ABSTRACT
Over the past two decades a considerable amount of international research has been undertaken concerning the organization, dynamics and implementation of Local Economic Development (LED) planning (see e.g., Harvey, 1989; Clarke and Gaile, 1998; Hall and Hubbard, 1998; Pyke, 1998; Scott and Pawson, 1999; Glasmeier, 2000; Jessop and Sum, 2000; Helmsing, 2001a, 2001b). LED is defined as a process in which partnerships are established between local governments, the private sector and community-based groups in order to manage existing resources for job creation as well as the stimulation of local economies (Helmsing, 2001a; World Bank, 2001). Central to the new local entrepreneurialism is the notion of public-private partnerships, “in which traditional local boosterism is integrated with the use of local government powers to try and attract external sources of funding, new direct investments or new employment sources” (Harvey, 1989, p.7). In addition, to attract new business into a locality, the public sector commonly engages in the speculative construction of place, which is “achieved by sponsoring certain events, promoting specific place images or by investing public money into urban redevelopment projects” (Ateljevic and Doorne, 2000, p.25). In the international context, Agarwal et al. (2000, p.252) observe that “tourism is widely recognised as an instrument of local economic development.” Indeed, there is an observable trend across many developed countries for LED initiatives to be based increasingly upon promoting localities as centres of consumption 298rather than of production activities (Harvey, 1989; Britton, 1991; Agarwal, 1999). Tourism spaces represent examples of localities in which local development is firmly anchored upon consumption rather than production-based growth and development.
