Elsevier

Tourism Management

Volume 46, February 2015, Pages 623-634
Tourism Management

Tourism development and trust in local government

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2014.08.016Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The study provides a new perspective on the political dimension of tourism.

  • Political trust in tourism influences general level of political trust.

  • Community benefits from tourism influence the two dimensions of political trust.

  • Residents' knowledge of and power in tourism predicts political trust.

  • Tourism industry deserves more respect among political scientists.

Abstract

The relationship between tourism development and citizens' trust in government is an under-researched area. This study developed a model that established theoretical relationships between important variables of tourism development and two types of political trust: political trust in the specific context of tourism and general level of political trust. Findings suggest a significant relationship between the two constructs. Results indicate that communities should feel empowered in tourism, should be knowledgeable of the sector, and should derive benefits from development for them to trust local government. The most important lesson of the study is that if the tourism sector is properly managed and developed, it can have beneficial political effects for governments such as increasing their legitimacy vis-à-vis citizens. The paper argues that like defense and social policies, tourism development have a determining impact on political trust and the industry therefore deserves more respect among political scientists.

Introduction

Trust is central to a modern society and is essential for social, political, and community relations (Freitag & Bühlmann, 2009). Consequently, the notion of trust has attracted the attention of several social science researchers. Political scientists (e.g. Hardin, 2013, Levi and Stoker, 2000) have shown a particular interest in understanding citizens' trust in government, commonly referred to as political trust. Political trust is defined as citizens' beliefs that the political system or some of it will produce preferred outcomes even in the absence of constant scrutiny (Miller & Listhaug, 1990). Such studies are driven by the notion that trust links citizens with institutions that are intended to represent them (Bianco, 1994). Trust allows a government to maintain effective legitimacy and authority in decision-making and is important for good governance, sustainability of the political system, and democratic consolidation (Christensen and Lægreid, 2005, Park and Blenkinsopp, 2011). Thus, maintaining citizens' trust is an important political objective of any government in power.

Government is the principal actor in the political process of tourism development (Bramwell, 2011, Nunkoo et al., 2012). It cannot afford to neglect the industry in view of its huge economic, social, and political significance (Richter, 1983). In consequence, development of tourism has important implications for political trust. For example, inequalities arising from tourism development hinder citizens' trust in government while tourism policies promoting social equality are likely to promote trust. Also, while government and elite stakeholders often have a direct and powerful influence on tourism development discourses, public interests tend to be marginalized (Dredge, 2010). Consequently, legitimacy of government decisions can be questioned, adversely affecting citizens' trust (McAllister & Wanna, 2001). Literature is rich with evidence of such conflicts in and adverse local impacts of tourism development which may hinder public trust in government (see for e.g. Dredge, 2010; Yang, Ryan, & Zhang, 2013).

Declining trust in the context of tourism development may have implications for citizens' broader level of trust in government because studies suggest that political trust is determined by citizens' trust in specific services and their related political-administrative systems (Bouckaert and Van de Walle, 2003, Christensen and Lægreid, 2005). This is particularly true for locally-based services (such as tourism) where the public are usually better acquainted with the service organizations and the service providers than those located at a greater distance (Christensen & Lægreid, 2005). Understanding such a relationship in the context of tourism development is even more complex, yet important, because many agencies of the state, such as local government institutions have an interest in tourism planning although they are not tourism-specific institutions (Hall, 2000). Even if the connection between tourism development and political trust appears to be obvious, there is a dearth of literature on this topic. This paper fills this important knowledge gap by developing a theoretical model linking tourism development with citizen's trust in government actors (Fig. 1).

The research is grounded in political economy of state intervention in tourism and draws from social exchange theory (SET) to build the theoretical model. The latter incorporates variables such as trust, power, knowledge, and benefits and costs of tourism which are central to any exchange process between social actors (Ap, 1992, Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). Following recommendations of researchers (e.g. Levi & Stoker, 2000), the model distinguishes and proposes a theoretical relationship between domain specific political trust and generic political trust. The former refers to citizens' trust in local government in the specific context of tourism development while the latter refers to citizens' general level of trust in local government. Based on SET and empirical research in political science and tourism, our theoretical model proposes four variables that influence the two dimensions of political trust: residents' perceived benefits and costs of tourism, their level of power in tourism (Nunkoo and Ramkissoon, 2012, Nunkoo and Smith, 2013) and their knowledge of tourism (Grimmelikhuijsen, 2012). Residents' knowledge is also proposed to influence their level of power (Moscardo, 2005, Moscardo, 2011) and their perceived benefits and costs of tourism (Andereck, Valentine, Knopf, & Vogt, 2005). The model is tested using data collected from residents of Niagara Region, Canada.

This study makes some important theoretical and practical contributions to tourism literature. While tourism scholars have paid close attention to the contribution of tourism to wider objectives of government such as promoting economic growth and development (e.g. Chou, 2013) and poverty relief (e.g. Blake, Arbache, Sinclair, & Teles, 2008), the relationship between tourism development and political trust remains to be investigated. Although some tourism researchers have recently started paying attention to the concept of political trust (e.g. Nunkoo and Ramkissoon, 2012, Nunkoo et al., 2012, Nunkoo and Smith, 2013), such research is limited because they do not address whether tourism development may influence citizens' general level of trust in government. Tourism and political science researchers and policy-makers have grossly neglected the relationship between tourism development and citizens' trust in government despite the fact that tourism is “immensely important politically” (Richter, 1983, p. 314).

Section snippets

Local government, tourism development, and political trust

The role of government in tourism development and planning has been a subject of academic interests for decades (e.g. Bramwell, 2011, Ruhanen, 2013). Political economy, which is a broad social theory concerned with how politics affect choices in society (Bramwell, 2011), is a useful concept for understanding government's role in tourism development and political trust (Nunkoo & Smith, 2013). For Harvey (2010), in political economy, the social system is considered as a whole, and hence the

Study site and context

The theoretical model of the study was tested using data collected from residents of Niagara Region located in Southern Ontario, Canada, where tourism is a very important sector of the local economy. The tourism product of Niagara Region is diverse and includes man-made attractions as well as nature-based tourism products, including the world famous Niagara Falls. Tourism in Niagara Region accounts for more than 40% of Ontario's tourism industry. The region received around 10 million visitors

Sample characteristics

The sample frame was residents' of Niagara Region who were at least 18 years or older to whom the survey was administered between May and June 2012. A total of 408 responses were received, out of which 17 were eliminated as a result of missing data. The analysis was based on a final sample of 391 respondents. In terms of profile, female represented a larger proportion of the sample (65.7%), while the rest were male (34.3%). Married respondents slightly dominated the sample (53.7%), while the

Conclusion and research limitations

Political trust is central for the stability of democratic political systems. However, there is a paucity of research on this topic in tourism studies. More specifically, to-date, the relationship between tourism development and political trust is still unclear to researchers despite the fact that tourism has important political implications for governments. Researchers are still unclear whether and how the tourism development process influences residents' trust in government. Using SET and

Dr Robin Nunkoo is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management at the University of Mauritius; a visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Management at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa; and an Adjunct Research Fellow at Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith University, Australia. He obtained his PhD from University of Waterloo, Canada. He also holds an M.Phil from University of Mauritius; an MA Tourism Management; an MA Development Administration, both from

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    Dr Robin Nunkoo is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management at the University of Mauritius; a visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Management at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa; and an Adjunct Research Fellow at Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith University, Australia. He obtained his PhD from University of Waterloo, Canada. He also holds an M.Phil from University of Mauritius; an MA Tourism Management; an MA Development Administration, both from University of Westminster, UK; and a BA Economics from University of Mumbai, India. He has research interests in political economy, government institutions, and community support for tourism. He has articles in such journals as Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Journal of Travel Research, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, and Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research.

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