Identifying stakeholder perspectives and worldviews on sustainable urban tourism development using a Q-sort methodology

Bibliographic Data

ID21698282
AuthorsSamantha Boom (0000-0001-7395-599X, Hotel and Facility, Breda University of Applied Sciences, Breda, the Netherlands), Jelmer Weijschede (0000-0002-4174-778X, Hotel and Facility, Breda University of Applied Sciences, Breda, the Netherlands), Frans Melissen (0000-0002-8211-5957, Hotel and Facility, Breda University of Applied Sciences, Breda, the Netherlands), Ko Koens (0000-0002-2803-0098, Hotel and Facility, Breda University of Applied Sciences, Breda, the Netherlands, corresponding author), Igor Mayer (0000-0002-5592-8848, Digital Entertainment, Breda, the Netherlands)
Year2021
Volume24
Issue4
Pages520-535
Publication date2021-02-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCurrent Issues in Tourism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-3500 • E-ISSN: 1747-7603
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13683500.2020.1722076
OpenAlexW3004897959
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited57

Tourism growth, particularly in cities, is coming under increased scrutiny. However, even often visited cities appear to find it difficult to agree upon a strategy to limit tourism growth. The current paper investigates this issue by looking at the extent to which different stakeholders’ perspectives on tourism development align. Q-sort methodology is employed to find the main worldviews and the extent to which they are shared by stakeholders in similar roles (e.g. policymakers, industry, resident). Results point to the existence of five different worldviews, which differ in the extent to which tourism growth is desirable or problematic and whether resident participation is advantageous or counterproductive. Stakeholders have highly different worldviews, even those with similar roles, which may help explain the difficulty to change the tourism growth paradigm as they limit opportunities for generating new consensus-based collective solutions. If we accept that tourism development strategies are driven and informed at least in part by individual worldviews, it may be impossible to make ‘objective’ policy choices. Instead, it might be more useful to explore possibilities to allow stakeholders to express their worldviews to better understand what sustainable tourism development entails for different people at different places and moments in time

Business · Political science · Public relations · Scrutiny · Sociology · sort · Stakeholder · Sustainable development · Sustainable tourism · Tourism · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research · Law · Place Attachment and Urban Studies · Q Methodology Applications · Marketing

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access