Stakeholder management: different interests and different actions

Abstract

Who are key stakeholders in tourism and who among them are addressing issues of overtourism? The answers depend on the role of the state and the general approaches to governance in the particular destination. In the member countries of the Organisa­tion for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), for example, development builds on three dimensions, namely effective and accountable governance, growth and social cohesion (including well-being and equity). Other countries, such as China, are transforming from communist to market-oriented economies (albeit state­controlled), and this change is bringing with it key challenges such as economic inequality and environmental degradation. Such challenges have led to a call for new arrangements and the participation in decision making of all stakeholders, including local communities, to achieve positive outcomes from development, including from tourism development (Lin and Simmons, 2017; Su et al., 2014). Tourism is rife with market failures (Simmons, 2017) and, as such, has experienced boom and bust cycles commonly seen in other resource-based sectors, such as mining (for a comparison of mining and tourism see Moyle, Moyle and Becken, 2018; for exam­ples of booms and busts in the history of a tourism destination see McAloon et al., 1998). Put simply, market failure is when the outcome of market forces is unsatisfac­tory from the perspective of society. One type of market failure is when the market fails to price, or include all costs associated with production or consumption, resulting in "externalities" (e.g. pollution). Addressing such externalities requires suitable gover­nance arrangements, such as the intervention by the government in the form of legisla­tion or taxes (UNWTO and Griffith University, 2017)