand local government at the crossroads? Reflections on the recent local government reforms, Urban Policy and Research, 25(2), pp. 171–185

47.

Tourism Strategy Group (2001) New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2010 (Wellington, New Zealand: Tourism Strategy Group.