Untitled

446 policy
among alternatives. For a policy to be regarded as
public policy, at the very least it must have been
processed, even if only authorised or ratified, by
public agencies. Thus tourism public policy is
whatever governments choose to do or not to do
with respect to tourism.
Although closely related to the fields of political
science, political economy and public
administration, public policy is regarded as a
separate field. It is an important area of scholarship
that generates much debate, literature and research,
because of the highly applied and political
nature of its conclusions. Public policy is not
independent of the political processes which,
including its processes, outputs, outcomes and
analysis, cannot be value free. Interest in public
policy research has grown rapidly since the 1960s.
This began in the United States and the United
Kingdom as social scientists were attracted to the
applied, socially relevant, multidisciplinary, integrative
and problem-directed nature of policy
analysis, particularly in areas such as health,
welfare, housing, crime, transportation, economic
development, energy and environment.
However, tourism has only recently
emerged as an obvious commitment and important
consideration in the public sector.
As in the case of political science, tourism policy
analysis has historically not been a substantive
subject of scholarly inquiry. Nevertheless, the
importance and relative influence of tourism, and
particularly its economic impacts, are reflected in
its dramatic growth in global political prominence
since the 1970s. As interest in the development,
promotion and impacts of tourism becomes
integrated into the machinery of all levels of
government in both developed and developing
countries, increased attention is being given to the
formulation, outputs and outcomes of tourism
policy. There is little agreement about how tourism
public policies, as a relatively new area of study,
should be analysed and the reasons underpinning
such research. As a result, analysis of tourism
policies is often constrained by the lack of
consensus concerning definition of such fundamental
concepts as tourism, tourist, and the
industry; the lack of recognition given to tourism
policy-making processes and the consequent lack of
comparative studies; the lack of well-defined
analytical and theoretical frameworks; the limited
amount of quantitative and qualitative data; and
concerns by policy makers that studies may draw
negative conclusions on government activity.
Tourism public policy studies are usually undertaken
in order to understand the causes, consequences
and appropriateness of policies, decisions
and actions. Therefore, its study offers the
opportunity to examine many topics which are
relevant to the industry, government agencies,
interest groups, destination communities and
researchers working on the boundaries of related
disciplines such as economics, geography,
history, political economy, political science and
sociology. These topics include the political
nature of the tourism policy-making process;
public participation in the tourism planning
and policy process; the sources of power in policy
making; the exercise of choice by bureaucrats in
complex policy environments; the institutional
arrangements surrounding tourism, particularly
with respect to the activities of national and
regional organisations; attempts by interest groups,
including business and environmental groups, to
influence the process and outcomes of policy; the
evaluation of the impacts of policies and the
efficiency and effectiveness of the policy-making
process; and perceptions as to the effectiveness of
policies.
Tourism policy analysis is an activity for which
there can be no fixed programme. Public policy
theory serves as the basis for explaining decisionmaking
and policy-making processes, and for
identifying the causal links among events. However,
the importance, use and relevance of particular
public policy theories often rest on the research
philosophy and worldviews of the analyst or those
who designed the study. Different theoretical
perspectives such as pluralist, elitist, Marxist,
corporatist and public choice, while not mutually
exclusive, conceptualise the policy process in
distinct ways. Theories can also be distinguished
from one another by their level of analysis, and by
the methods they employ in studying policy. Each
perspective thus differs in its assumptions about
political conflict, the appropriate level of analysis
and research methods. This does not mean that
policy studies is an anarchic field. Rather, policy
analysis is akin to an `art' or `craft' in that the