Exploring social representations of tourism planning: issues for governance

A major challenge for tourism as a social and economic activity and as an academic study is the integration of multiple perspectives into coherent frameworks. This paper explores this challenge and argues that a social representations approach allows for the critical analysis of formal approaches to tourism planning. Special attention is given to tourism development and governance in Africa and other emerging destinations. A content/semiotic analysis was conducted to examine figures summarising tourism planning models presented in the academic and government planning literature. This revealed a dominant social representation of tourism planning in which destination residents play only a minor role and are typically excluded from tourism governance and external agents, from both the private and public sectors, and their views of tourist needs are dominant. Most planning models were narrowly focused, had limited evaluation of all tourism benefits and costs, paid little attention to non-economic factors and did not integrate into wider development processes. The paper argues that this social representation assumes the core objective of tourism planning is to enhance outcomes for tourists and tourism businesses rather than for destination residents. Measures to enhance local governance capacity are suggested, with examples from the health, education and tourism sectors.