The relevance of collective action in tourism

• Author(s): Correia, Ricardo
• Date: 2006
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/5837
• Origin: Biblioteca Digital do IPB
• Subject(s): Collective Action; Tourism; Networks
• Document Type: Conference object
• Language: English
• Contributor(s): Biblioteca Digital do IPB

Description

Tourism normally develops in a confined territorial area where diverse organisations shall have to congregate efforts in order to enhance its potentiality. This industry tends to be described as encompassing a large number of small independent companies free from any conglomerate. Even those who do not consider being tourist-dependent shall act in a manner that will shape its development since they are part and parcel of the socioeconomic dimension of the tourism destination image.The various perceptions of social and economic benefits linked to tourism may be influenced by the degree of “the residents’ tourist education”. If one takes the tourism destination as a global product it finds lots of supplementary links, diverse sectors and multiple interlinks between public and private, which originate a multi-fragmented supply. Unless we establish common values and norms, we cannot find enough sustainability to become a desirable and visible destination, so there is a need to integrate all these structuring elements capable of generating interlinks in a harmonious and compatible manner. Therefore, we must have large numbers of intervening parties in a tourism network since it will hell reinforce the image. Many a study has proven that community’s involvement in planning and developing are critical factors for such tourism destination sustainability. Indeed, policies of “going alone” as in the past, which characterised many tourism sectors are being replaced by a strong cooperation and collaboration. However, the huge sectorial interdependence may not be enough in itself to motivate collective actions. Many organisations cannot identify with the tourism industry clouding the reasoning for such possible cooperation. The creation of partnerships in order to create tourism plans does not warrant its practical implementation. In this paper, through a methodological update of the major available theoretical views, we expound on the relevance of collective action movements applied to tourism, finding the motives behind such movements and obstacles to their implementation and suggesting recommendations to develop sustainable regional policies for tourism development. We conclude that the dynamics of a regional tourist destination results mainly from the collective thought and the need for cooperation to create a structure between multiple partners. This led to a coherent and integrated product that became attractive to the tourist and produced a value-added to the territory. As such, these movements must be also understood as sustained policies for territorial development.