*Fax: 00-90-312-266-4607.E-mail address: cevattosun@hotmail.com (C. Tosun).

Tourism Management 21 (2000) 613}633

Limits to community participation in the tourism developmentprocess in developing countries

Cevat Tosun*School of Tourism and Hotel Management, Bilkert University, 06533 Bilkert, Ankara, Turkey

Received 18 February 1999; accepted 20 August 1999

Abstract

This study deals with a normative concept of participatory development approach, which originates in the developed world. Inparticular, it analyses and explains the limitations to the participatory tourism development approach in the context of developingcountries. It was found that there are operational, structural and cultural limits to community participation in the TDP in manydeveloping countries although they do not equally exist in every tourist destination. Moreover, while these limits tend to exhibithigher intensity and greater persistence in the developing world than in the developed world, they appear to be a re#ection ofprevailing socio-political, economic and cultural structure in many developing countries. On the other hand, it was also found thatalthough these limitations may vary over time according to types, scale and levels of tourism development, the market served, andcultural attributes of local communities, forms and scale of tourism developed are beyond the control of local communities. Itconcludes that formulating and implementing the participatory tourism development approach requires a total change in socio-political, legal, administrative and economic structure of many developing countries, for which hard political choices and logicaldecisions based on cumbersome social, economic and environmental trade-o!s are sine qua non alongside deliberate help,collaboration and co-operation of major international donor agencies, NGOs, international tour operators and multinationalcompanies. ( 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Community participation; Tourism development; Limits; Developing countries

1. Introduction

Community participation in the tourism developmentprocess (TDP) has emerged and been re"ned in the con-text of developed countries. It has also been popularisedby advocates writing on developed countries. Thesescholars have made substantial contributions to studiesof the participatory tourism development approach byadvocating it under the prevailing conditions in the de-veloped world (Blank, 1989; Gunn, 1988; Haywood,1988; Keogh, 1990; Murphy, 1985; Reed, 1997; Simmons,1994). However, practicality of participatory tourism de-velopment approach in developing countries seems notto be considered in detail. On the other hand, it isclaimed that &[d]eveloping countries may avoid many ofthe problems that have plagued past tourism2 by in-volving diverse social groups from the popular sectors oflocal communities in decision making' (Brohman, 1996,

p. 568) without examining socio-cultural, economic andpolitical conditions of tourist destinations although it isthese conditions that determine whether the communityparticipation in the TDP will work or not. As Todaro(1994, pp. 36}37) asserts in the context of developingcountries:

2 it is often not the correctness of economic policiesalone that determines the outcome of national ap-proaches to critical development problems. The politi-cal structure and the vested interests and allegiances ofruling elites2 will typically determine what strategiesare possible and where the main roadblocks toe!ective economic and social change may lie.2

Moreover, he contends that the pattern of power andwealth distribution among various groups in most devel-oping countries is itself the re#ection of their economic,social and political histories and it is likely to vary fromone nation to the next. Nonetheless, developing nationsare ruled by a small group of well-organised powerfulelites to a larger extent than developed countries are.

0261-5177/00/$ - see front matter ( 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S 0 2 6 1 - 5 1 7 7 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 0 9 - 1

This study suggests that although community partici-pation in the TDP is highly desirable, there seems to beformidable operational, structural and cultural limita-tions to this tourism development approach in manydeveloping countries. As Din (1997, p. 78) has recognised,the notion of community participation in the TDP &maynot be readily applicable to Third World destinationswhere public scrutiny is lacking owing to a universalignorance of the planning procedure, especially with re-gards to the role of the review process'. It should be notedthat community involvement in the TDP can be &viewedfrom at least two perspectives: in the decision-makingprocess and in the bene"ts of tourism development' (Tim-othy, 1999, p. 372). It is the main aim of this article toexamine these limitations to public participation in thedecision-making process of tourism development in de-veloping countries though public participation in thebene"ts of tourism is not totally ignored. Moreover,although desirability and practicality of the participatorytourism development approach appear to be inter-related, this study will primarily focus on barriers topracticality of applying the community participation.Following a review of de"nitions of community partici-pation the article progresses to consider these limitationsto community participation in the decision-making pro-cess of tourism development.

It is argued that &Third World' tourism has been set upby agreements between foreign image-makers/investorsand local elites. There has been no participation by, andconsultation of, the people of the host country in shapingthe phenomenon' (Linton, 1987, p. 96). In this regard, thereader is reminded here that there is insu$cient writtenmaterial on particularly limitations to the participatorytourism development approach in developing nations.This is not surprising since &there are few examples fromthe Old South of where this (community participation inthe TDP) has successfully occurred2' (Harrison, 1994,p. 717). As Timothy (1999, p. 383) argues in the context ofIndonesia, &The education of local residents and the in-volvement of locals in the economic bene"ts of tourismare happening in theory2 and to a lesser extent inpractice. However, residents and other stakeholders par-ticipation in decision-making has not been recognised asimportant in planning documents, nor has it been ad-dressed in practice2, except in a few isolated cases'.Although McIntyre, Hetherington and Inskeep (1993)have given the cases of Zambia and Mexico as examplesof community involvement in tourism development,these cases also represent manipulative participation,passive participation or pseudo participation. That is tosay, there seems to be no evidence which shows thatparticipatory tourism development practices have gonebeyond community consultation or manipulative partici-pation in the developing world. After examining severalparticipatory tourism development practices in develop-ing nations, Mowforth and Munt (1998, p. 240) have

stated that &the push for local participation comes froma position of power, the "rst world: It is easier to promotethe principles of local participation on paper, from a dis-tance, than to practice them'. Several cases regardingparticipatory tourism development practices in develop-ing countries, which they have analysed are examples of,in their words, &manipulative participation or passiveparticipation according to Pretty's typology' (Mowforth& Munt, 1998, p. 242). The World Tourism Organisation(WTO) (1994) has given 25 case studies of tourism plann-ing in the developing world. Only one of them, the SriLanka tourism plan, considered community consultation(indirect participation or degree of tokenism) via tourismcommittees composed of local interest groups and localagents of central government. However, it has not beenoperationalised and remained as a proposal.

Nevertheless, it may be said that it is impossible todiscuss every relevant issue regarding participatorytourism development approach based upon merely theliterature on developing countries. Consequently, someof the perceived problems of the participatory tourismdevelopment approach in the developing world areexamined and argued based upon the related argumentsfor the developed world by carefully taking into accountsocio-political, economic and cultural structure of devel-oping countries. This should not be surprising since someof the limitations to the participatory development ap-proach do apply internationally (especially when oneconsiders peripheral regional development in developedcountries). However, e!ects of these problems on opera-tion of the participatory development approach varyfrom developed nations to developing nations. It islikely that these limitations make community participa-tion in the TDP less probable in developing countriesthat do not have the basis of the pre-industrial phaseexperienced last century in Western Europe and NorthAmerica, where now better economic, legislative andpolitical structure are in operation, than in developingcountries.

2. Community participation in the development process

It is argued that &the notion of community participa-tion is deeply ideological in that it re#ects beliefs derivedfrom social and political theories about how societiesshould be organised' (Midgley, 1986, p. 4) and how devel-opment should take place. However, to Sewell andCoppock (1977), its emergence as a new catchword isrooted in the failures of these theories. They have arguedthat involvement of the public in a development processhas two main considerations. The "rst is philosophicaland the second is pragmatic. The former is related topolitical theories of democracy that people have the rightto be informed and consulted and convey their views onmatters which a!ect them to decision-makers. In modern

614 C. Tosun / Tourism Management 21 (2000) 613}633

democratic government, elected representatives have,however, failed to represent grassroots and at least signif-icant segments of communities have feelings of alienationtowards governmental decision-making. Pragmatic con-siderations are chie#y related to the failure of plans andthe decision-making process which could not determinepublic preferences correctly. Therefore, planners and poli-ticians had subsequently di$culties in obtaining publicsupport; either at the ballot box or after implementation.

Moreover, proponents of community participationhave contended that community participation as an ele-ment of development has been considered, promoted andwoven into the development process in di!erent wayssince the 1950s and early 1960s under di!erent terms andnames (de Kadt, 1982; Gow & Vansant, 1983). That is tosay; the concept of community participation has beena component of the political dynamics of the post-indus-trial era, which mirrored in part a longer term movementtoward a new public administration. In other words, theinterest of the citizen in participating in governmentdecision-making and the demand for direct participationin the development process have emerged due to theneeds of government itself, as a response to communityaction (Smith, 1981), and as a result of the absence ofthe a%uence and security of the period following WorldWar II.

The overall result is that since the 1970s in many ways,community participation has become an umbrella termfor a supposedly new genre of development intervention.Not surprisingly, to propose a development strategy thatis not participatory is now almost reactionary. Moreimportantly, major aspects of development intervention,research, planning, implementation and control, havebeen reoriented so as to make them more participatory.&Where the targets of a plan are not fully realised, this isoften attributed as much to inadequate public involve-ment as to a lack of labour or capital' (Department ofEconomic and Social A!airs, 1970, p. 31).

In the course of researching community participationin the development process, it seems quite natural to askfor a de"nition of the concept of community participa-tion. As de Vaus (1996, p. 48) argues, &concepts do nothave real or set meanings can lead to conceptual anarchy,a problem with no entirely satisfactory solution. Themost practical action is to clarify how a concept has beende"ned and to keep this de"nition clearly in mind whendrawing conclusions and comparing the "ndings withthose of other researchers'. Following this recommenda-tion it seems to be useful to examine de"nitions ofcommunity participation.

2.1. Dexnitions of community participation in thedevelopment process

Community participation implies a desire to avoidusing traditional bureaucratic paternalism, according to

which agencies believe that they are close to the ideas ofmembers of the community, and they know best what isgood for people in the community (Skelcher, 1993). Byway of de"nition, community participation refers toa form of voluntary action in which individuals confrontopportunities and responsibilities of citizenship. The op-portunities for such participation include joining in theprocess of self-governance, responding to authorita-tive decisions that impact on one's life, and workingco-operatively with others on issues of mutual concern(Til, 1984). Hence, to some extent, it is an educational andempowering process in which people, in partnership withthose able to assist them, identify problems and needsand increasingly assume responsibility themselves toplan, manage, control and assess the collective actionsthat are proved necessary (Askew, 1989). &In this sensecommunity participation, as an ideal type, involvesa shift of power, from those who have had major deci-sion-making roles to those who traditionally have nothad such a role' (Willis, 1995, p. 212). That is to say,community participation is a tool to readjust the balanceof power and reassert local community views againstthose of the developers or the local authority, or torede"ne professionalism, which may determine the con-ditions of successful participation and prevent manipula-tion of a community in the participation process.

In other words, community participation is to design&development in such a way that intended bene"ciariesare encouraged to take matters into their own hands, toparticipate in their own development through mobilisingtheir own resources, de"ning their own needs, and mak-ing their own decisions about how to meet them' (Stone,1989, p. 207). This may imply that community participa-tion as a development strategy is based on communityresources, needs and decisions. Hence, community is themain actor in the development process. On the otherhand, the concept of community participation is seen asa powerful tool to educate the community in rights, lawsand political good sense (Low, 1991 quoting Tocqueville,n.d.). Moreover, it is stated that &since the leadership ofsociety would inevitably be in the hands of an elite, it wasnecessary to ensure that its members were educated inthe broadest sense and deeply valued individual libertyand democracy. The individual would, therefore, learnthe politics of democracy by participating in local institu-tions and associations' (Low, 1991, p. 86, quoting Mill,1973). &We do not learn to read or write, to ride or swim,by merely being told how to do it but by doing it, so it isonly by practicing popular government on a limitedscale, that people will ever learn how to exercise it ona large scale' (Low, 1991, p. 86, quoting Mill, 1973, p.186). On the basis of Low's argument, it may be proposedthat active and direct participation of local people inlocal a!airs is an indispensable tool for public education.Without using this instrument, democracy and indi-vidual liberty may not be sustainable.

C. Tosun / Tourism Management 21 (2000) 613}633 615

The conceptual argument regarding community par-ticipation seems to have focused on political dimensionand ignored the economic and "nancial considerationswhich are often the primary drivers at the local level. Thismay be owing to the fact that it is the political structureor system that determines pre-conditions for participa-tion in the development process. For example, &2highlevels of literacy and mass communications have notproduced democracy in Singapore, Malaysia, or themany oil-rich states of the Gulf' (Diamond, Linz &Lipzet, 1995, p. 23). However, the role of an advancedlevel of economic development, which produced greatereconomic security and more wide-spread education, isimportant to reduce socioeconomic inequality and miti-gate feelings of relative deprivation and injustice in thelower class. Thus, it facilitates and encourages participa-tion of local community in their a!airs. &Economic devel-opment also tends to alter the relationship between stateand society, to increase the number and variety of inde-pendent organisations that check the state and broadenpolitical participation, and to reduce corruption, nepot-ism, and state control over jobs and opportunities toaccumulate wealth' (Lipset, 1981, p. 51). Therefore, thisstudy will also examine economic factors such as lack of"nancial and human resources that discourage commun-ity participation in the TDP.

As the above de"nitional arguments suggest that theconcept of community participation in the developmentprocess is multi-dimensional and includes representationfrom many disciplines. Hence, it may not be possible toencapsulate the concept within one single and de"niteterm. It has been implied that it may take very di!erentforms, ranging between citizen power to manipulation orit can vary from minimal forms involving informationexchange (surveys, handouts, questionnaires, and thelike) to full forms of community control (Arnstein, 1971;Willis, 1995). Indeed, it is a tricky concept, not easyeither to de"ne or to accomplish and, like democracy,it creates socially desirable expectations which cannotbe met easily in the real world. It may be easy forpolicy makers to see it as an evolving concept andpopular to accept in theory, but troublesome to executein practice and putting the idea into operation is notprecisely comprehended, particularly in developingcountries.

2.2. Community participation in the tourism developmentprocess

The infrastructures of community participation are thelegacies of western ideology; the in#uence of communitydevelopment programs in developing countries; westernsocial work and community radicalism; and the UnitedNations' (UN) participatory development programs,which, indeed, provided a source of inclination for com-munity participation as a modern concept in housing,

transportation, education, health, etc. Naturally, accu-mulation of participatory experiences in social, politicaland economic life have become the modern sources ofinclination for community participation in the tourismdevelopment process. However, students of tourism seemnot to have bene"ted from these participatory experien-ces in those sectors of economy as there are very fewreferences in the tourism literature to these sectoralstudies. They have not yet explained what communityparticipation in the TDP or community-based tourismdevelopment approach means.

It has been stated that the people who enjoy or su!er,the main impacts of tourism are those who live in thecommunities in tourist destination areas; thus communi-ties at the tourist destination must participate in plann-ing decisions regarding tourism development (Lea, 1988;Murphy, 1985). It is also argued that &communities arethe destination of most travelers2it is in communitiesthat tourism happens. Because of this, tourism industrydevelopment and management must be brought e!ec-tively to bear in communities' (Blank, 1989, p. 4). It isnoted that the outcome of numerous tourism impact andresident attitude studies in host communities &has beena call for increased public participation and, in particu-lar, a more community-oriented approach to tourismplanning' (Keogh, 1990, p. 450). In this context, it isdebated that a destination community is an importantcomponent of the tourism product and &the industry usesthe community as a resource, sell it as a product, and inthe process a!ects the lives of everyone' (Murphy, 1985,p. 165). Hence, community participation in the TDP isneeded for &a reasonable degree of consensus' that isessential for long-term success of the tourist destination(Ritchie, 1988, p. 199); &strong community support'that is important for successful tourism develop-ment (Getz, 1983, p. 87); &desired guest}host relation-ships' (Haywood, 1988, p. 117); and for increasing thequality of tourism's bene"ts to national development(Lea, 1988).

In parallel to these statements, Inskeep (1991) pointedout that host communities must have a voice in shapingtheir future community as their right and has called forthe maximum involvement of the local community tomaximise socio-economic bene"ts of tourism for thecommunity. George Washington University Interna-tional Institute of Tourism Studies (1991, p. 9) has statedthat, as its assembly report of &Policy Issues for the 1990s,&[r]esident responsive tourism is the watchword fortomorrow: community demands for active participationin the setting of the tourism agenda and its priorities fortourism development and management cannot be ignor-ed'. Murphy (1985) has argued that community-orientedtourism development requires to "nd a way of creatingmore workable partnerships between the tourism indus-try and local communities and develop facilities both forhost and guest. Mathieson and Wall (1982, p. 181) have

616 C. Tosun / Tourism Management 21 (2000) 613}633

noted that &the public now demand that their concerns beincorporated into the decisions-making process 2 therehas been little public involvement in tourism planning.This explains the neglect of this topic in the literature ontourism'.

Prentice (1993, p. 218) has stated that &communityinvolvement in tourism development have become anideology of tourism planning'. It is argued that &acommunity-based approach to tourism development isa prerequisite to sustainability' (Woodley, 1993, p. 137).Willams and Gill (1994, p. 184) have claimed that &com-munity involvement in establishing desirable conditionsis perhaps the single most important element of growthmanagement' in tourist destinations. Ryan and Mon-tgomery (1994, p. 369) have noted that &2 communitiesneed only to be educated about the bene"ts of tourism,and that their involvement in good visitor managementtechniques will actually solve problems'.

Simmons (1994, p. 99) has argued that involvement ofa community in the tourism development process is vital&if any region wishes to deliver tourism experiences whichensure both visitor satisfaction and ongoing bene"ts forthe residents of destination areas'. Hall (1994) has claim-ed that &2satisfying local needs it may also be possibleto satisfy the needs of the tourist', which is one of the keycomponents of the notion of community participation.Brohman (1996) has advocated community participationin the tourism development process as a tool to solvemajor problems of tourism in developing nations. He hascontended that community participation in the TDP willachieve more equal distribution of the bene"ts, discour-age undemocratic decision-making and will meet theneeds of local community in better way.

The above theoretical arguments for participatorytourism development approach seem to be good news. Ifapplied, most of the problems of tourism developmentmay be avoided. Perhaps, thus it is di$cult to challengethem. However, these arguments have left enough roomto pose some interesting and, perhaps, di$cult questionsabout the approach's validity and practicality. Forexample, who is the local community or who shouldparticipate and who should not participate in the TDP?How will the participatory tourism development ap-proach be initiated? Who will initiate it? Why will theydo so? How will participation by local people in the TDPensure a better distribution of bene"ts of tourism? Canlocal people protect or defend their interests? Will anyform of community participation contribute to tourists'satisfaction? What should be the form and mode ofparticipation? Is every form of participation e!ectiveunder every circumstance? Who will decide on the formand level of participation? Is the participatory tourismdevelopment approach feasible in terms of politics and"nance? How will the level of development in a commun-ity, and scale and type of tourism development a!ectcommunity participation in the TDP?

The intention of the author in posing the above ques-tions is to imply that there are limits to communityparticipation in the decision-making process of tourismdevelopment in the context of developing countries,rather than providing immediate answers to them. How-ever, it is not claimed that these limits do not exist at anylevel or to any extent in the developed world. Some ofthese limits to participatory tourism development ap-proach may be observed especially in rural regions of, orperipheral regional economic development, in advancedeconomies as well.

As argued, it is very di$cult to de"ne communityparticipation, but it appears to be essential to clarify it forthe purpose of this article since mere reference to concep-tual arguments in the previous section of this study doesnot indicate what exactly it implies or means in thecontext of this article. Hence, it should be noted thatcommunity participation here refers to Arnstein's (1971,pp. 70}71) degrees of citizen power (partnership, del-egated power and citizen control) and Pretty's (1995)interactive participation and self-mobilisation. That is tosay, this study will focus on community participation inthe decision-making process though public involvementin the bene"ts of tourism development is not ignored.

Before progressing further, it seems to be useful toconsider the meaning and scope of the term &developingcountries' as this article will examine limits to communityparticipation in the TDP in the context of developingcountries.

2.3. Dexnition of the terms of developing countries

There is an ongoing debate on meaning and usefulnessof the terms &the Third World', &First World' and &SecondWorld' among some of the world system theorists (Har-rison, 1988). Moreover, the terms &the Third World',&underdeveloped countries', &developing countries', &poorcountries', &the South' and &less developed countries'(LDC's) are mostly used interchangeably. But it is not aneasy task to de"ne precisely what is meant by these terms(McQeen, 1977). Although &they are all attempts atgrouping a large number of countries into one category,often knowing that the reality is quite di!erent. In es-sence, they all include the same countries with a fewdeviations depending on who is conducting the classi"ca-tion' (Oppermann & Chon, 1997, p. 4).

On the other hand, it is argued that the changes inEastern Europe diminished those features that di!erenti-ated it from &the Third World'. &The emphasis on civilsociety, new economic and political institutions, even onnational identities, is reminiscent of the &new nations' ofthe 1950s and 1960s and, arguably, the nations of EasternEurope are only now emerging from a period of colonial-ism' (Harrison, 1992, p. 1). That is to say, &Times havechanged. With the Second World no longer an actor onthe geopolitical stage, it is now simply illogical to posit

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the existence of a Third World' (Harrison, 1994, p. 707).In fact, &as well as in terminology, the disappearance ofthe Second World entails the disappearance of the ThirdWorld' (Harrison, 1992, p. 1).

Consequently, we are increasingly dealing with &a het-erogeneous yet hierarchical and inegalitarian structure ofcapitalist states, each with increasingly polarized internalclass divisions' (Cli!e & Seldon, 1991, p. 9). &When dis-cussing issues of development, it is no longer possible toregard Albania, Romania and Bulgaria, for example, asobviously di!erent from Egypt, Zambia or Pakistan. Thewhi! of convergence is in the air' (Harrison, 1992, p. 1;1994). Now, it has become more obvious that developingcountries are so heterogeneous, economically, culturallyand in virtually every other way, that they exhibit nosingle de"ning feature. Although Buchanan (1971, p. 20quoting New Left Review, 1963, p. 4) describes &the ThirdWorld is a universe of radical scarcity2, [where] &theinadequacy of means of livelihood is the "rst and distin-guishing truth of this area', it seems to be very di$cult togive a comprehensive de"nition of the terms of the ThirdWorld/developing countries to everybody's satisfaction.

Although it may not be acceptable to everybody, inthis article reference will be made to developing coun-tries/developing nations, rather than to the &ThirdWorld', which is no longer deemed appropriate, for rea-son already given, for the purpose of this article. How-ever, mere reference to developing nations does notindicate which countries should be placed in that cat-egory. In the context of this article, at the risk of over-generalisation, developing countries collectively refers toAsian, Latin American and the former second worldcountries to distinguish them from the economically ad-vanced &capitalist democratic' countries. In other words,developing nations/countries here refer to countries notregarded by the World Bank as High Income Economies,as well as about a dozen oil-rich states and a few islandeconomies with relatively high GNP per capita (seeHarrison, 1992, p. 2). Clearly, in this heterogeneouscollection of nation states some countries are closer to&development' than others. Thus, depending upon level ofdevelopment in each country the limits to participatorytourism development approach exhibit di!erent intensityand persistence in each developing country.

2.4. Limitations to community participation in the TDP

As analysis of studies on participatory tourism devel-opment approaches suggests that its proponents havepopularised it in the context of developed countries andmade considerable contribution to theoretical founda-tion of this proactive tourism development approach.However, limitations to participatory tourism develop-ment approach have hardly been debated by scholars oftourism. The literature of developmental studies in gen-eral has revealed that there seems to be an agreement

amongst the scholars that in spite of an insistence oncommunity participation in the development process, ithas been observed that the performance of participatorydevelopment strategy is not encouraging and authenticparticipation (Arnstein's citizen power or Petty's self mo-bilization and interactive participation) seldom occurs.Though an agreement on the limited success of commun-ity participation has emerged, there seems to be no con-sensus on what are the reasons for it.

By keeping in mind the structure of internationaltourism, limitations to community participation in theTDP in developing countries may be analysed underthree main headings; limitations at the operational level;structural limitations; and cultural limitations. It shouldbe noted that such areas of limitations are not mutuallyexclusive. Although there is no special reason beyond thisclassi"cation, it is supposed that it will facilitate under-standing of limits to community participation in theTDP, at least at a theoretical level.

2.5. Limitations at the operational level

Implementation of participatory developmentapproaches in developing countries is likely to meetobstacles usually associated with the operational proced-ures of the task. Some of these obstacles include thecentralisation of public administration of tourism devel-opment, lack of co-ordination between involved partiesand lack of information made available to the localpeople of the tourist destination.

f Centralization of public administration of Tourism:Formulation and implementation of any kind ofcommunity participation approach requires decen-tralisation of the political, administrative and "nancialpowers of central government to local government atleast to some extent. However, as UN (1981, p. 15)noted, in many developing countries planning isa highly centralised activity. The planning organisa-tion has been established at national level and is underthe direct management of national chief politicalexecutive.

f The e!ect of this is to restrict the in#uence ofcommunity-level groups on the planning process,and implementing plans. Under these circumstan-ces, centralisation has sti#ed popular participationin planning. It has increased the vertical distancebetween planners and the broad mass of the popu-lation.

It may be added that the UN's comment is not fora speci"c sector of an economy. It seems to be valid fortourism as well; since governments in developing coun-tries have seen tourism as a relatively easy, e!ective andcheap instrument to achieve export-led industrialisation

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as a core principle of free market economy recommendedby international donor agencies (Tosun, 1998c). That iswhy, developing countries recognised that tourism is tooimportant to leave to the market, and governmentalposts at the cabinet level were created to develop, moni-tor and administer tourism policy (Poirier, 1997). That isto say, planning and management of tourism has beencentralised in a way that can contribute to achievingpre-determined governments' objectives. Hence, it is noteasy to persuade governments in developing countries todelegate its various powers to regional or local authori-ties. For example, since the late 1950s and early 1960sdecentralization has been advocated and tried in prac-tice, but the overall results were not always satisfactory(Tosun & Jenkins, 1996). Moreover, many developingcountries such as India, Mexico, Thailand and Turkeyhave a strong central government that has practicedadministrative tutelage on local government. This tute-lage practice of the central government has precluded anemergence of responsive, e!ective and autonomousinstitutions at the local level (see Das Gupta, 1995;Jones, 1990; Koker, 1995). Ultimately, this has ushered innon-participation or pseudo-participation of localpeople in their own a!airs including tourism develop-ment. This implies that the public administrationsystem in many developing countries seems to be toobureaucratic to respond to public needs e!ectively ande$ciently.

On the other hand, it is argued that &there is a lack ofpolitical will to implement participation because of theimplications for the distribution of power and resources'(Desai, 1995, p. 40). By winning elections and being inpower for certain time intervals, politicians and theirappointees seem to have claimed that they are entitled totake all necessary decisions in the name of those whoelected them without further participation requirementsduring their terms of o$ce. Moreover, by reference tototalitarian regimes in the developing world, it has beenargued that the state is not only disinterested in develop-ment, but also `[r]igorously suppress the e!ort of pro-gressive elements to bring about meaningful changes'(Midgley, 1987, p. 11). That is to say, in developingcountries politicians seem to be far from the realisation ofdevelopment ideals, particularly the participatory devel-opment strategy (Benicourt, 1982). Ultimately, this maycreate lack of co-ordination and co-operation amongstagencies, which can hinder community participation inthe tourism development process. Moreover, politiciansand their appointees have seen grassroots movements asnothing more than residents' egotism, narrow personaland local interests.

The above argument suggests that unwillingness ofpoliticians and their appointees at central level, and high-ly centralised public administration system appear tohinder emergence and operationalisation of participa-tory tourism development approach in many developing

countries. As developing world politicians are moti-vated/forced to satisfy international agencies and or-ganised business class, it seems to be di$cult to gainsupport of the politicians for participatory tourism devel-opment approach which may pose questions about cur-rent style and scale of tourism development in thedeveloping countries unless a growth of patronalNIMBY (not in my backyard) takes place.

f Lack of co-ordination: &The lack of co-ordination andcohesion within the highly fragmented tourism indus-try is a well-known problem' to tourism professionals(Jamal & Getz, 1995, p. 186). It is obvious that &2 Noone business or government establishment can operatein isolation' (Gunn, 1988, p. 272). Thus, developmentof co-ordination mechanisms among the formal bo-dies, between the public and the private sector, andamong private enterprises is essential for the highlyfragmented tourism industry (Inskeep, 1991).

However, &too often in developing countries the plan-ning process is very fragmented one authority beingconcerned with the impetus for development, whileothers are expected to manage the impact of the develop-ment' (Jenkins, 1982, p. 241). In many tourist destinationsin developing countries such as Turkey (Tosun, 1998c),Thailand (Elliott, 1983), Kenya (Dieke, 1991) and Bali(Jenkins, 1982), this may be a missing ingredient of thetourism development process. In this regard, it is arguedthat tourism projects did not bene"t from a full co-ordination between local and tourism planners (Jenkins,1982) owing to the fact that there is a traditional powerfulbureaucracy which dominates legislative and operationalprocesses. Any approaches which are in con#ict with thisunnecessary traditional bureaucracy are not acceptableto the powerful bureaucrats. Particularly, this traditionalbureaucracy is an obstacle to establishing co-ordinationand co-operation between and among the various bodies.Moreover, there is also &bureaucratic jealousys' amongo$cial authorities. For example, the Ministry of Tourismmay not tolerate any bureaucratic department trespass-ing on what it regards as its territory. Ultimately, thismay create a lack of co-ordination amongst agencies(Tosun, 1998a). Clearly, under such bureaucratic struc-ture operating a co-ordinated strategy may demand min-isters to reduce their range of responsibilities, and thustheir role to o!er patronage to their clients; both of whichare not acceptable for them. Moreover, &Third Worldpoliticians can also be very opportunist, o!ering sopswhere political gain is likely to accrue, and yielding wherepolitical pressure is greatest. Such serving incremen-talism can be very damaging to co-ordinated policy-making' (Jones, 1990, p. 264). It is to be regretted, but,unfortunately, lack of co-ordination appears to bea usual situation in the TDP in many developing coun-tries, if not all.

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Tourism is an amalgam of many di!erent componentsthat constitute a whole product. What happens in othersectors has important implications for the tourism prod-uct. Therefore, lack of co-ordination and co-operationbetween departments of government can be very damag-ing to not only the quality of the tourism product, butalso to the e!ectiveness of participatory tourism develop-ment approach. On the other hand, lack of de"nition inroles of agencies, overlap in responsibilities of govern-ment departments and little accountability between themmake the most needed co-ordination for participatorytourism development approach less possible. In brief,a participatory tourism development strategy will invitemore actors to play roles in the tourism developmentprocess, and thus increase the need for interactionamongst agencies. Any lack of co-ordination may frus-trate potential opportunities for the community to in-volve itself in tourism development.

f Lack of Information: In most developing countries,tourism data are insu$cient, even that collected maynot have been disseminated to the citizens in ways thatare comprehensible to them. Most residents are notwell-informed regarding tourism development; there-fore, low public involvement should be expected. Thus,the general public is in need of information which mayallow it to participate in the TDP in a more informedmanner. For example, Tosun and Jenkins (1996) ar-gued in relation to Turkey that The Ministry ofTourism and the bodies responsible for authorisationof tourism investment and incentives are not accessiblefor the majority of indigenous people in local touristdestinations. They are accessible for the rich andeducated elites. In this sense, there is a big communica-tion gap between communities and decision-makers.This lack of communication does not only increase theknowledge gap between local communities and deci-sion-makers but also accelerates isolation of the localcommunity from the tourism development process.Consequently, the knowledge gaps between central-ised authorities and local communities make it di$cultfor a host community to participate in the tourismdevelopment process.

On the other hand, decision-makers may not haveup-dated information about socio-economic structuresof local communities in tourist destinations due to thefact that gathering such data requires continuous re-search that is not possible in the absence of "nancialresources and expertise. The implication of the aboveargument may be that greater awareness and interestamong members of local communities could be achievedif meaningful and comprehensible information containedin reports and plans is disseminated. Thus, for thepurpose of achieving better tourism developmentthrough community participation, information about the

structure of local communities and data regarding local,national and international tourism should be collected ina comprehensible manner and disseminated to localcommunities and institutions.

2.6. Structural limitations to community participationin the TDP

Emergence and implementation of a participatorytourism development approach seem to be problematicdue to the prevailing structural constraints in many de-veloping countries. These are usually associated withinstitutional, power structures, legislative, and economicsystems. Some of these structural limitations will beexamined below.

f Attitudes of professionals: The role of technocrats(professionals) in shaping tourism policies in develop-ing countries cannot be ignored. Some professionalsclaim that planning and development e!orts are&value-free' or politically neutral exercises. Hence, theparticipation of a community in the development pro-cess can only serve to politicise it and deviate it fromits professional base. Although some professionals aresensitive to the need for some forms of participation,they may consider a &present-oriented' mentalitymakes it impossible for them to projects beyond cur-rent needs and problems (UN, 1981).

The main tension between technocracy and participa-tion stems from the con"dence of the technocrat thathis/her professional quali"cations "nd the &One RightAnswer' to development problems (Wolfe, 1982). Thetechnical service o$cers, who formulated draft plans, areusually con"dent of the quality of their work. That is tosay, the possibility of other and better alternatives beingsuggested by amateurs is seen as unrealistic. It is under-standable and reasonable for professional groups not toallow lay people to become involved in the decisions-making process. It may also cost the professional groupstime and money.

It is not easy to persuade professionals, most of who donot have close contact with local people and lacka tourism background, to accept participatory tourismdevelopment as a viable approach in many developingcountries. In this context, emergence and acceptance ofparticipatory tourism development may depend largelyon the existence of powerful non-governmental organisa-tions (NGOs) aiming at defending participatory develop-ment as a democratic right of host communities in touristdestinations. Establishment and e$ciency of NGOs mayrequire support by central government who is not alwayswilling to share its powers with such organizations(see Mathur, 1995). The question of how to persuadetourism professionals to accept participatory tourismdevelopment remains an unknown under the currentcomplex socio-economic and political structures in

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developing countries. But, it seems obvious that withouta positive attitude by professionals towards participatorytourism development, the emergence of such an ap-proach may not be possible, unless speci"cally writteninto the project terms of references.

f Lack of expertise: It is contended that although com-munity participation seems to be highly desirable, fewdeveloping countries have su$cient experience in thisarea. Lack of quali"ed personal and the working atti-tudes of professionals who have been trained in tradi-tional planning techniques which do not involvecommunity participation, and who have little idea ofhow to incorporate it in their planning (Desai, 1995).This is particularly true for the tourism industry indeveloping countries since tourism has recently beenrecognised as a professional area in these developingcountries. That is to say, owing to its relatively shorthistory in the economies of these countries, as Inskeep(1988) has stated, the services of tourism planners forprojects in both the public and private sectors arecurrently in demand in developing countries that stilllack expertise in tourism planning even though theymay have quali"ed urban and regional planners.

Developed countries have responded to the need fortourism planning by adopting suitable educational andresearch programs on tourism planning. Many develop-ing countries have already failed to do so. Adoptingappropriate educational and research programs de-veloped in and for developed countries seems to be di$-cult due to the fact that they require expertise and"nancial resources. For example, it is reported that&planning lags behind change, as it often does in Turkey,and change brings the destruction of much of the coun-try's rich historical heritage' (The Economist, 1996, p. 3).In the absence of expertise, tourism development hasbeen seen as tourism growth and tourism developmentplans refer to improving infrastructures, increasing bedcapacity and other components of tourist superstructure.In the broader context of sectoral development planning,these activities in relation to tourism growth is not e!ec-tive planning and do not re#ect concerns of contempor-ary approaches to tourism development. As a result,myopic tourism development approaches have emergedin many developing countries.

However, although some developing countries haveachieved accumulation of quali"ed human capital intourism via sending students to developed countries (e.g.Turkey, India and Malaysia), and sharing the experiencesof international donor agencies and international consul-tants (e.g. Turkey, Sri-Lanka, Egypt, India, Indonesia,etc.), personal experience of the author suggests thatthese countries appear not to have bene"ted from thesehuman resources educated abroad because of wide-spread favoritism, nepotism and personality clashes.

Moreover, in the absence of equal opportunity for per-sonal promotion, these Western-educated experts tend toseek job opportunities in Western countries or in privatesector.

On the other hand, Tosun and Jenkins (1998) arguedthat in most developing countries tourism developmentplanning often proceeds in an ad hoc way. Substantivetourism planning is usually donor-assistance driven. Theplanning team is based on foreign expertise (being paidfor by foreign donors) with some counterpart training.The steering committee to oversee the planning exercise,is usually more concerned with outputs rather than ob-jectives. In these circumstances, notions of sustainabilityand community participation are icons to current devel-opment jargon rather than realistic implementable para-meters.

The above argument reveals that the lack of expertisein "eld of tourism is a signi"cant barrier to practicinga participatory tourism development approach in thedeveloping world. Community participation as a multi-dimensional phenomenon does not only require tourismplanners, but also sociologists, economists, social-psychologists and political scientists with some priorknowledge of tourism. In the absence of these experts, itappears to be di$cult to formulate and implement par-ticipatory tourism development approach. Moreover, itsuggests that the prevailing human resources manage-ment system does not encourage the limited numbers ofWestern-educated experts to use their expertise for devel-oping tourism in a better way via the participatory devel-opment approach.

f Elite domination: In some developing countries there isvery little democratic experience or semi-democraticexperience or no prospect of an opening to freedom. Insome other developing nations although there is a for-mal structure of constitutional, multiparty democracy,these democratic institutions and regulations are notshared with the majority. That is to say, in thesecountries democracy is limited to business elites andstate elites (e.g. Thailand, Brazil, South Korea, Chile,etc.) (Diamond et al., 1995). &Even a democratic state inthe developing world is almost indistinguishable incrucial aspects from its authoritarian counterpart'(Sangmpam, 1992, p. 402). Elites have a fear that thepropertyless and uneducated masses could use theirnumerical strength to take care of their intereststhrough political power or coercion. Therefore, theydo not want to share fruits of democracy with thehitherto excluded who constitute the majority in manydeveloping countries.

It is this elitist approach to the democratisation pro-cess and development that have ushered in clientelism inmany developing countries &where the ruling party's ac-cess to immense state resources, and the clientelistic tra-dition that gave the political class wide scope in

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distributing state resources2' (Diamond et al., 1995, p.32). That is to say, there is a haphazard resources alloca-tion system by the state authorities and preferential ac-cess to state decision-making bodies that is extremelyimportant for being successful in business in the develop-ing world. Of course, &political patronage is not unknownin the North (consider the notorious &pork barrel' systemin the United States) but it is widespread throughout thedeveloping world, where it takes the form of &clientelism'(John, 1990, p. 269). It is not surprising that patron}clientrelations have also a!ected tourism development inmany developing nations. For example, there were ru-mours of corruption and gossip about the partnershipbetween the bourgeoisie, the upper echelons of the party,and the favoured businessmen regarding too generousincentives given to the tourism industry in many develop-ing countries (Clancy, 1999; Tosun, 1999). For instance,in Turkey one of the biggest daily newspapers reportedthat misuse of incentives given to the tourism industryappeared in di!erent forms. In this regard, it was claimedthat &there were cases where incentives were given on thebases of inner party courtesy or intimacy of friendshipand relationship rather than entrepreneur capability'(Tosun, 1998b, p. 602, quoting Kusluvan, 1994).

Given the elitist approach to democratic rule andregulation in the developing world, it tends to becomea rule rather than an exception to favour the interest ofthe dominant class at the expense of the vast majoritywho has been historically excluded from political andmodern economic activities. As a result, felt needs of localindigenous communities in some tourist destinations ofthe developing world have been ignored so as to servedominant business interests. For example, in the case ofVarna, Bulgaria in the early 1990s while residents of thetown su!ered cuts in electricity supply, the hotels wereuna!ected (Harrison, 1994).

With special reference to Santa Cruz, Mexico, it isargued that local residents anticipated many problemsowing to irresponsible tourism development. For in-stance, shops could not maintain adequate stocks to meetneeds of the increased number of people. Public trans-portation capacity was not su$cient; buses had irregularschedules and taxis were usually full. Residents com-plained that a visit to the public health clinic took anentire day, as there were insu$cient facilities and sta! forthe demand. They sought out private doctors in the townof Pochutla, an hour's bus ride away (Long, 1991). More-over, it is stated that local people have already lost theirbeaches. For example the Club Med resort did not allownon-guests to enter any part of its facility. &2 as soon asthe resort was in operation, they (local people) would nolonger be able to use the beaches2 . They saw SantaCruz Bay as the future playground for foreigners' (Long,1991, p. 210). Additionally, it is also reported that &theoriginal residents of Santa Cruz were suddenly faced withsocial strati"cation2. The new upper and middle class

community members openly referred to the indigenouspeople of Santa Cruz as ugly and stupid2.' (Long, 1991,p. 211). Wider evidence in this regard suggests that whilethe local people do not have acceptable houses, schoolsof national standard, proper irrigation systems and mod-ern agricultural equipment, luxury hotels and leisurefacilities for tourists have received a major share frompublic funds as incentives to comfort the Western masstourist by creating a protective ecological bubble of hisaccustomed environment.

On the other hand, foreign domination of the develop-ing world tourism industry resulted in the loss of controlover resources which may increase any adverse impactsof tourism development. Members of local communitiesusually "nd themselves caught up in a &globally integ-rated system of resources over which they cannot exercisecontrol' (Brohman, 1996, p. 55). Decision-makers at cen-tral level and elitist bodies who are exogenous to commu-nities in tourist destinations target to control localcommunities and their resources upon which they de-pend. Decisions a!ecting their daily life, future and manylocal matters are normally made without consideringthese local people, rather they are made &according to thenarrow interests of those that control the tourism indus-try' (Brohman, 1996, p. 55). The struggle between elitesand local people to control resources has been ignored bylocal and central governments. Since more and moreregions are developed for mass tourism, adoption ofpolitical economic policies that e!ect a balance betweenlocal ownership and external ownership of resources andcontrol over those resources as well as between tourismand other sectors of the economy becomes a crucial need.Thus if communities in tourist destinations are not em-powered in a real sense, involvement may be restricted toelites in the community, which often results in theirinterests being considered rather than the interests of thecommunity. In other words, domain of elites in participa-tory decision-making may enhance their own status andlegalise what they are doing at the expense of excludedcommunities.

Consequently, the stimulus towards communityparticipation provides little more than a symbolic shamintended to defuse discontent. From this point of view,many important decisions occur out of the communityeye, emerging as non-decisions. Therefore, it is not sur-prising that tourism development in many tourist desti-nations in developing countries is not driven by thecommunity, but driven by local elites in conjunction withinternational tour operators as a re#ection of Britton's(1982) &three-tiered hierarchy' of the industry. Under thegiven structure of the international tourism system it isdi$cult for developing countries to develop a proactivetourism development approach by which to decrease oreradicate the in#uences of external actors on tourismdevelopment. That is to say, a participatory tourismdevelopment approach may not function to contribute to

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a better tourism development under the current powerstructure of developing countries where the majority ofpopulations live in poverty which limits and excludesthem from local and national a!airs unless deliberatemeasures are urgently taken to empower indigenouslocal communities via special educational programs,"nancial and "scal instruments, and political decen-tralisation. However, it should be kept in mind thatutilising these instruments/strategies to empower localcommunities requires hard political choices, a con"dentdecision-making process and the collaboration of inter-national tour operators and donor agencies.

f Lack of appropriate legal system: Participatory tourismdevelopment strategies may bring unorganised groupsinto the policy-making process. Creating opportuni-ties for those who are poorly organised may not negatethe in#uence of the interest groups already active intourist development. Thus, a legal structure which candefend community interests and ensure a community'sparticipatory right in tourism development may beneeded. However, legal structures in many developingcountries do not encourage local people to participatein their local a!airs; rather the legislative structureputs a distance between grass-roots and formalauthorities, and it is di$cult to understand how it isoperated from a lay person's point of view. In thiscontext, it is argued with special references to Indiathat participatory attempts are not e!ective and e$-cient owing to the lack of enabling environment. Thelegal structure is not encouraging to educate commu-nities about their rights and how they can establishorganisations to promote their interests. Moreover,such organisations must get government approval, forwhich a level of literacy, that the poor clearly lack, isessential (Mathur, 1995).

There is evidence that &For the sake of expediency andin the interests of short-term pro"ts local environmentallaws are frequently #outed. Such an example is the recentconstruction of the Ramada Hotel Varca in southernGoa, India, which violated both the maximum heightand minimum distance from the sea criteria' (Cater, 1991,p. 12). In some developing countries such as Turkey andMexico local indigenous communities' right to use publicplaces such as beaches and sea is violated by tourismoperators (see Long, 1991; Tosun, 1998a). In the contextof developing countries, it is contended that the state hasnot usually been the expression of societies. It acts inaccordance with a mercantilist model. Laws favoura small group of elites and discriminates against theinterests of the powerless majority, which has tokenlegality. The system does not only &concentrate the na-tion's wealth in a small minority but it also concedes tothat minority the right to that wealth' (Llosa, 1995,p. 291). Of course, the inappropriate legal system thatworks against participatory development varies from one

country to another one. For example, legal structure areoften in place in ex-colonies but they just are not imple-mented by existing local government. This may con"rmde Kadt's (1979) assertion that the ability of localauthorities to impose laws and regulation are limitedand directed by important interest groups outside thecommunity in the developing world.

The above argument implies that although participa-tory rights are needed as legal protection, they may notthemselves guarantee authentic community participationin the TDP because of other structural limitations pre-vailing in many developing countries. As Leftwich (1995,p. 436) stated, &2 if the politics do not give rise to thekind of state which can generate, sustain and protect ane!ective and independent capacity for governance, thenthere will be no positive developmental consequences'.That is to say, e$cient and e!ective participatorytourism development approach requires high level ofsupporting institutions, both within and outside thestate. Unless the institutions enforce rule and regulationto be obeyed, it is meaningless to establish legal frame-work.

f Lack of trained human resources: &Most economistswould probably agree that it is the human resources ofa nation, not its capital or its natural resources, thatultimately determine the character and pace of itseconomic and social development' (Todaro, 1994,p. 363). That is to say, &2 human beings are the activeagents who accumulate capital, exploit naturalresources, build social, economic and political organ-isations, and carry forward national development'(Harbison, 1973, p. 3). However, lack of quali"edhuman resources in the tourism sector in many localdestinations in the developing world has stimulated anin#ux of employees from other parts of country towork in tourism. The few attractive jobs requiring highskills are occupied by foreigners (e.g. the law relating tothe tourism industry allows companies to employ upto 20 percentage foreigners in Turkey) and well-educated people from high income groups. The lowstatus, unskilled jobs associated with low wages andhard working conditions have been left for members ofdestination communities who were working on farmsor for those unskilled people who moved from lessdeveloped parts of the country in order to work in theconstruction of the tourism industry, and then havebecome cheap labour input. This has not only limitedthe participation of local people in tourism, it has alsocreated a cultural backlash between local people andthe seasonal workers and increased the burden onpublic services (Inskeep & Kallenberger, 1992; Long,1991; Tosun & Jenkins, 1996).

&Clearly, a country which is unable to develop the skillsand knowledge of its people and to utilise them e!ectivelyin the national economy will be unable to develop

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anything else' (Harbison, 1973, p. 3). That is to say,&[w]ithout a trained local work force, the industry canonly function by importing sta!, in which case the prin-ciple of ensuring local bene"ts from tourism is thwarted'(Woodley, 1993, p. 143). Thus, for active participation oflocal people in tourism, training is an essential element,which must be out"tted to the needs of the community.In this regard, it is contended that training must occur atthe local level, otherwise residents would not be interest-ed in participating (Woodley, 1993). Additionally, thepersonal experience of the author suggests that low liter-acy rates in developing countries may necessitate thereplacement of traditional training manuals and writtenmaterials to be e!ective. However, formulation and im-plementation of training programs will require expertiseand "nancial resources. These are often scarce, expensive,and thus not attainable in the developing world.

f Relatively high cost of community participation: Com-munity participation requires considerable time,money and skills to organise and sustain participation(Paul, 1987). That is to say, &it is more time consumingand may lead to con#icting objectives amongst thelocal aims' (WTO, 1994, p. 10) since it may raiseexpectations in the community, which may not be easyto meet. On the other hand, as Murphy (1985) noted,e!ective management of tourism industry requiresday-to-day and season-to-season operational deci-sions. It may not be possible to ask community toparticipate in these day-to-day decisions. Therefore,this time consuming and complex process of participa-tory development strategy may lead to delay in deci-sion-making, which may burden the developers withhigh loan interest (Fogg, 1981). This may also disap-point those who expect quick return from investment.

Moreover, public bodies may not want to spend theirlimited "nancial resources on organising community par-ticipation whose bene"t appears to be relatively longterm. Private sector may avoid practicing participatorytourism development strategy since it involves contradic-tory investment criteria. To overcome these problemsmay be the real test for this kind of development ap-proach. Thus, most state agencies may resist the kinds ofreforms which demand them always to follow and elab-orate costly procedures intended to increase communityinvolvement (Ethridge, 1982). On the other hand, it maynot be accepted by local authorities since their represen-tatives' role may be questioned through moves towardscitizens' empowerment in addition to being expensive interms of resource implication.

The above argument suggests that a participatorytourism development approach is likely to require rela-tively more bureaucratic formalities that demand moremoney, organisational skills, time and e!ort. As the"nancial and quali"ed human resources are scarce inmany developing countries, these scarce resources will be

likely directed to physical investments, rather than costlyadministrative procedures, particularly at the beginningof tourism development. As a result, it may be said thatbecause participatory tourism development increases de-mands on scarce resources in developing countries, this isanother limitation on participatory tourism develop-ment.

f Lack of xnancial resources: The introduction oftourism within communities usually requires funds tobe allocated to develop a tourist infrastructure of facil-ities (Reed, 1997). These facilities often are based onWestern standards even in the poorest host countries(Cohen, 1972). However, "nancial resources needed fortourism investment are very scarce and in most cases,not readily available in developing countries (seePearce, 1991; Long, 1991; Tosun, 1998b). This short-coming has appeared as a major limitation to theimplementation of participatory tourism developmentin developing countries and even in relatively undevel-oped regions of developed countries. In this context, itis stated that ownership and investment is one of themost important variables that determine control overthe tourism industry. In many relatively less developedcommunities "nancing for tourism is not su$cient atlocal level, and thus must come from outside interests.When "nancial resources originate from non-local in-terests, the loss of control which emerges from outsideinvestment is not easy to overcome. In spite of e!ortsto encourage community participation, if residents donot own the tourism infrastructure, control overgrowth and style of development is di$cult to achieve(Woodley, 1993).

For example, it is reported that the opportunities cre-ated by tourism development were vast but their import-ance was not understood fully by indigenous people inMexico. Whereas, the in-immigrants entrepreneurs whowere attracted by the tourism development understoodthe types of business in demand at the development site.&When the project was "rst announced there were oppor-tunities for small-scale business investment, but manylocal leaders doubted its viability or success, thus missingthose opportunities' (Long, 1991, p. 212). The Mexicancase does not only re#ect the lack of "nancial resourcesthat has prevented the local community participating inthe tourism development process as entrepreneurs, it alsomirrors existing of cultural barriers to participation oflocal community. The case of Urgup, Turkey appears tobe similar to the Mexican case. It is stated that &the localpeople do not have enough capital to establish properhotels and shops to serve tourists. The capital must comefrom non-local sources. Thus, it is very di$cult for thelocal people to play a leading role as entrepreneurs in thetourism industry' (Tosun, 1998b, p. 601).

As the above comments imply, resources at the locallevel are not enough to "nance the present scale of

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tourism development particularly at the local level inmany developing countries, which is one of the structuralbarriers to community participation in the tourism devel-opment process. As popularly argued in the tourismliterature, tourism is an industry developed for and byforeigners in developing countries due to the fact thatdeveloping countries lack "nancial and quali"ed humanresources to invest in and manage tourism particularlyon a large scale. Severe macro-economic problems pre-vailing in these countries made them accept tourism asa part of an export-led development strategy withoutconsidering the nature of international tourism that hasdependency as its central feature. This argument maysuggest that tourism growth in developing countries isbeyond the control of these countries. Therefore, imple-mentation of a participatory tourism development ap-proach as a pro-active development strategy is largely atthe mercy of foreigners such as international tour oper-ators and multinational companies.

2.7. Cultural limitations

There seem to be some cultural factors such as limitedcapacity of poor people to handle development e!ec-tively, and apathy and low level of awareness in the localcommunity, that function as obstacles to emergence andoperationalisation of participatory tourism developmentapproach.

f Limited capacity of poor people: Grass-roots have lim-ited capacity to handle the things which directly a!ecttheir dignity (Oakley & Marsden, 1984; UN, 1981).&Depending on their motives, power holders can hirepoor people to co-opt them, to placate them or toutilise the have-nots' specials skills and insights'(Arnstein, 1971, p. 74). Moreover, as it is pointed out,the vast majority of the people in the developing worldhave di$culty meeting basic and felt needs, whichlimits them to get closely involved in issues of com-munity concern. Satisfaction of the people's needs areat the mercy of government administrators. Thelack of e!ective grass-root organisations that canbe instrumental in determining and improving thecollective interests of the poor intensi"es this depend-ence. &In the absence of corrective measures, popularparticipation in administration, under these cir-cumstances, is likely to be manipulative in nature'(UN, 1982, p. 22)

The UN seems to have touched on a signi"cant pointwhich exists in tourist destinations of many developingcountries. Host communities usually and widely havedi$culty in accessing services of a welfare state (see Long,1991; Tosun, 1998b). Many governments in developingnations have focused on serving organised groups such ascivil servants and employed workers in the modern sec-tors of the economy. People in rural areas living on

farming have not been given enough opportunities to usebasic welfare services such as hospitals and schools. Logi-cally, and according to Maslow's need hierarchy, they aremotivated to meet their basic needs and felt-needs byignoring wider socio-political issues which indeedprevent them from satisfying their needs in more e$cientways.

The above argument suggests that the biggest chal-lenge for the poor in many local tourist destinations inthe developing world appears to be mere survival, whichoccupies all the time and consumes their energy. Hence,participating in the TDP which demands time and en-ergy may be a luxury that the host communities cannota!ord. Furthermore, when tourism development hastaken place in local destinations of developing countries,central and local governments may have invested largeamounts of public resources in tourism to create touristinfrastructure based on Western standards to attractmaximum numbers of foreign tourists while hostcommunities live on the poverty limit. That is to say,socio-economic and political issues have been handled inisolation from local communities in tourist destinations.Consequently, host communities have not been given anopportunity to develop their capacity. Under theseconditions implementation of participatory tourismdevelopment approach is likely to be ine!ective andtoken in nature.

f Apathy and Low Level of awareness in the local commun-ity: The perception of a low level of interest in andawareness about socio-cultural, economic and politi-cal issues amongst the grassroots is generally accepted.There seems to be several reasons for this argument.Firstly, for years, indeed centuries in some cases, thegrass-roots has been excluded from the a!airs whichhave a!ected their dignity, that have rendered themapathetic about taking a hand in matters beyond theirimmediate family domain. Apathy among the poorstops them e!ectively demanding that the institutionswhich serve them accommodate their needs. The out-put is that &their plight worsens and their capacity fore!ective action is further weakened. A vicious cycle ofpoverty reinforces a vicious cycle of bureaucratic dys-function' (Miller & Rein, 1975, p. 7).

Secondly, &Citizens tend to participate only whenstrongly motivated to do so, and most of the time theyare not motivated' (Rosener, 1982, p. 344). This may arisefrom the belief that their idea will not be considered,which does not motivate them to express an interest. Andindeed, many poor people often act with a fear of makingobjections which could be used against them at a laterdate. In this regard, Brohman (1996) has contended thatthe current style of tourism development has increasedalienation amongst local populations. It may be furtherargued that it is this kind of alienation which may forcelocal people to be apathetic which causes low levels of

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awareness about potential and current costs and thepossible bene"ts of tourism development. Ultimately,alienation of local people may have stopped them fromhaving su$cient knowledge about the nature of tourismdevelopment in their locality.

To Simmons (1994) and Tosun (1998b), the potentialpoor knowledge of tourism amongst local people makeconsiderable e!orts necessary to persuade the generalpublic to participate in the tourism development process.That is to say, &there is evidence of a need for greaterpublic awareness about tourism, its bene"ts and its costs,how the industry is structured, about its current contri-bution to a community's welfare, and about how tourismmight evolve' (Simmons, 1994, p. 105). Moreover,McIntyre, Hetherington and Inskeep (1993, p. 28) arguethat though the community usually try to gain bene"tsfrom tourism, they may not have &a realistic understand-ing of what they are doing in achieving this developmentand what are the impacts of tourism'. Jamal and Getz(1995) also note that lack of awareness is one of thefactors which acts as barriers to e!ective communicationat community level tourism development. Additionally,in many tourist destinations a lack of indigenous tourismplanners has resulted in planners from a di!erent culturalbackground being brought in to lead the process. Thismay create communication barriers and low credibilityarising from the cultural di!erences. On the other hand,sometimes, there are language di!erences between plan-ners and residents, which also create barriers to e!ectiveparticipation.

In brief, the above argument may suggest that apathyand low level of awareness in host communities in devel-oping countries exist as one of the main limitations toa participatory tourism development approach. Totackle this problem is a di$cult task that requires con-siderable time and money.

As evidence suggests, political instability, patron-clientrelationship, low level of literacy, unfair and unequaldistribution of income, severe macro-economic prob-lems, lack of services of welfare state, lack of democraticinstitutions, lack of democratic understanding amongstate elites, unwillingness of elite to share fruits of devel-opment with majority of society in the developing worldhave ushered in these limitations to community partici-pation in the TDP at higher intensity and greater persist-ence than in the developed world.

3. Conclusion

This article has investigated and discussed the limits tocommunity participation in the TDP in the context ofdeveloping countries. Clearly, the described limitationsmay not be only speci"c to participatory tourism devel-opment strategy. Some of them may also be seen ascommon problems of development and participatory de-

velopment in general in many developing countries.Hence, it should be accepted that these limitations maybe an extension of the prevailing social, political andeconomic structure in developing countries, which haveprevented them from achieving a higher level of develop-ment. That is to say, &[t]o the extent that problems in anysector, such as tourism, re#ect the existing socio-economic situation2' (de Kadt, 1979, p. 45). In thisrespect, eradication of these barriers to participatorytourism development approach largely depends uponmitigating common problems of developing countries.Thus, it may be naive to suppose that participatorytourism development approach will change existingstructure of a local tourism industry in a developingcountry without changing dominant socio-economic andpolitical structure of that locality. On the other hand, itshould be accepted that community participation as citi-zen power is not a simple matter but it involves di!erentideological beliefs, political forces, administrative ar-rangements, re-distribution of wealth and power, andvarying perceptions of what is possible, which seem to beunacceptable for the prevailing ruling class in many de-veloping countries. Hence, community participation inthe development process cannot become much of realityunless speci"c and deliberate strategies at local, nationaland international levels are developed to tackle with theoutlined limitations. Obviously, there is no single blue-print and a set of "xed rules to operationalise participa-tory tourism development approach. Any interventionmust be adapted to the speci"c environment in which it isto be implemented. In this context, the following recom-mended policy suggestions should be seen as broadguidelines to lessen excessive and aggressive bureau-cratisation, centralisation and depersonalisation ofgovernment-administered tourism development, and em-power the poor in a gradual manner.

That is to say, several broad conclusions can be drawnfrom the overall discussion, which may function as policyimplications for participatory tourism development ap-proach in the developing world and as well as a summaryof this study. First, as noted, community involvement intourism can be considered from at least two viewpoints:in the decision-making process and in the bene"ts oftourism development. However, community participa-tion in the TDP in many developing countries has beenrecognised as helping local people get more economicbene"ts via employing them as workers or encouragingthem to operate a small scale business, rather than cre-ating opportunities for local people to have a say in thedecision-making process of tourism development. Sev-eral studies have already revealed that without creatingopportunities for local people to take part in thedecision-making process it would be very di$cult forlocal communities to get adequate bene"ts from tourismdevelopment (see Clancy, 1999; Long, 1991; Tosun,1998b; Timothy, 1999). On the other hand, although

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local people at the initial stage of tourism development(Butler's, 1980, exploration stage) own and operate smallscale guest-houses, economy class hotels or souvenirshops, and work as workers in the tourism industry inmany developing countries (Long, 1991; Tosun, 1998b,Pearce, 1989 quoting Haider, 1985 and Rodrnburg, 1980)after Noronba's (1976) discovery, and local response andinitiative stages it becomes gradually more di$cult forthese indigenous people to operate a tourism-relatedbusiness and work in the sector since tourism develop-ment becomes institutionalised (Butler's developmentstage). This attracts capital owners to open large scalebusinesses. In other words, in a gradual manner localcontrol over tourism development is lost as local touristdestinations attract more Plog's (1973) allocentrics andCohen's (1972) institutionalised tourists. Due to theemergence of a strong competition under the imperfectmarket conditions, these locally owned small businessesin the tourism industry cannot survive and are closed.That is to say, as local tourist destinations move towardsdevelopment stage from exploration stage in Butler'stourist area cycle of evolution model, local people maylose control over local tourism development. In brief,relatively larger capital #ows to local tourist destinationstend to threaten local control over local tourism develop-ment, rather than strengthening local people to partici-pate in the bene"ts and decision-making process oftourism development in a better way. This may re#ect theassertion that &the technical, economic and commercialcharacteristics of modern tourist travel favour the devel-opment of integrated enterprises, further reducing thepossibility of local participation' (Pearce, 1989, p. 94).

The above argument about the relationship betweentourist area cycle of evolution and local people participa-tion in the TDP may imply that the opportunities forcommunities to participate in the TDP may vary overtime with the type and scale of tourism developed, thre-sholds of entry, and the markets served. In this regard, itis suggested that deliberate measurements must be takenat the &exploration stage' of tourist destinations to em-power local people to keep control over tourism develop-ment before local destinations become more popular andattractive for large capital owners.

Second, one may argue that these limitations in debatemay not be equally valid for ecotourism and alternativetourism in the developing world. In other words, it maybe claimed that sustainable or alternative tourism includ-ing ecotourism can create better opportunities for achiev-ing development and public participation in the TDP(see Brohman, 1996; Smith & Eadington, 1992). Al-though this seems to be true to some extent, there areseveral reasons which constrain its validity. First, it isironic, but perhaps not unreasonable, to postulate that&the high pro"le of ecotourism or alternative tourism isdirectly dependent upon the existence of well-developedmass-tourism sectors, which account for most of the

participants' (Weaver, 1998, p. 205). Second, it is arguedthat only the educated and often moneyed elite is accep-ted within privileged fraternities of alternative touristswhose travel patterns are largely driven by ego enhance-ment and status building (Butler, 1990). That is to say, asa deliberate sector, these alternative tourism activitiesconstitute only a very small-scale portion of the tourismsector owing to the fact that &much of Third Worldtourism today is not small-scale, ecologically oriented oreven broadly participatory' (Clancy, 1995, p. 5). Forexample, it is argued that specialised alternative touristaccommodation accounts for only a small minorityof available rooms. If it is quanti"ed strictly in terms ofprimary-purpose visits and especially the provision ofspecialised accommodation, alternative tourism is negli-gible since these appear to account for only a very smallminority of the tourism sector. Clearly, the bene"ts ofalternative forms of tourism such as the direct revenueand employment generating capacity are limited by thedominance of popular, casual, passive and diversionaryecotourists, whose expenditures within the protectedareas or in adjacent communities tend to be minimal.Park entry fees and possibly some local food and sou-venir purchases are amongst the few associated directoutlays, although alternative tourists themselves mayonly account for a small proportion of such expenditureswhen assessed against total park visitation. Furthermore,&park entry fees are usually nominal and accrue to thegovernment rather than local communities' (Weaver,1998, p. 209). Third, as de Kadt (1992) contended, thecompulsory call for community control via alternativetourism often neglects the tendency of the local elite toadopt the organs of participation for its own bene"t orthe possibility that these communities will become de-pendent on outside experts owing to their lack of priorexperience in tourism planning. On the other hand, thelocal communities may actually want to develop a moreintensive mode of tourism. This may become a problemfor those experts who do not accept the legitimacy ofmass tourism. &If these experts attempt to impose an AT(alternative tourism) model or to re-educate the localpeople so that they change their preferences, the entireissue of local decision-making control and community-based tourism is called into question' (Weaver, 1998, p. 15).

Fourth, highly centralised public administration sys-tem and planning activities are a common problem ofmany developing countries, which work against par-ticipatory tourism development approach. As a result,the structure of local governments in many developingcountries has been shaped by the state, re#ecting bureau-cratic and "scal concerns of the central governments, andhas not been a source of democratic citizen participationin local public spaces (see Gow & Vansant, 1983; Koker,1995). Obviously, moving towards a more participatorytourism development policy requires decentralisation ofpublic administration system including tourism planning

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activities. In this context, political and administrativedecentralisation should be supported in parallel to theconception that local bodies know local problems andfeelings, and so what is suitable, better than the centralauthorities possibly can. That is to say, meaningful par-ticipation necessitates a systematic local autonomy,through which communities bring to light the possibili-ties of exercising choice and thereby becoming capable ofhandling their own development. Hence, local govern-ments should be re-organised to defend, protect andre#ect concerns and interests of local people in theiradministrative territories. Additional "nancial resourcesshould be made available for local governments to useparticularly for community development projects andorganisation of participatory activities. In other words,there must be an explicit and adequate "nancial commit-ment to the community involvement in the TDP. In thisregard, goodwill is not enough.

On the other hand, public o$cers and private sectorlack of experience in participatory development activ-ities, and their experience in tourism is negligible in manylocal tourist destinations in the developing world. Thelack of expertise and competence in tourism-related mat-ters may in#uence the e!ectiveness and e$ciency of par-ticipatory tourism development approach. Moreover,re-organisation and empowerment of local governmentsmay move patron}client relations to provincial level.&Traditional local elites are likely to be most intransigentin their traditional, local settings. If power is passed tothem, the repression of the weaker and disadvantagedcastes and classes is likely to worsen' (Mathur, 1995,p. 158). In this vein, a cautionary approach is needed.New measures should ensure the equality of treatment ofall residents and should avoid creating other problems orshaping the form of prevailing problems rather thansolving them. By taking into account speci"c local cir-cumstances appropriate policies and institutional frame-work can be formulated to avoid this type of problem.Moreover, within the proposed decentralised public ad-ministration structure, special education and training pro-grams should be designed to enable local indigenouspeople to become involved in the tourism developmentprocess as entrepreneurs and employees. As part of thiseducational and training program, free consultancy servi-ces should be made available to tourism-related and othersmall business in local tourist destinations. While entre-preneurial skills and professional quali"cations of localpeople could be developed through the education andtraining programs, tourism entrepreneurs could be in-duced to employ local people by "scal and monetarypolicies. Moreover, local tourism development workersmay be hired to work with local people to develop tourismproducts and market the local value added aspects of thearea to tour operators, travel agents and individual tourists.

Fifth, socio-political, cultural and economic structureof developing countries have &overpoliticised the

state', that has ushered in patron}client relationshipbetween politicians and elite business interests. Thissocio-political and cultural pathology push for particu-laristic preferences rather than universal norms in theallocation of scare resources of many developing coun-tries. Tourism as a high priority sector in the export-ledgrowth strategy of the developing world has been shapedand directed by this clientelistic approach, that operatesat the expense of the majority at local, regional andnational level. Consequently, the noted structure of de-veloping countries has not only isolated local peoplefrom their a!airs including tourism development, but italso undermined the principles of sustainable develop-ment such as improving the basic needs of a given com-munity, reduction of inequality and eradication ofabsolute poverty so as to lead people to gain self-esteemand to feel free from the three evils of want, ignoranceand squalor without compromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own need. It is suggested that &ifthe forces making for inequality are left free rein in theirsociety and if policies aimed at the eradication of povertyare not vigorously pursued' (de Kadt, 1979, p. 45), it willbe very di$cult to implement a participatory tourismdevelopment approach whose aim is to enable hithertoexcluded to have a say in their a!airs and bene"t fromfruits of development based upon equal opportunity right.

The overall discussion regarding to the limits of com-munity participation in the TDP reveals that implemen-tation of participatory tourism development approachrequires a total change in socio-political, legal and eco-nomic structure of developing countries. These changesshould stimulate developing nations to move towardsestablishing a &democratic state' which ultimately worksagainst clientelism and favouritism, and empower grass-roots to participate in their a!airs. Once the democraticstate is established, it makes it easier to utilise "nancial,"scal, and educational instruments to enable local peopleto involve in the TDP. However, although a democraticstate facilitates implementation of participatory develop-ment approach, and thus is highly desirable, &it has beenpolitics and the state rather than governance or democ-racy that explains the di!erences between successful andunsuccessful development records' (Leftwich, 1995,p. 437). Hence, a &developmental state', which refers to&a state whose political and bureaucratic elite has thegenuine developmental determination and autonomouscapacity to de"ne, pursue and implement developmentalgoals' (Leftwich, 1995, p. 437), is also sine quo non for thesuccess of participatory development approach. Thissuggests that genuine community participation also re-quires a change in attitudes and behaviour of decision-makers to deal with hitherto excluded, which may lead tonew patterns of distributing power and controllingresources. Without such a state no developing nationis likely to achieve participatory development since&democratic market-friendly strategies will sooner or

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later break up on the rocks of their own internally gener-ated economic inequalities and escalating political strife,especially in &premature' democracy' (Leftwich, 1995,p. 438).

Sixth, evidence in other sectors of the economy sug-gests that Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs)have increasingly played an important role in the devel-opment projects some of which have employed commun-ity participation as an instrument in developing countries(Desai, 1995; Mathur, 1995; Paul, 1987). &The tradition ofthe oppressed teaches us that the &state of emergency' inwhich we live is not the exception but the rule' (WalterBenjamin n.d. cited in Taussig, 1989, p. 64) in developingnations. Hence, mobilisation of local communities byexternal organisations seems to be an essential conditionwhen there is lack of con"dence and fear in the commun-ity leaders and communities themselves (Desai, 1995).This appears to be true for many indigenous local com-munities in many local tourist destinations in developingcountries since any reaction of poor people about type,scale, direction and distribution of bene"t of tourismdevelopment may be seen as a threat for mass tourismdevelopment from which the indigenous people havealleged bene"ts. Moreover, such reaction of local com-munities may be viewed by dominant groups as revol-utionary ideological movements. This possibility ofmisunderstanding may frustrate local people to expresstheir opinions about local tourism development matters.&As agents of development for the poor, NGOs2 are

closer to the people and therefore understand thembetter' (Mathur, 1995, p. 158). Under the noted socio-political, cultural and economic pathology of manydeveloping countries, NGOs seems to be a good institu-tional tool to empower indigenous host communities viavarious educational, organisational, "nancial, socio-cultural, psychological and political means to movetowards a more participatory tourism developmentapproach. NGOs may have two main functions in thiscontext: service delivery and policy advocacy (see Desai,1995). Service delivery means to provide technical, legal,educational and training services to indigenous hostcommunities for involving in the TDP. Policy advocacymeans to bring about social, economic and politicalchanges by in#uencing attitudes, policy and practice,seeking to reform state approach to tourism developmentand lobbying directly for the policy changes.

NGOs may assist indigenous host communities, com-munity-based organisations particularly to access otherinstitutions such as municipalities, banks, technical train-ing schools, "scal and "nancial incentives provided bygovernments for tourism, etc. On the other hand, &it isincreasingly recognised that NGOs do a better job thangovernments not only in promoting participation butalso in converting aid money into development that lasts.They are becoming an important resource in the imple-mentation of donor-aided participatory approaches'

(Mathur, 1995, p. 158). When lack of "nancial resourcesespecially at local level is considered, the role of NGOsbecomes obvious to "nd additional "nancial resourcesfor initiating and maintaining participatory tourism de-velopment approach. As a result, they can give ordinarylocal people a greater stake and more in#uence in thesuccess of the local tourism industry through a betterorganised local tourism industry.

However, NGOs are obliged to operate in a &crowded'institutional environment and they are in#uenced byexternal relationships with multiple actors such as localand central governments, donor and other (often compet-ing) NGOs, community organisations and bene"ciaries(Desai, 1995). It is suggested that the interaction betweengovernments and NGOs does not proceeds in a totallytrouble-free manner. Many NGOs see poverty and in-equality as resulting from governmental policies andactions. Their participatory approach, especially theiremphasis on empowerment, thus tends to be viewed bydominant groups as subversive or revolutionary ideology(Mathur, 1995). Hence, the particular political conditionsand bureaucratic procedures of governments authoritiescontrol many opportunities of NGOs activity, and setvery speci"c parameters to the extent to which communi-ties and NGOs participate in the TDP. Consequently,this may reduce the role of NGOs in participatorytourism development approach.

Seventh, chronic macro-economic problems of manydeveloping countries, the structure of internationaltourism system such as domination of TransnationalTourism Corporations, dependency on a few interna-tional tour operators and tourist generating countries,and intense competition between identical tourist desti-nations in terms of price, rather than product di!erenti-ation and quality put developing countries in a positionwhere they cannot a!ord to reject or oppose decisions ofinternational tour operators and other related dominantactors due to the real possibility of losing substantialeconomic bene"ts from international tourism for whichthey have already made massive and irreversible "xedinvestment. Under these market conditions macro-eco-nomic imperatives, and the noted socio-political pathol-ogy it appears to be very di$cult, if not impossible, formany developing countries to develop and implementa pro-active tourism development approach such as &par-ticipatory tourism development' whose main principlesand objectives versus interests of these dominant inter-national and national actors at least in the short term.

It becomes clear that developing countries need delib-erate help from and collaboration and co-operation ofa wide range of international donor-agencies, interna-tional NGOs, international tour operators and Transna-tional Companies in order to move towards a moreparticipatory tourism development practices which re-quires re-structuring the public administration system,and re-distribution of power and wealth, for which hard

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political choices and logical decisions based on cumber-some social, economic and environmental trade-o! aresine qua non. That is to say, without the collaborationand the willingness of western governments, interna-tional donor agencies and multinational companies toshare their accumulated experiences it is unlikely thata participatory tourism development approach willemerge and be implemented in developing countries. Inthis context, future research should focus particularly onhow developing countries can collaborate with theseexternal actors to encourage community participationthrough which tourism can be developed in a moresustainable manner. In this regard, it can be debated thatwhile many developing countries encounter growingmass poverty, economic, "nancial and political instabil-ity, and environmental degradation, the developed worldmay not live in isolated enclaves of prosperity as thisappears to be unacceptable on humanitarian groundsand the long-term well-being of developed countries islinked to economic progress, preservation of the environ-ment and peace and stability in the developing world.

Seventh, it should be accepted that community partici-pation in the TDP is in part determined by culturalattributes of local communities. In this context, it iscontended that although community participation in de-cision-making for tourism in the sense of Western para-digms seems to rarely occur in developing countries, itmay not be right to claim that local people involvementdoes not happen at all. Public participation in the TDPcan take place in many forms, &which may be a result ofa melange of place-speci"c conditions, such as thecultural attributes of the community and its decision-making traditions that are already in place' (Timothy,1999, p. 388). For example, as So"eld (1996) demon-strated in his study of Solomons, Island culture requiresconsultation with communities. If that consultation doesnot take place, rights have been a!ronted with the resultthat violence can occur. As it is clearly reported in theSolomon Islands case, ignorance of local culture whichrequires proper consultation with local people by foreigninvestor escalated a con#ict. The dispute between thelocal people (the customary land owners) and the foreigninvestor has not only created a con#ict, but it alsobrought about a serious diplomatic rift between twosovereign states (Solomon Islands and Australia). The&"nal result was the complete dismantling of the resortand repossession of the island by the local community'(So"eld, 1996, p. 183).

However, such a strong participatory culture does notexist equally in all host communities. Thus, it should notbe generalised for all developing societies, and expecta-tions from this strategy should not be exaggerated. As itis asserted &the cultural remoteness of host communitiesto tourism-related businesses in developing countries ap-pears to be an important limitation to local participationin the tourism development process' (Tosun, 1998b,

p. 607). &Unlike the ideal-typical case as depicted in evolu-tionary models in tourism literature, the extent of localentrepreneurial involvement is usually very limited,owing to the fact that the local indigenous groups arerarely adequately preadapted to the business culture intourism' (Din, 1988, p. 563). But, without a "nancialcommitment by local communities, community partici-pation as a strategy might be ine!ective. It should benoted that removing the cultural barriers to participa-tory tourism development approach requires long educa-tional process and #exibility rather than once-over rigiddevelopment e!orts. That is to say, participatory capa-city cannot be built like a road or dam; it must bedeveloped. Rigid schedules are inappropriate and canlead to initiatives or pressures that impede long-termprogress. Hence, #exibility is an essential ingredient ofany form of participatory development approach; it ispart of the requirement of realism in the context of theparticipatory development approach.

Ninth, as implied, in many developing countriestourism development planning is a foreign-inspired pro-cess (Tosun & Jenkins, 1998a}c). Governments of devel-oping countries have received advice from foreign expertswho recommended large-scale tourism development(Pearce, 1989). In this foreign-inspired tourism develop-ment process, local participation as a call for communityempowerment that has been invoked in many UNagency reports has not been recognised. &This leaves theinterest of the indigenous group perpetually marginalisedfrom the development process' (Din, 1997, p. 79). In thisregard, this article suggests that more attempts should bemade to comprehend why there is a lack of local partici-pation and how this can be removed. One solution maybe that the role of technical advisors be re-examined tomake sure that tourism planning team will pay su$cientattention to the interest of indigenous people when givingadvice to authorities in destination areas of developingcountries. That is to say, tourism experts and researchersmust direct more attention towards ensuring a greaterdegree of indigenous participation and begin looking atthe development process from the viewpoint of local hostcommunities. Only then the interest of local people canbe incorporated in the TDP.

Finally, it should be noted that the political economyof tourism suggests that tourism development itself isa re#ection of political economy of the industry andbroader historical, economic and political relationsamong regions, countries, and classes. In many develop-ing countries, particularly within the hotel industry,ownership and control is con"ned mainly to foreignchains and large-scale national business. This ensuresthat only multi-national companies and large-scalenational capital reap most of bene"ts associated withthe industry. As Briton's (1982) studies with specialreferences to small Paci"c Island destinations reveal, themulti-national companies control much of transport,

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accommodation, and packaged tourism products. Undersuch dependency situation, local groups * namely eliteclasses* also obtain some bene"ts, while subordinatedclasses receive the smallest portion. This may suggestthat direct participation by local people in managementand operation of tourism facilities is also negligible.

This article has been written as an attempt to open upmuch needed discussion on participatory tourism devel-opment approaches in developing countries. In this con-text, it suggests that future research should investigatepre-conditions for participatory tourism developmentapproach and develop strategies to operationalise thispro-active tourism development approach with specialreferences to a speci"c local or national tourist destina-tion alongside investigating the role of external actors inpromoting participatory tourism development approachin the developing world.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewersfor their helpful comments.

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Cevat Tosun is a visiting Professor at Bilkert University, Turkey. Heobtained his M. Phil. and Ph.D. degrees from University of Strathclyde,UK. His research interests are aspects of community involvement intourism development in developing countries, sustainable tourism de-velopment in developing countries, tourism policy and planning indeveloping countries.

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