ABSTRACT
Regional tourism planning in South West England Although the regional tourism strategies produced by tourist boards in England and Wales have no legally enforceable status, they provide important frameworks for co-ordinating public-and private-sector development of tourism and associated visitor management. The South West of England (Figure 6:5) is the major tourism region in the UK, and, with around 14 million staying visitors annually, receives more than twice as many tourists as the next most popular region. But it is also a tourism region beset by problems of congestion and poor accessibility, as well as a legacy of nineteenth-century seaside resorts in which decline in the face of foreign competition and reducing levels of investment has become a major issue. The stated objectives of the 1992-6 strategy are: • to identify key issues facing tourism in the region; • to establish a framework in which actions of public and private agencies can
be planned and co-ordinated; • to raise the profile of tourism to mobilise support and allocation of re-
sources.
