Developing Partnership Approaches to Tourism in Central and Eastern Europe

In many of the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the concept of developing wider involvement within decision making-processes remains inherently problematic. Prior to 1989, public participation was a limited and often ignored aspect of policy making. However, more recently throughout the region, tourist agencies, new regional organisations, a range of non-governmental organisa-tions, and community groups have emerged in response to potential growth in new tourism industries, thus expanding the number of stakeholders involved. This paper investigates collaboration and partnership working in two rural regions of Bulgaria and Romania, countries unable to match the performance of their CEE counterparts where tourism development is concerned. It provides a reflective analysis of achieve-ments within a framework of prerequisites to successful partnership working. Although both examples illustrate the emergence of new development practices, the paper questions their sustainability. The analysis identifies a number of elements, common to both cases, that illustrate the need to focus the evaluation of partnership working on long-term processes rather than short-term, more measurable outcomes.