The document discusses changes to tourism governance and policy in the UK following the 2010 election and economic crisis. Key points include:
1) Regional Development Agencies were abolished and Local Enterprise Partnerships were created, with tourism becoming an early priority.
2) Funding was cut for regional and national Destination Management Organizations, and the private sector's role in destination development and management increased.
3) While the center-right government pursued neoliberal policies like reducing public funding for tourism, the economic crisis opened opportunities for more progressive approaches focused on local leadership, the third sector, and linking tourism to neighborhood regeneration.
Regression analysis: Simple Linear Regression Multiple Linear Regression
Tourism and local economic development in england
1. James Kennell
Director, Economic Development Resource Centre
Senior Lecturer in Tourism and Regeneration
University of Greenwich Business School
2. • Created in 2010 after
an electoral crisis
• Centre-right coalition
• Economic crisis driving
policy
3. • Broad changes
– Regional Development Agencies abolished
– Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) created
• Tourism an early priority (Kennell & Chaperon 2010)
• Tourism governance changes
– Regional DMO funding cut
– Restructure and cuts for national DMOs
– Increased role for private sector in destination
development and management
5. • Post 1997
– Boosterism / Trickle-down economics
– Community-level work as sustainable
development
– State-driven
6. “reduce the sector’s
dependence on taxpayer
funding”
(DCMS 2011:8)
Generally constrained by
older models of
economic development
(orthodox, community)
Governance restructure
creates opportunities for
progressive LED
• Role for third sector
• Local leadership
7. • “a particularly effective vehicle for
regenerating run-down neighbourhoods, using
relatively small amounts of new
investment…festivals and cultural connections
can be equally powerful…which then acts as a
catalyst” (DCMS 2011: 12).
• Sustainable development replaced with
‘economic sustainability’
8. New Glocalisation Events
economic - -
models
Local The end of
- distinctiveness blockbuster
Dashboards for global attractions?
markets
9. • Centre right / neoliberal government
• Tourism policy reflects that….
• BUT – because of the economic crisis
– Localism
– Role for third-sector
– Private sector engagement
• There are possibilities for tourism being
linked to progressive LED
Editor's Notes
In the United Kingdom, a coalition government was formed in the wake of the financial crisis, who began to implement not only an austerity programme that aims to remove £81bn from annual government spending (approximately 7% of the total), but also a programme of structural reforms of the public sector. Currently, the UK economy is growing at around 0.1-0.5%pa, reflecting not only the impacts of government spending cuts, but a depressed private sector.
Visit Britain, the national tourism body, is to be restructured as an industry-led organisation, with its (reduced) public funding matched by industry contributions and with two core responsibilities: marketing Britain overseas through a new £100 million per year industry-funded campaign and also encouraging and supporting the tourism industry to improve its productivity to make the UK more competitive as a destination. At the local level, local public sector tourism boards are being reconfigured as Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) that are industry-led and independent of the state, with variability in terms of structure and goals depending on local circumstances and business needs.