Travel & tourism industry policy and governance

Scroll down for posts that have been tagged with “policy and gov­ernance” as that relates to travel & tour­ism des­tin­a­tions and industry stakeholders.

Accord­ing to the Cam­bridge Dic­tion­ary, a policy is “a set of ideas or a plan of what to do in par­tic­u­lar situ­ations that has been agreed to offi­cially by a group of people, a busi­ness organ­iz­a­tion, a gov­ern­ment, or a polit­ic­al party”.

The same dic­tion­ary defines gov­ernance as “the way that organ­iz­a­tions or coun­tries are man­aged at the highest level, and the sys­tems for doing this”. Gov­ernance also per­tains to how indus­tries, such as travel & tour­ism, and des­tin­a­tions are reg­u­lated, dir­ec­ted, and man­aged from on high.

Tour­ism policy and tour­ism gov­ernance are cru­cial con­cepts for man­aging the travel & tour­ism industry. What does tour­ism policy and tour­ism gov­ernance mean? And how can they can be optim­ised for, say, sus­tain­able tourism?

Tour­ism policy, accord­ing to the United Nations World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion (UNWTO), is a “set of reg­u­la­tions, rules, guidelines, dir­ect­ives, and development/promotion object­ives and strategies that provide a frame­work with­in which the col­lect­ive and indi­vidu­al decisions of vari­ous pub­lic and private sec­tor act­ors may be made to achieve the desired out­comes of the tour­ism sec­tor”. Thus tour­ism policy can provide a frame­work for man­aging the travel & tour­ism industry to ensure that it oper­ates sustainably.

Tour­ism gov­ernance, on the oth­er hand, refers to the struc­tures and pro­cesses that are put in place to man­age the travel & tour­ism industry. These struc­tures and pro­cesses can include reg­u­lat­ory bod­ies, tour­ism boards, and pub­lic-private part­ner­ships. Effect­ive tour­ism gov­ernance is crit­ic­al for ensur­ing that tour­ism policies are enforced, and that the travel & tour­ism industry oper­ates in a way that is con­sist­ent with these policies. There­fore, gov­ernance helps to ensure that the interests of all stake­hold­ers in the travel & tour­ism industry strike an accept­able and sus­tain­able bal­ance that bene­fits the eco­nomy, the envir­on­ment, and loc­al communities.

Optim­ising tour­ism policy and tour­ism gov­ernance involves a num­ber of strategies, includ­ing stake­hold­er engage­ment, policy coher­ence, and effect­ive implementation.

Accord­ing to the UNWTO, stake­hold­er engage­ment involves “the involve­ment and par­ti­cip­a­tion of vari­ous act­ors in the decision-mak­ing pro­cesses related to tour­ism policy and plan­ning, such as gov­ern­ment author­it­ies, private sec­tor stake­hold­ers, and loc­al com­munit­ies”. This ensures that all stake­hold­ers have a say in the devel­op­ment of travel & tour­ism industry policy.

Policy coher­ence might involve align­ing tour­ism policies with oth­ers, such as for envir­on­ment and cul­ture, to ensure that tour­ism sup­ports the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals.

Effect­ive imple­ment­a­tion involves ensur­ing that tour­ism policies are enforced and that the travel & tour­ism industry oper­ates in a way that is con­sist­ent with these policies.

In con­clu­sion, tour­ism policy and tour­ism gov­ernance are import­ant for pro­mot­ing and/or man­dat­ing sus­tain­able tour­ism prac­tices, cre­at­ing eco­nom­ic bene­fits for loc­al com­munit­ies, and ensur­ing that tour­ism oper­ates in a way that is con­sist­ent with the broad­er sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals of people and the planet.

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