54 POLICIES SHAPING TOURISM – Contributions by Marion Joppe
54 POLICIES SHAPING TOURISM – Contributions by Marion Joppe
…We cannot work, or eat, or drink; we cannot buy or sell or own anything; we cannot go to a ball game or watch TV without feeling the effects of government… Government gives us railways, roads, and airlines, sets the conditions that affect farms and industries, manages or mismanages the life and growth of cities…
This is how Forsey (1980) described the importance of understanding the role of government in our everyday lives, but “government” is not a monolithic entity. It is ruled by elected officials and civil servants who are pressured by outside interests. These actors each have their unique values and ideologies which they will try to advance in a struggle for power and resource allocation. This is what we usually understand as “politics”, the determination of who gets what, where, how and why. The party in power will make these value choices, whether implicitly or explicitly, and set policies that order the priorities and determine commitment of resources to ultimately influence the demand for and supply of tourism directly as well as indirectly.
The fascination with the decision-making process that can advance but also hinder the development of the tourism phenomenon started with my PhD and has driven my research directly and indirectly ever since. My thesis examined government intervention in tourism and studied a range of approaches from liberalism to interventionism to government control. I looked at how governments justify intervening in the economic, environmental and socio-cultural domains, the objectives that they pursue and the main regulatory and legislative actions taken (Joppe, 1983).
I was able to highlight these political processes by using France as the example. Not only is that country the world’s foremost tourism destination, it also has almost every conceivable type of tourism there is from beach to alpine, urban, rural, cultural, sport, theme park, eco/nature-based, thermal spas, and many other declinations of the phenomenon. Furthermore, it has had periods that focused specifically on each of the three domains that we associate with sustainability. Under these three sub-headings, I will spell out how politics played out in terms of tourism development in France and highlight some of my research in the areas as well.
Economic interventions and justifications
After World War II, the need to rebuild and attract foreign exchange dominated much of the activities over the next 25 years. To accelerate the reconstruction of the country, all forms of transportation – air, rail and sea – were nationalized and tourism was placed within the powerful Ministry of Public Works and Transportation. Significant financial aid was provided to restore, upgrade and build hotel rooms, especially in the upper star ratings, and to modernize resort towns to attract international visitors. By the early 1960s this was seen as insufficient and the era of major land use planning for tourism b