Beyond Prescription: Community Engagement in the Planning and Management of National Parks as Tourist Destinations

Worldwide, the planning and management of national parks as tourist destinations requires strategies for the area-wide design of projects and frequently results in tri-sector partnerships. In most cases these are led by the public sector together with representatives of tourism small and medium-sized enterprises (TSMEs) and local residents. However, this practice of collaboration, although widely endorsed, is complex. Partnerships and consultations require the adherence of institutions to principles of governance together with a civic community, building on its inherent social capital. However, in reality the community's participation is commonly reported to be the engagement of a few, and can never be assumed, questioning at the least, the legitimisation of decisions made in the name of a community. In increasingly democratised contexts this result is disquieting and raises critical questions as to why some community members do and others do not choose to engage in local decision-making practices. The tourism literature has reported extensively on community participation, and in the protected area context has generated many sets of best practice guidelines and toolkits. However, the subject of governance in protected areas and particularly in the planning and management of destinations is relatively new (Spyriadis et al., 2012), social capital is rarely cited, and extensive research on categorically identifying reasons for both engagement and disengagement is scarce. Further, in the protected area and specifically UK contexts, there is minimal research into civic engagement in tourism and protected areas. This paper contributes to addressing this deficiency. Key findings from research conducted in a UK national park are presented, identifying reasons for both community engagement and disengagement in decision-making processes relating to the development of the area into a tourist destination.