The role of the French state: Shifting from supporting large tourism projects like Disneyland Paris to a diffusely forceful presence

The French state, in its role as legislator, has sustained relations of production within the French economy because space can be selectively configured to promote economic, social, and environmental community goals. It tries to avoid that public value be held captive to private value or that developers bypass environmental legislation. In a country where the state is in the habit of regulating everything, it is not surprising that it should have taken charge of tourism projects. This paper will determine whether the relationship between public and private enterprise in tourism development in France, where the government has systematically encouraged such partnerships, has been successful. The paper will also show whether leadership provided by the public sector in areas not necessarily focused on tourism development is what helped push France among the most visited countries in the world. Decentralisation policy has driven the state to the backstage where it remains active to ensure the continued presence of France on the international scene. Although it is tempting to advocate a particular form of governance in supporting tourism development, most forms have evolved within specific contexts and would be resistant to radical transformations. A careful scrutiny of specific examples helps to illustrate possible effective changes

Planification economique et migration en Polynesie Francaise.

Economic Planning and Migration in French Polynesia. This article discusses possible ties between migratory patterns in French Polynesia and policies drafted by the French state and the local government concerning the territory’s economic development. The goals are to diversify the economic production of the outer archipelagos based on their natural resources and to encourage the return of out-migrants. The structures of production that the new cultural economy has systemically articulated at the global scale should also encourage the return migration that the economic policies seek to establish. Contemporary patterns of mobility differ little from those of times past. Polynesians have always moved and had thus established multiple support networks for migrants across the Pacific. The responses gathered during recent research trips to French Polynesia indicate that the large investments in infrastructure by the two governments in the outer archipelagos are not convincing most out-migrants to return. This infrastructure might, however, attract migrants from other parts of French Polynesia even if only temporarily, as is already the case for some foreigners

A Competitive Model of Lenggong Valley as a Rural Heritage Destination in Malaysia

Besides rural attraction, Lenggong Valley has been acknowledged as an important archeological attraction in the state of Perak. On 30th June 2012, Lenggong Valley has been declared as the world heritage site by UNESCO for its archaeological heritage which includes four excavation sites divided into two clusters. Cluster 1 consists of the Bukit Bunuh-Kota Tampan core zone and its own buffer zone, while Cluster 2 consists of three core zones, namely Bukit Kepala Gajah, Bukit Gua Harimau and Bukit Jawa, all enclosed within a single buffer zone. For Perak, this recognition is important to attract more visitors to Perak this year, in conjunction with the Visit Perak Year 2012. From a tourism perspective, a place competitiveness can be increased by utilizing the unique resources of a particular place. The aim of this paper is to propose the competitiveness model of the Lenggong Valley. Various models on destination competitiveness will be reviewed

What Makes Theatrical Performances Successful in China's Tourism Industry?

This study aims to explore the factors affecting the success of a popular tourist product, namely, theatrical performance, within the context of China's tourism industry and develop a model based on previously successful productions. Using qualitative software, 22 Chinese-language articles on theatrical performances are analyzed to generate a list of success factors, classified as internal and external. The internal factors are storyline and performing, market positioning and marketing strategy, investment and financial support, operation and management, performing team, outdoor venue, indoor/outdoor stage supporting facilities, continuous improvement, and production team. The external factors are collaboration between cultural industries and local tourism, government support, privatization, and social and cultural effect. This study also provides suggestions for the future development of theatrical performances in China

The eco-island trap: Climate change mitigation and conspicuous sustainability

Small islands worldwide are increasingly turning to conspicuous sustainability as a development strategy. Island spatiality encourages renewable energy and sustainability initiatives that emphasise iconicity and are undertaken in order to gain competitive advantage, strengthen sustainable tourism or ecotourism, claim undue credit, distract from failures of governance or obviate the need for more comprehensive policy action. Without necessarily contributing significantly to climate change mitigation, the pursuit of eco-island status can raise costs without raising income, distract from more pressing social and environmental problems, lead to competitive sustainability and provide green cover behind which communities can maintain unsustainable practices. We argue that eco-islands do not successfully encourage wider sustainable development and climate change mitigation. Instead, island communities may place themselves in eco-island traps. Islands may invest in inefficient or ineffective renewable energy and sustainability initiatives in order to maintain illusory eco-island status for the benefit of ecotourism, thereby becoming trapped by the eco-label. Islands may also chase the diminishing returns of ever-more comprehensive and difficult to achieve sustainability, becoming trapped into serving as eco-island exemplars. We conclude by arguing that island communities should pursue locally contextualised development, potentially focused on climate change adaptation, rather than focus on an eco-island status that is oriented toward place branding and ecotourism

Progress in Tourism Management: from the geography of tourism to geographies of tourism - A review

This Progress in Tourism Management paper seeks to review the development of geographical contributions to the study of tourism over the last decade. Given the limited number of surveys of geography published in academic journals since the 1970s, it is particularly timely to question and debate where the subject has evolved to, the current debates and issues facing those who work within the subject and where the subject will evolve in the next five years. The paper is structured around a number of distinct themes to emerge from the research activity of geographers, which is deliberately selective in its coverage due to the constraints of space, but focuses on: explaining spatialities; tourism planning and places; development and its discontents; tourism as an 'applied' area of research, and future prospects

A Review of “The Nomads of Mykonos”

This article reviews the book “The Nomads of Mykonos”, by Pola Bousiou

Government policies and Indigenous tourism in New Caledonia

Governments in New Caledonia are supporting ecotourism initiatives as the French state has mandated efforts to increase the income of Kanak people. As it is generally asserted that tourism development provides economic benefits, this article will examine whether tourism (both entrepreneurs and visitors) can treat indigenous cultures and their environment with dignity. It scrutinizes in particular the role of government policies in fostering such an outcome. Post-colonialism, as a theoretical framework, questions existing inequitable power relations and demands a rethinking of the construction of knowledge and accumulation of wealth. In New Caledonia, it took two major Accords for the Kanak to be able to participate in its economic development. Post-colonialism supports the indigenization of the production of destinations. The Kanak do not refute economic development; they want it within the Kanak concept of land use and on their customary lands. The article describes the various efforts of the Northern Province, within the policy framework of the territory of New Caledonia, to foster forms of tourism development that rely on the local market. The accent has been on supporting the development of potentialities before outside investors catch them and on empowering enterprising individuals. Unfortunately, at this stage tourism development in the Northern Province provides some income but has yet truly to elevate livelihoods

Haunting Tourism: Review of Haunted Heritage by Michele Hanks

Review of Haunted Heritage: The Cultural Politics of Ghost Tourism, Populism and the Past by Michele Hanks (Left Coast Press, 2015

Politics of imaging New Caledonia

Advertisements for the international tourism market are examined using postcolonial discourse analysis to determine how tourism promoters represent New Caledonia. This article illustrates how the images used to promote New Caledonia on international markets continue to be a political statement that constructs the territory as a French enclave in the Pacific not shared with Kanak people and several minorities. The article demonstrates that these representations continue to translate unequal power relations that most of the French in New Caledonia (supported by tourism and its operators) wish to maintain with the Indigenous people. These representations also run counter to government decisions to restore the identity of Kanak people and to improve their economic well-being on the basis of tourism development