The Private, Public & Plural Sectors – Place-Based Partnerships?

Mind Your Ps and Qs (16)

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I have often struggled with the notion of ‘tourism management’. While acknowledging it as a catchall concept, tourism cannot be managed independently of the places in which it takes place. Tourism as a public service that needs to be positioned, understood, and appropriately managed within the context of individual communities-as-destinations, destinations-as-communities.

Taking place within societal, economic and (fragile) nature-based settings, the prevalence and type of tourism that occurs should ultimately be determined by what people in the private, public and plural sectors seek and deem feasible, doable, viable and acceptable. But, to what extent is this happening?

In large part, most destination decisions are determined by private sector organizations, particularly by those businesses associated with accommodations, attractions, restaurants, inbound tour operators, and transportation, including various public sector enterprises involved with convention centers, culture, arts, sports, recreation, protection and infrastructure services.

As tourism`s destination management and marketing arm, DMOs represent the prime lead organization. They might appear to be part of the public sector, except for the fact that their boards are primarily composed of – and take their direction from – members from the private sector and their industry sector associations. Through many might operate as public/private partnerships, government oversight tends to be minimal and generally, but often unintentionally, excludes active participation from a community`s concerned citizens and relevant NGOs – the groups and individuals that comprise what could be called the plural sector.

With power in the hands of the private and public sector, emphasis is given to improving community and regional competitiveness through cluster strategies that prioritize growth in the volume and expenditures of visitors, especially important to the major corporate entities. But, in so doing, governments and DMOs may be neglecting the need to be engaging simultaneously in community building, and community development – using tourism as one way of meeting the basic needs of a community - as well as neglecting to address volatility due to technological advances, local, regional and geopolitical tensions. When attention, commitment, even funding, are in short supply, realization of a community`s socio-cultural and economic growth potential is bound to be compromised.

Similarly for a community`s entrepreneurs, SMAs, and employees. They struggle to receive the typical advantages expected from the public sector and tourism clusters that should represent their aspirations, the wishes and will of their communities. A problem that resides in how clusters are typically structured, how their social capital is acquired and manifest, and how growth is (should be) reflected through investments in people.

According to Michael Porter, clusters represent “… a geographically proximate group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities.” But is this an accurate description for tourism clusters in communities where virtually every local business and every household invites and serves the dominant regional and VFR markets? Shouldn`t they be recognized as the key actors and participants in the structure of their tourism clusters and in determination of their destination’s strategies? Sure, but it rarely happens, until citizens display their anger as in Barcelona.

Sad, because wherever tourism takes place, it is community-involving, community-interactive, community-engaging, and community-consumptive. One wonders, therefore, whether tourism clusters are effectively networked…whether the networks or partnerships build bridges and are adequately involved in civic engagement and relationship building.

Of course, degrees of cooperation exist. The larger organizations, DMOs, and economic planning departments are well taken care of, though often too preoccupied with their rivals and the competitive nature of tourism. Recognition of which does suggest that clusters cannot be understood independently of a broader theory of (inwardly or externally oriented) competitive pressures, including the influence of a community`s destination status and location within larger regional, national and global economies.

Given the complementarity of all the offerings within individual communities-as-destinations, however, one would think that the competitive spirit requires greater attentiveness to the grander whole – cooperation and collaboration being the norm – because the thrive-ability of tourism clusters depends on the joint need to share and have access to information, to gain access to specialized inputs, resources and technologies (e.g. Ireland – Collaborate Locally to Compete Globally)

Unfortunately, this too isn’t a given. The socio-economy of any economic cluster falters when the local educational, regulatory, and institutional bodies fail to respond to the needs of the tourism cluster…when there is rivalry or a lack of vibrancy between different but contiguous clusters…when internal rigidities diminish productivity and innovation…when there is a divergence between local community needs and the needs of the tourism cluster and the allure of consensus fails to work.

These are but a few reasons why communities-as-destinations slide into decline, though just as problematic is the waning of acceptance and support for tourism, especially if tourism clusters fail to curtail or mitigate any of its unsavory effects, when tourism dominates and obliterates the soul of a community causing the creation and capture value to shift, stall or sink.

No industry cluster thrives when the social glue (that holds and binds the cluster) fails. In the case of tourism clusters, however, what often happens is that the social glue that binds the cluster to their communities isn`t sufficiently sticky or strong enough to cement the relationships between destinations and the communities in which tourism takes place.

Viewed in more hopeful and progressive ways, it would be marvelous if we imagined tourism playing a more revisionist role. In many parts of the world, people are moaning about the loss of community, but tourism can reverse this notion if it’s perceived as contributing to, and generating, pride-of-place, improving people’s quality-of-life and the “wellth” that money can`t buy.

Tourism clusters can achieve such positive outcomes by working harder to improve personal relationships, face-to-face communication and the interaction among networks of individuals and institutions. To a large extent this is a reflection on the necessity to further and fulfill the call for community shared value from tourism. Furthered and made possible when attention is focused on creating well-designed, compelling communities (placemaking) and civic infrastructure, ensuring the provision of inspiring hospitality, and working diligently to create comprehensive sustainability and collaborative innovation.

In doing so, one only hopes that those involved in leading and managing tourism clusters can be systematic in the ways they frame life – socially, economically, politically – as each can reveal dramatically different understandings, values and meaning that can be used to further our ability to learn and gain appreciation for the way tourism can be managed, enhancing its positive contributions and impacts, while reigning in its adverse ones as experienced in popular destinations such as Oaxaca, Mexico.

Of course, the management of communities-as-destinations can be quite complex. To date, most of our community`s social and natural ecosystems have been `forced` to accommodate, adopt and adapt touristic facilities and activities thrown into them. Over the decades we have witnessed how the design and intent of tourism`s enterprises have become somewhat of a crapshoot: Good or bad it`s hard to say, particularly when adding to what already may be a concentrated or homogenous mass. That mustchange, can change.

How? It’s about managing communities-as-destinations in accordance with principled purpose, personal integrity and proficiency in mind. It`s also requires an approach to deal more effectively with uncertainties and the complexities of reality. In one sense it`s a matter of friction-fixing, problem-solving, and application of enterprise resource planning (ERP).

On the other hand, nothing changes unless deliberative democratic processes and place-based-partnerships become the norm for communities-as-destinations; partnerships bringing together, understanding and engaging communities (comprised of their, private, public and plural sectors) in order to:

· Facilitate regular civic, SMA and neighborhood forums for communication and mutual understanding.

· Determine and articulate the purpose of tourism, in order to develop and clarify its policies and protocols and guide tourism’s marketing and development activities.

· Identify and clarify the standards for determining `performance`, the creation of value and desired outcomes.

· Ascertain what constitutes excellence and celebrate its achievement.

· Promote a customer, community and citizen-centric focus.

· Establish mentoring programs for SMAs and students involved in tourism.

· Build ties with all tourism sector associations and economic development bodies.

· Work with the financial community (e.g. raising catalytic capital) to improve relations with the industry.

· Prioritize learning alliances, on-the-job training and development of employees.

· Develop apprenticeship programs and build entrepreneurship skills.

· Foster closer relationships with local colleges and universities.

· Bring ideas to and from the workplace.

· Make sure everyone involved in tourism knows about the purpose of communities-as-destinations…mount tours of communities-as-destinations.

· Create community-as-destination leadership programs.

· Improve relationships between the tourism cluster and other local industry clusters.

· Foster the development of more equitable communities-as-destinations.

· Link ‘smart cities’ with tourism and adopt new technologies e.g. artificial intelligence.

· Build partnerships with and involve NGOs and the plural sector in the management of communities-as-destinations.

· Expand networking efforts outward to other communities and regions by extending the meaning of community, including the agenda for regional tourism and cooperation.

Communities-as-destinations excel by creating super tourism clusters. They champion the building of bridges to create the infrastructure for collaboration, fashion a guiding vision that helps unite everyone`s efforts and enlighten entire communities about tourism and the possibilities of what the future holds.

From unity comes the capacity for affective action.