3rd November 2020 By Contributor
In the third in a fortnightly series of thought pieces written by New Zealand’s academic community, University of Canterbury’s Professor Girish Prayag asks, is it time for a ‘whole-of-government’ approach to tourism?
Professor Girish Prayag
Is the current tourism governance structure adequate? What would it take to improve the situation? The Covid-19 pandemic continues to highlight some of the major stresses and strains in governing tourism in Aotearoa.
Arguably, key requirements of a functional tourism system are to facilitate the movement of people through various transport modes, provide accommodation and a quality experience, and manage economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts, among others. Yet important decisions relating to these, including infrastructure development, often occur outside of the immediate sphere of tourism decision-making.
Governmental decisions are usually made for reasons of which tourism is only a part. Government agencies that have “tourism” attached to them, including Tourism New Zealand, the Department of Conservation and MBIE, only have a limited – albeit significant mandate – usually marketing, and specialist areas such as events, access, statistics, and policy-making. The various climate change initiatives and (sustainable) tourism strategies do not talk to each other.
In an inter-dependent economy, it is actually hard to find a single government entity that does not interface with the tourism system. The challenge for effective and strategic decision-making that recognises the importance of tourism is to develop a whole-of-government approach to tourism.
This does not mean that decision-making is conducted just for tourism, but it does mean that all parts of government become tourism-aware with respect to the impact of their decisions. The existing structure to govern tourism has been mainly successful because the volume-driven approach was focused on getting as many international visitors as possible to visit. This approach gave insufficient consideration to repeat visitation and getting tourists to visit non-traditional tourism areas but more importantly, it ignored the domestic market. With Covid-19, the limitations of the current structure to understanding and capitalising on domestic tourism have come to the fore.
A whole-of-government approach forces decision-makers to think of tourism as a system and highlights inadequacies in governance. An effective governance structure must occur over different scales, so that it operates not just at the national level but also becomes a part of how regional and local government think about tourism.
At the regional level this becomes important with respect to planning and, arguably, the renewed emphasis on domestic tourism as a result of the pandemic only makes attention to good planning that encourages domestic visitation even more significant.
At the local level many of the services that are central to the domestic and international visitor experience, such as art galleries, museums, parks, public space, camping grounds, event centres and stadia have local and regional government as a major stakeholder and provider. Yet, are those stakeholders coordinated in an effective manner to sing the changing “tourism” song of a value-driven approach? Do they understand the song in the first instance? What does value mean at the local level?
Answers to these questions are probably not well articulated for both government and industry. While the “upper” tier of decision-making recognises the need for a “new” type of tourism in this country, how this vision will inform and be informed by regional and local governments, and what changes will be brought to existing mandates of agencies and structures to implement this new strategy remain unclear.
There is a need to develop a stronger win-win mentality in the implementation of this new strategy and the post-Covid decision-making environment – one that seeks to satisfy local and tourist aspirations. This means that there needs to be improved conduits for both top-down and bottom-up approaches for tourism development, implying a stronger connection between communities, local government and members of the tourist industry including the development of new relationships in areas such as public transport and mana whenua. If we are serious about sustainability and inclusiveness the current structure will need stronger anchors that facilitate and support grass root initiatives.
Improved communication between the tourism industry, government and communities is a significant challenge for the industry and peak bodies such as Tourism Industry Aotearoa. There are many businesses that benefit from tourism and, for all intents and purposes, are part of the industry but who are not members of TIA.
This is a major issue for effective tourism governance. How are these “other” voices brought into the picture? Does silence mean agreement? The answer is both yes and no. In some cases such businesses may be free-riding off the efforts of TIA as well as marketing and branding initiatives, but there is clearly a need to find out why businesses do not join TIA or other umbrella groups.
For tourism governance to be effective there must be improved inter-sectoral communication and understanding as well as encouragement for smaller businesses to become involved in industry policy-making and strategy. The greater the involvement, the stronger the industry voice will be, as will be the quality of policy-making in the long-term.
Tourism Futures aims to stimulate reflection and discussion on the future development of tourism. Drawing on extensive readings, research and fieldwork, the academics set out to offer timely and thought-provoking insights that will increase the public and sector debate at a time when international tourism is “on pause”, and new tourism foundations are being built.
Contributing writers include Professor (Emeritus) David Simmons (Lincoln), Professor James Higham (Otago), Professor Susanne Becken (Griffith Uni, Aus), Professor Girish Prayag (Canterbury), and Associate Professor Heike Schänzel (AUT).
