ABSTRACT
This case describes some of the practical planning considerations and implementation problems of a tourism development plan in the City of Kalisz, being undertaken by the author with Jeff Walters, Head of Economic Development at the City of Southampton Council, over a three-year period. Getting agreement on what tourism development should be encouraged has not been easy and there is a sizeable number of elected city representatives who remain to be convinced that tourism activities should be developed over and above manufacturing activities, which are the main job-and wealth-generators in the city. This case provides an insight into who decides ‘on the nature, scale and speed of development for tourism’ and ‘to what extent…the concerns of the various groups involved, such as
visitors, residents, investors and employees [are] recognised and responded to’ (Laws, 1995:4). What is clear however, is that most of the literature on tourism planning and development, with the notable exception of Inskeep (1991), the World Tourism Organisation’s National and Regional Tourism Planning (1994) developed with Edward Inskeep, and Laws (1995), offers little practical assistance in the development of actual tourism plans and their implementation, whether at city, regional or national level. As tourism plans developed within consultancy projects rarely get published within the public domain, the rigour of the methodology and structuring of these tourism plans are seldom openly discussed. This is understandable because few consultancy firms would wish to divulge their feegenerating ‘secrets’. In this author’s experience, many of these consultant-generated tourism plans are not essentially difficult to prepare although they are often shrouded in a spurious mystery. Furthermore, they often lack a rigorous structure and the involvement of the planner in the implementation of their plans. This case is offered as a modest way of moving forward our understanding of the practicalities of tourism planning based on a live case rather than a theoretical model.
