The concept of ‘stakeholders’ is becoming increas- ingly important in tourism planning. Stakeholders are the individuals, groups and organisations with an in- terest in a planning problem, issue or outcome that are directly influenced or affected by the actions or non-actions taken by others to resolve the problem or issue. Traditionally focused on the resource and on expert opinion with respect to determining definition and management of planning issues, tourism plan- ning is now far more externally oriented. Several rea- sons can be put forward for this significant shift:
• The claims of ‘expert’ perspectives, such as those held by planners, have come to be chal- lenged by other groups in society.
• There has been a recognition that some ‘voices’
have previously been ignored in the planning process because of lack of recognition by domi- nant elements of society, lack of resources to artic- ulate their concerns, different traditional consultation mechanisms to those adopted by planning authorities, or a combination of all three.
• Changes in government funding, philosophies and arrangements has meant that many tourism
planners have had to engage in developing part- nerships and collaborative relationships with ex- ternal groups.
• And, related to the above, some planners and agencies may now actively seek support from a range of interests in order to improve the likeli- hood that their policies and recommendations will be adopted.
Stakeholder audits are one mechanism which can assist planners in identifying the interests, groups and individuals that are stakeholders in the tourism planning process as well as help in understanding and confronting the complex web of relationships that surround tourism planning and management (Roberts and King 1989). Hall and McArthur (1996) identified seven steps in the undertaking of a stake- holder audit (Table 5.6). The audit is a useful tool for managers as it provides a framework for the identifi- cation of the various interests and values that impinge on the successful undertaking of organisational objec- tives. Managers and staff of tourism planning organi- sations often have a mental map of the individuals and groups that affect their work and act accordingly
Table 5.6 Steps in the stakeholder audit 1 Identification of stakeholders.
2 Determination of stakeholder interests, goals, priorities and values.
3 Review of past stakeholder behaviour in order to assess their strategies relating to issues and the likelihood of their forming coalitions with other stakeholders.
4 Estimation of the relative power (legal authority, political authority, financial, human and physical resources, access to media) of each stakeholder and stakeholder coalitions.
5 Assessment of how well your organisation is currently meeting the needs and interests of stakeholders.
6 Formulation of new strategies, if necessary, to manage relations with stakeholders and stakeholder coalitions.
7 Evaluation of effectiveness of stakeholder management strategies, with revisions and readjustment of priorities in order to meet stakeholder interests.
Sources: After Roberts and King (1989); Hall and McArthur (1996).
in relations with them. Stakeholder analysis is there- fore a systematic way of identifying the range of in- terests in a particular tourism planning issue and their ability to affect planning processes and actions.
Many stakeholders can be categorised as being
‘interest groups’. The term ‘interest group’ tends to be used interchangeably with the terms ‘pressure group’, ‘lobby group’, ‘special interest group’ or ‘or- ganised interests’. An interest group can best be de- fined as any association or organisation that makes a claim, either directly or indirectly, on government so as to influence policy without itself being willing to exercise the formal powers of government. Several features of interest groups can be observed:
• While attempting to influence governments, in- terest groups do not seek government. Even if an interest group runs a single issue candidate in an election this is usually an attempt to gain further publicity for the group’s cause.
• Not all activities of an interest group need be political.
• Interest groups will often seek to influence gov- ernment policy indirectly by attempting to shape the demands that other groups and the general public make on government, e.g. through the conduct of public relations campaigns.
Interest groups operate at multiple scales of gov- ernance, e.g. international, national, regional and local. However, interest groups can also be classified along a continuum, according to their degree of insti- tutionalisation, as producer groups, non-producer groups and single interest groups. Producer groups, such as business organisations (e.g. tourism industry associations, chambers of commerce), labour organi- sations (e.g. unions and employee associations) and professional associations (e.g. planning associa- tions), tend to have a high level of organisational re- sources, a stable membership maintained by the ability of the group to provide benefits to members, ability to gain access to government, and a high level of credibility in bargaining and negotiations with gov- ernment, tourism organisations and other interest groups. In non-producer groups, institutionalisation has occurred on the basis of a common interest of continuing relevance to members, such as heritage
and environmental conservation (e.g. the World Wildlife Fund, the National Trust in the United Kingdom, the Historic Places Trust in New Zealand, and the Sierra Club in North America) or social is- sues (Tourism Concern). Single interest groups are at the other end of the continuum from producer groups and are characterised by their limited degree of organisational permanence, as they will likely disap- pear altogether once their interests have been achieved or have been rendered unattainable. This typically refers to locally based organisations that were established specifically to conserve a particular environmental resource, for example local campaigns to stop motorway development in rural areas in the United Kingdom or logging of a forest.
The categorisation of interest groups can be extremely useful in understanding their resources, methods and effectiveness in the policy-making process. The continuing relevance of group objec- tives to their members and the corresponding degree of organisational permanence will clearly influence the resource base of groups and their continued visi- bility. For example, the Sierra Club in the United States grew from a small, local, hiking and nature ap- preciation society in the late nineteenth century and a regionally based nature preservation group in the early twentieth society to what is presently one of the most influential conservation organisations in the na- tion, with concerns covering the full range of environ- mental issues. Similarly, the Wilderness Society in Australia developed from the Tasmanian Wilderness Society that was originally formed to stop the con- struction of the Franklin Dam in the early 1980s.
In addition to identifying stakeholders it is also useful to note their positions on issues, their relation- ships with each other, and their relative strength in affecting the heritage management process. Such material can then serve as the basis for discussion among staff on how best to communicate with stake- holders and the ability to meet their interests. Another way of describing the relationship of various interests in tourism planning is with respect to their attitudes and behaviour or involvement in the planning process. Figure 5.5 illustrates such a classification method with respect to attitudes towards a tourism planning issue. A useful exercise is for readers to
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Collaboration therefore operates on a model of shared power that is in keeping with the idea of the existence of a shared or public interest (Wood and Gray 1991). Nevertheless, for the planner,
‘successfully advancing a shared vision, whether in the public or the private sector, requires identi- fication and coordination of a diverse set of stakeholders, each of whom holds some but not all of the necessary resources’ (Gray 1989: 9).
Collaboration is a highly dynamic process con- sisting of a number of elements:
• Stakeholders are interdependent.
• Solutions emerge by dealing constructively with differences.
• Joint ownership of decisions is involved.
• Stakeholders need to assume collective responsibility for the future direction of the domain.
• Collaboration is an emergent process.
Collaborative planning approaches have been extensively used with respect to multi-party envi- ronmental disputes, e.g. land and water use, nat- ural resource management and public land-use issues (Bingham 1986) and are becoming increas- ingly recognised as significant for tourism (Selin and Beason 1991; Selin 1993; Selin and Chavez 1994, 1995; Jamal and Getz 1995; Selin and Myers 1995, 1998; Bramwell and Sharman 1999; Bramwell and Lane 2000). Gray (1989) identified a number of benefits of collaboration:
• Broad comprehensive analysis of the domain improves the quality of solutions.
• Response capacity is more diversified.
• It is useful for reopening deadlocked negotiations.
• The risk of impasse is minimised.
• The process ensures that each stakeholder’s interests are considered in any agreement.
examine a particular planning issue and then slot or- ganisations and individuals into each category upon examination of the figure. However, it should be re- alised that much of tourism planners’ time is spent in dealing with those who are most for or against a par- ticular policy, outcome or decision. Yet, in the majority of cases, these stakeholders will only represent a rela- tively small number of people in comparison to the
wider pool of stakeholders. The challenge for the tourism planner is therefore to try and accommodate into the planning process not only the more extreme perspectives but also much of the middle range of in- terests and values. Therefore, stakeholder input into the planning process is an important aspect of con- necting aspirations analysis with the development of planning strategies over the short and long term.
PASSIVE ACTIVE
POSITIVE
NEGATIVE
Behaviour with respect to tourism Attitudes
towards tourism
SUPPORTIVE
Passive acceptance of and support for tourism
HIGHLY SUPPORTIVE Aggressive promotion of and support for tourism.
Extremely favourable attitudes
HIGHLY UNSUPPORTIVE Opposition to tourism that may be expressed in terms of aggressive postures or action
UNSUPPORTIVE Silent acceptance of tourism but holds defensive or unfavourable attitudes towards visitors
Figure 5.5 Categorisation of stakeholder attitudes towards tourism
• Parties retain ownership of the solution.
• Parties most familiar with the problem, not their agents, invent the solutions.
• Participation enhances acceptance of solution and willingness to implement it.
• The potential to discover novel, innovative solutions is enhanced.
• Relations between the stakeholders improve.
• Costs associated with other methods are avoided.
• Mechanisms for coordinating future actions among the stakeholders can be established.
The emphasis on sharing power and partici- pation means that collaborative approaches fulfil one of the social pillars of sustainability, namely the requirement for equity. As Blowers (1997:
42) noted, ‘Inequality is about power relation- ships.’ Collaboration therefore becomes a means of involving all affected parties to search for common interests and outcomes (see Table 5.5).
Instead of trying to restrict participation, a common tactic, the professional manager gains more control over the situation by ensuring that all the necessary parties are there at the table, recognizing that par- ties in a dispute often engage in adversarial behav- iour because no other approach is available to protect their interests. (Carpenter and Kennedy 1988: 26)
Furthermore, ‘joint ownership means that the participants in a collaboration are directly re- sponsible for reaching agreement on a solution’
(Gray 1989: 13). Waddock and Bannister (1991;
see also Selin and Myers 1998) found the follow- ing factors to be significant predictors of partner- ship effectiveness:
• Partners need to trust other partners.
• Partner representatives need to have adequate power to make decisions for their organisations.
• Appropriate partner organisations need to be identified and included in the partnership.
• Partners need to sense that there will be benefits to all members of the partnership from their efforts.
• Partners need to recognise that they are interdependent.
• Issues being dealt with need to be salient to partners.
• Partners need to feel that they add value to the partnership.
• Power needs to be balanced among partners.
• Objectives for the partnership should be clear and well defined.
• Competent staff are required for successful implementation of the partnership.
• Feedback to partners is important.
• A strong vision of the partnership must be articulated by leaders.
• Strong leadership is required to maintain the partnership.
Waddock and Bannister’s (1991) observations were borne out in further research by Selin and Beason (1991) and Selin and Chavez (1994) on tourism partnerships, with the latter study also noting the significance of several organisa- tional and operational characteristics for success- ful partnerships. Organisational characteristics included:
• administrative support
• flexible protocols
• staff continuity
• mediator roles
and operational characteristics such as
• a written plan
• meeting environment
• cooperative agreement
• the setting of new goals.
Selin and Chavez (1994: 59) observed that
‘partnerships form a complex system of interrela- tionships between agencies and interests that is constantly changing’. For example, in research on ecotourism policy in the United States Edwards et al. (1998) identified a wide variety of govern- ment tourism agencies that collaborated in respect of ecotourism policy, with one of the con- clusions being that even though some agencies may not have policies or activities that are eco- tourism related, such as commerce or labour, they may work closely with other government agencies which do. Nevertheless, significant barriers to collaborative planning also exist.
Selinet al. (1997) in a study of collaborative plan- ning in the US Forest Service noted that the four greatest perceived barriers to collaboration were 1. initiatives constrained by personal agenda;
2. the Federal Advisory Committee Act;
3. the lack of full support of line offices;
4. initiatives becoming too politicised.
In the case of the Forest Service
many managers were skeptical of collaborative forums characterized by shared decisionmaking, joint ownership, and collective responsibility; their concept of collaborative planning contradicts Gray’s (1989). Most preferred to see collaborative plan- ning as an advisory function, with the Forest Service retaining primary control over final decisions. (Selin et al. 1997: 27)
Furthermore, in a wider setting, protracted con- flict between stakeholders that has led to sub- stantial mistrust, the vesting of power in elite organisations and a lack of incentives to partici- pate may all constrain the effectiveness of collab- orative strategies (Selin 1998).
In a more positive vein we can also note that collaborative planning approaches also encour- age planners, and others, to reflect on the man- ner in which planning and implementation represent two sides of the same coin. As Fried- mann (1973: 359) observed,
the kind of implementing mechanism adopted will itself influence the character of the plan and the way it is formulated. The formulation and implementa- tion of plans are closely interdependent processes, so that the choice of one will in large measure also determine the second.
The inclusiveness of collaborative approaches may therefore help assist in dealing with some of the key problems of problems of implementation:
• Many policies represent compromises between conflicting values.
• Many policies involve compromises with key interests within the implementation
structure.
• Many policies involve compromises with key interests upon whom implementation will have an impact.
• Many policies are framed without attention being given to the way in which underlying forces (particularly economic ones) will undermine them (Barrett and Hill 1993 in Ham and Hill 1994).
The importance of having those stakeholders who will be responsible for implementing the so- lution that emerges from the planning process cannot be emphasised enough. Acceptance of and support for a solution is enhanced when those who must abide by it are included in designing the solution (Delbecq 1974); such a situation may be extremely important in such areas as codes of environmental practice by tour operators or de- velopers, for example. Furthermore, insufficient consideration of implementation of outputs with- in the planning process ‘may result in settlements that create devastating precedents that may result in reluctance to negotiate in the future; damage interpersonal relationships; and financial, time or resource loss’ (Moore 1986: 248).
How do we know we’ve got there? The role of evaluation and indicators
Through evaluation and performance monitor- ing governments and agencies seek to establish whether public sector activities are achieving their goals or objectives, or are achieving them to an increased extent over time, and to determine whether objectives are being pursued as efficiently as possible. Evaluation can also seek to establish why public planning activities do or do not achieve their objectives, allowing lessons from successes to be applied elsewhere and failures to be dealt with (O’Faircheallaigh and Ryan 1992).
Evaluation is increasingly becoming a signifi- cant component of tourism planning and policy as they are undertaken on a more strategic basis (Miller and Twining-Ward 2005). Nevertheless,
‘The word “evaluation” needs careful definition.
To most lay observers, it conveys a connotation of economic criteria . . . But essentially,evaluation consists of any process which seeks to order pref- erences’ (Hall 1982: 288). Peter Hall’s definition of evaluation is insightful for two principal rea- sons. First, many other definitions of evaluation
confine evaluation to the ‘what happened after the policy was implemented’ phase (e.g. Dye 1992). Although evaluation tends to be more focused on determining performance for out- comes such as impact assessment, justification, accountability, planning and resource allocation, improvement, and continued support (Cauley 1993), there is no reason why evaluation cannot be undertaken before a policy is put into effect.
Indeed it makes good sense to include an objec- tive whereby responses to policy proposals are evaluated, ‘Because errors are to be expected projects should be planned to facilitate early detection and correction’ (Hollick 1993: 125).
Similarly, Hall and Jenkins (1995) argued that constant monitoring of the tourism policy process can alert decision makers and policy makers to situations in which public officials carry out different activities from those envis- aged, or perhaps when policies fail to reach intended clients. In other words, to simply ‘eval- uate the programme in terms of its original ob- jectives might lead to a conclusion that the policy was a failure, yet this might be misleading since the policy as originally envisaged might not actu- ally have been put into effect’ (Hogwood and Gunn 1984: 220). Policy failure or success could be the result of various aspects of policy design (e.g. ambiguous statements of objectives and in- tent), policy implementation (e.g. bureaucratic discretion or uncontrollable global forces), or from unforeseen forces (e.g. economic, political and social) creating changes in public need (Hall and Jenkins 1995).
Second, Hall’s (1982) definition acknowledges that ‘evaluation is not simply concerned with car- rying out technically correct evaluations; it has to be concerned with how evaluation results are consumed and utilized’ (Hogwood and Gunn 1984: 220). Tourism planning and policy evalua- tion should therefore be concerned with who re- quested the evaluation, why the evaluation was requested, the estimation, assessment or appraisal of policy, including its development, content, im- plementation and effects, and the manner in which that evaluation will be consumed and utilised. Evaluations of policy must consider who got what, where, and why and the outcomes and
impacts of policy. That said, goals and objectives may be ambiguous or covert and therefore diffi- cult to detect. This in itself means policy evalua- tion must go beyond simply measuring outcomes and impacts with respect to goals and objectives (Hall and Jenkins 1995).
Evaluation involves making judgements about the results of some sort of measurement against specific objectives. This is typically done by collecting and analysing information, judging the worth of something and making informed decisions for the future. Table 5.7 outlines some of the reasons for which evaluation and monitor- ing is undertaken in tourism planning and policy.
However, evaluation rarely occurs for a single reason and the roles that evaluation undertakes are multiple and interrelated. According to Hall and McArthur (1998), some of the principles that should be kept in mind when undertaking evaluation are:
• What needs to be measured is determined before the measurement technique.
• The only aspects assessed are those that will provide the necessary critical information.
• Stakeholders clearly understand the rationale and nature of the evaluation programme.
• What is to be evaluated already has some form of measurable objectives or
performance criteria.
• Relevant information can be collected.
• Results are balanced and reliable, and recommendations are relevant, feasible and timely.
• Information is presented in a way that increases the possibility of acceptance.
• The right information reaches the right people.
• The programme is delivered to stakeholders in a way that reflects their interests and abilities (e.g. comprehension and cognitive).
Evaluation is both an ongoing task of strate- gic planning and a key element of strategic think- ing (Phillips and Moutinho 2000). If we accept Lindblom’s (1980: 64) notion that ‘Most, per- haps all, administrative acts make or change pol- icy in the process of trying to implement it’, then this observation in itself justifies the need for