If It’s Not Broken, Why Change Things?

But cautious policymakers, especially those vested in the current tourism policy approaches, may be concerned with the impact that support for social entrepreneurship might have on current policy approaches. “If the current system isn’t broken, then why fix it?” they might ask. To address this concern, it is first useful to briefly explain current approaches to tourism policy development that predominate among most western democratic capitalist societies where neoliberal economic management reigns to a greater or lesser extent. In most countries, the value of tourism as an export industry, as a regional development tool, and as a strategy for economic diversification and for employment generation, are among the main reasons why governments have historically become involved in tourism (Bramwell, 2011; Bramwell & Lane, 2010). In the last decades, neoliberal approaches adopted by many governments, have increasingly sought to embrace free market principles that entail policies that move away from direct intervention towards indirect policies that seek to secure conditions that favor destination competitiveness (Dredge & Jenkins, 2007). Based on interpretations of Adam Smith’s idea of the ‘invisible hand’ (1776), it is reasoned that a free market, unfettered by government intervention, will encourage people to work harder and be more competitive, and the improved competitiveness and profitability will in turn generate prosperity that trickles down to communities. Of course, this God’s eye view that free market economics will endow communities with benefits has been heavily criticized (Stiglitz, 1991), and it has become increasingly clear that such policies have done little to address economic and social marginalization, poverty, and other failures of traditional capitalism.

In most developed countries, tourism policies have tended to adopt an industry policy approach (Dredge, 2015). An industry policy approach entails articulating a vision and policy initiatives for the future derived from consultation with private sector interests. This visioning process facilitates flows of information between government and business; it produces a shared understanding between government and industry of the values to be pursued; and it enables the private sector to direct government resources towards assisting industry ends. However, in a highly fragmented industry like tourism, where there are significant differences between the capacity of global corporations and local operators, this approach produces big winners and losers. Usually large multinational corporations enjoy closer proximity to policy makers and are able to secure policy directions that support their for-profit business interests (Dredge & Jenkins, 2012). Small and medium sized enterprises, which make up the majority of the tourism industry, have less access to policymakers, and are less able for a variety of reasons to advocate their interests in policy making processes.

Not surprisingly, government policies have tended to fall into three broad categories designed to address the concerns of predominantly large tourism businesses. Policies address such things as initiatives to increase tourism demand (e.g. remove barriers to growth, open up idling assets such as waterfronts and national parks); initiatives to improve productivity (e.g. maintain minimum wages and labor protections); initiatives to attract investment (e.g. reduce environmental regulation and red tape); and policies to address market failures (e.g. to support governance arrangements to enhance industry co-ordination). In most countries, these policy initiatives have favored large corporate interests, and because these companies are answerable to their international shareholders and their corporate headquarters (and not to governments), the efficacy of these industrial tourism policy approaches with regard to protecting and enhancing community interests is often brought into question (Goodwin & Santilli, 2009; Scheyvens, 2007). Moreover, despite arguments that industry should be taking steps to protect the local assets and resources on which tourism is based (Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ argument suggests that market failures will be taken care of because entrepreneurial interests care about the long-term sustainability of their business), there is very patchy evidence that global tourism businesses are implementing responsible and sustainable practices in lasting ways.