The legislative aspects of tourism policy and planning: Stakeholder perspectives

Abstract

The tourism industries are complex; this is particularly evident at the destination level, be that national, state, regional or local, where tourism planning and policy making is usually a complicated process involving a myriad of stakeholders with differing interests and objectives. This complexity is compounded when the regulatory aspects of tourism planning and development are factored into the process. Although many authors have acknowledged the importance of the legislative aspects of tourism planning, empirical studies on this aspect are lacking in the tourism policy and planning literature. Given this gap an exploratory scoping study of the legislative basis of tourism planning was undertaken via in-depth interviews with 22 stakeholders in Australian tourism policy and planning.