Involving citizens in tourism development: A stakeholder analysis of national tourism organizations in the Jamaican tourism industry.

摘要

This study examines the extent to which national tourism organizations (NTO's) as secondary stakeholders in the tourism development process in Jamaica pose limitations to community participation. It also assesses the implications of this involvement for sustainable development initiatives. Central to this study is the political economy approach, which posits that local communities have little voice and lack involvement in the decision-making process. In this study, information was collected from national tourism organizations, government agencies, and various media concerning tourism development in Jamaica using an unobtrusive qualitative research methodology, and was assessed based on a stakeholder analysis. It was found that limitations such as the policy objectives of government, professionalization of the tourism industry, and the focus of NTO's on major tourism indicators have posed operational, structural, and cultural limitations to community participation in the tourism development process. In recent times, government has followed a similar path with sustainable development initiatives, and therefore its success, like that of tourism's, depends to a great degree on government's ability to implement policy initiatives in the future.