ABSTRACT
Policy-related actions are increasingly required, according to Goodwin (1995) and Buckley and Pannell (1990), to ensure that tourism development is consistent with the needs of both local people and the environment. Tourism and ecotourism policy encompasses a broad spectrum of concerns related to the implementation of tourism programmes around the world, including social, ecological and economic relationships; it also considers how tourism affects or is affected by tourists, local people, operators, government and so on. So too has governance, where research has only recently begun to intensify through a number of models that cover the spectrum of government, industry and citizen interests. This chapter surveys much of this literature in the context of Glasbergen’s (1998) organisational framework of different environmental governance approaches. Effort is made to fit a number of different tourism studies and themes into this framework, including emphasis on partnerships, aboriginal interests, community development, and social capital. Cooperation emerges as a key theme in this discussion, especially in how it exists as a fundamental component of these various interactive mechanisms.
