Politics and sustainable tourism development – Can they co-exist? Voices from North Cyprus

Muhammet Yasarata, Levent Altinay, Peter Burns and Fevzi Okumus

Tourism Management, 2010, vol. 31, issue 3, 345-356

Abstract: This paper investigates ways in which political obstacles inhibit the formulation and implementation of sustainable tourism development in small-island developing states through the example of North Cyprus. The methodology draws on in-depth interviews and participant observation of significant actors in the tourism sector. The research findings suggest that understanding the intricate political system and power structure in a society is the key to understanding sustainable tourism policy development, planning and implementation. In the case of North Cyprus, policy development was found to be a product of political influence (referred to as ego-driven politics in the text), specifically the use of public resources as an instrument for political power, retention and that the politicisation of the public sector is the underlying cause of the weakened progress in sustainable tourism development. It is therefore essential to have a clear understanding of political issues, key political actors’ interests and how to mitigate personal interests to facilitate and maintain sustainable tourism development in such small states.

Keywords: Small island; Sustainable tourism development; Political issues; Agency theory; Qualitative research; North Cyprus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261517709000582

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:touman:v:31:y:2010:i:3:p:345-356

DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2009.03.016

Access Statistics for this article

Tourism Management is currently edited by Chris Ryan

More articles in Tourism Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().