Q&A About Politics
and Tourism
Local Officials
How can we get local elected officials interested in tourism
when they are preoccupied with infrastructure crises? — Colorado
and Knoxville, Tennessee
It is important to position tourism as a viable form of economic
development. Be prepared to present the facts on the current tourism
impact regarding jobs, income, taxes (property, sales, fees), and
local amenities.
Having nontourism business people actively support
tourism will make an impact.
Local tourism support groups such as tourism councils, Chambers
of Commerce, clubs, historical societies, and resort associations
also have to make the case for tourism development. The tourism
support group should be as broad-based as possible. It could include
youth job coordinators, lake associations, and churches in addition
to the more traditional tourism groups. The support group needs
to be credible and well-organized.
Local elected officials seem to be more interested in accommodating
economic development issues, but only insofar as they see a mandate
from the people. The people may, in fact, be a select group of business
people as long as they are able to demonstrate a broader community
benefit. Having nontourism business people actively support tourism
will make an impact. For example, in one Wisconsin community, industrialists
and other nonretailers were instrumental in convincing the city
to invest in an effort that had all the appearances of a retail-only
initiative. Central to this success was a great deal of education
and awareness about the broader community benefits of having retailers
be more successful. This project was ultimately seen as an important
community-wide effort, not just for business and, in fact, not just
retail. Finally, local elected officials were part of the process
that selected this project. If the idea is at least partly theirs,
they are likely to be more supportive.
You must understand and present both the potential benefits and
the potential costs of tourism development. If you tout only benefits
you are likely to be viewed as self-serving. A more balanced position
indicates you recognize the down side of any development choices
and are willing to work to mitigate them.
Other suggestions are:
- Use any local official who is already involved or interested
in tourism to act as a tourism salesperson and educator.
- Share other success stories. In politics, failure is an orphan.
- Demonstrate early successes, even outside the political arena,
and link to politicians.
- Bring in elected officials from another city or county who are
converts.
Sue Sadowske
Tourism Research and Resource Center
University of Wisconsin-Extension, Madison
State Legislators
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State legislators see tourism as creating only low-paying,
low-benefit jobs. How can we get the state to treat the industry
with more respect and appreciation? — Albert Lea,
Minnesota
While surveying North Carolina legislators to collect data for
a research project entitled Marketing Tourism to the North Carolina
State Legislature, it became evident that in order for tourism
to be taken seriously a bottom-line approach similar to that of
other major industries in the state would be necessary. Although
legislators agreed that tourism was an important, growing industry,
they were unaware of the precise economic impact of tourism in
the state. The North Carolina legislators surveyed recommended
that the industry should:
- Lobby effectively, using facts and figures.
- Promote the tourism industry and educate its constituents.
- Improve the organization of the tourism industry.
For Legislators to take tourism seriously, tourism,
like other indutries, must take a bottom-line approach showing precise
economic impacts.
The same legislators also recommended that the industry should
not:
- Lobby using threatening tactics.
- Do nothing.
- Overwhelm or over-inform legislators immediately before a legislative
session.
Specific actions that can be taken to improve legislators' perceptions
of the industry include:
These are just a few of your options as a tourism professional.
No matter what actions are taken, it is vital for the tourism industry
to convey a consistent message over the long term.
Nancy G. McGehee
The Appalachian Tourism Research and Development Center
Concord College, Athens, West Virginia
Combat perceptions with facts. Find out how other leading industries
present their case to the state legislators. Supply the legislators
with comparable data relating to tourism. Contact your state's
travel bureau, your land grant university, and the United States
Travel Data Center for all available statistical information and
research.
Remind legislators that tourism also offers
many higher-paying jobs such as managers, chefs, maintenance engineers,
golf course designers, and convention and visitors bureau executive
directors.
If tourism is to be viewed and treated like an industry, it must
first be unified. Respect and appreciation are earned. If tourism
is viewed as being fragmented, segmented, independent, and uncooperative,
it may be too difficult or inconvenient for legislators to bother
with. However, if the tourism industry is organized and acts with
a united voice, it will have power. Power receives respect and appreciation.
An example is the Tourism Industry Coalition of Michigan (TICOM)
that was recently formed to strengthen the existing Michigan Travel
and Tourism Association.
Another way to build a stronger working relationship with state
government is to support and participate in the state's conference
on tourism. This allows the tourism industry to be in the limelight
for a day or two. If your state doesn't currently conduct such a
conference you should suggest it be considered.
Make sure state legislators are also involved and recognized.
Recently, the Michigan House Republican Policy Committee's Task
Force on Tourism conducted a series of hearings across the state.
It is important for members of the tourism industry to also take
an active role in this type of forum which may affect public policy
decisions.
Acknowledge that tourism does offer some lower-paying entry level
jobs. Show that this isn't necessarily bad since it provides needed
employment for students, second income earners, and retirees. Remind
the legislators that tourism also offers many higher-paying jobs
such as managers, chefs, maintenance engineers, golf course designers,
and convention and visitors bureau executive directors. Accounting,
construction, advertising, and transportation are just a few businesses
which tourism directly supports.
It should also be pointed out that many tourism businesses are
family owned and operated. These self-employed business people may
make a greater impact on the local economy than legislators realize.
Phil Alexander
Cooperative Extension Service
Michigan State University, Gaylord
Accountability
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What accountability methods can we use to justify our rural
tourism efforts when lobbying government officials? — Council
Bluffs, Iowa
Most importantly, evaluation must be an integral part of any
tourism effort. Proactive strategies for measuring effectiveness
or accountability must be established for every effort you undertake.
Ask yourselves what you are trying to accomplish with each effort
and how you will know if you were successful. Essentially, every
task you undertake must have a purpose and, more importantly, a
measurable objective. There must be a strategy or mechanism to
measure how well you did in meeting your objective.
A portion of every tourism effort should be
allocated for a high quality and credible evaluation.
Measures of effectiveness or accountability can be elaborate and
scientific. Studies can be designed and implemented to determine
how well you accomplished your task or how effective your effort
was in meeting your goals. A portion of the budget of every tourism
effort should be allocated for a high quality and creditable evaluation.
While collecting numbers may not be the best way to show accountability,
having some information on your tourism effort and its effectiveness
is critical. Keep good records. Determine how many people you have
influenced, how many items you distributed, how many people you
trained, how many people requested information, how many people
visited, what visitors said, and so on. While it may not be scientific,
your information may help government officials better understand
what you do.
In the final analysis, it is very easy to be penny-wise and pound-foolish
where evaluation and accountability are concerned. Many tourism
program leaders feel they must invest all of their assets in program
strategies and are reluctant to set money aside for research and
evaluation. Such an oversight may save a little in the short run
only to see the entire program lost in the long run because there
was little or no creditable information on the program's value and
effectiveness.
Communicate with your government officials regularly and continuously.
In the long run, a good public relations program directed to your
government officials, community and business leaders, and citizens
may be your best lobbying effort.
Dr. John D. Hunt
Department of Resource Recreation and Tourism
University of Idaho, Moscow
Justification consists of assembling useful information. The
collection of such information implies research conducted either
by a private consultant, a local university professor, a Chamber
of Commerce employee, or a concerned resident. This research attempts
to find out whether or not rural tourism is justifiable. A comprehensive
impact assessment can provide all the needed information.
The positive impacts of development get the
most attention from government officials. The undesirable impacts
attract the attention of local residents.
The positive impacts of development get the most attention from
government officials. These include more business for local firms,
new jobs for the local work force, and a new source of government
revenues. This information is typically the easiest to collect.
There are also undesirable impacts of rural tourism development.
These frequently include increased costs of public services, increased
crime, congestion, and environmental disruption. These attract the
attention of local residents and are difficult to measure.
Positive and negative effects may affect different segments of
the community to different degrees. Because of this, the impact
study will not answer the question about the justifiability of any
particular rural development strategy. It will, however, provide
information about the benefits and costs of the tourism strategy
and their incidence. Justifiablity requires that the tradeoffs between
the positive and negative impacts assessed are acceptable to the
community.
Rural tourism is easily justifiable to government officials when
the positive effects far outweigh the negative effects. They are
often more interested in the positive effects of economic activity
than the negative ones. When negative consequences are small, failing
to account for them will only slightly overstate the case in favor
of rural tourism. Otherwise, every effort needs to be made to present
a balanced picture of positive and negative impacts.
Since different government officials have different responsibilities,
they will be more receptive to information closely associated with
their own responsibilities, especially if it benefits them. When
talking with a regional tourism director, provide estimates of numbers
of new visitors, potential visitors, new tourist facilities, and
attractions. When talking with local financial officers, talk about
new sources of tax revenues or private offers to share costs of
infrastructure development. During economic downturns, mayors and
governors usually want to hear about job creation. To each official
a different type of information provides justification for rural
tourism development.
Tim Tyrrell
Department of Resource Economics
University of Rhode Island, Kingston
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References:
Fleming, William R. and Lorin Toepper, "Economic Impact Studies: Relating
the Positive and Negative Impacts to Tourism Development," Journal of
Travel Research 29(1), Summer, 1990: 35-42.
Tyrrell, Tim and Lorin Toepper, "Tourism in the Community: Reconciling Impacts," Tourism
and Leisure: Dynamics and Diversity, Jeffery Zeiger and Lowell Caneday
(eds.), National Recreation and Park Association, Alexandria, VA, 1991: 117-128.
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Step 1: Determine community leaders' views regarding
the benefits they perceive come from tourism. This could be
accomplished through a workshop using group process techniques
such as nominal group, brainstorming and focus groups. The benefits
should be prioritized and measures of those benefits articulated.
Subject tourism to the same performance measures
as other parts of the local economy.
Step 2: Develop measurable community tourism goals by involving
those who have a vested interest in tourism. Goals should reflect
the consensus of the community. Specific measures should be developed
by those who develop the goals. These goals should relate to benefits
sought in step one.
Step 3: Identify a specific target market, the economic
importance of that market to the community in documented spending,
and the reason for targeting them instead of some other market segment.
Be specific; do not talk in generalities.
Subject tourism to the same performance measures as other parts
of the local economy, that is, employment, economic impact, and
costs.
Carson Watt
Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences
Texas A & M University, College Station
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References:
U.S. Department of Commerce, Tourism U.S.A.
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