Collaboration and Tourism

Introduction

In most industrial sectors it has become commonplace for organisations to collaborate in order to achieve the goals they have established for themselves. With the accelerating pace of technological innovation and the ever hastening trend towards globalisation, traditional adversarial relationships among business organisations are increasingly being swept away and replaced by enduring collaborative arrangements. This trend is particularly apparent in the tourism industry, where the fragmented, multi-sectoral and interdependent nature of tourism provides a powerful catalytic focus for inter-organisational co-ordination and collective decision-making. Tourism is a notoriously difficult industry in which to manage an organisation, and the increasingly competitive nature of the market relationships in which tourism organisations typically now find themselves does not make this management task any easier. Both at an international scale and locally, therefore, 'tourism planners and operators are discovering the power of collaborative action' (Selin, 1993: 218) and are moving away from the traditional 'adversarial model' of conducting business (Telfer, 2000: 72).

In few stages of the tourism 'assembly process' does any one company or organisation control all the components or all the stages of the decision-making process involved in the creation and delivery of the final product. As such, organisational performance is critically dependent on establishing and maintaining effective relationships, with organisations working collaboratively to serve the consumer. Indeed, some commentators even go so far as to suggest that successful collaborative relationships are an essential ingredient of organisational longevity in the tourism industry (Crotts et al., 2000; Haywood, 1992; Murphy, 1997).

A key reason for the growing interest in collaboration in tourism is the belief that organisations and destination areas may be able to gain competitive advantage by bringing together and sharing their combined knowledge, expertise, capital and other resources (Kotler et al., 1999b). If this is true, then the implication is that the more widespread adoption of collaborative working will be critical to the future of the tourism industry: firms and organisations will increasingly need to work together in order to meet the needs of the customer, in this instance the tourist. Meanwhile, rapid economic, social and political change also provides powerful incentives for tourism organisations to concede their independence and collaborate with one another. Osborne and Gaebler (1992), for example, argue that the divide between the public and private sectors is becoming increasingly nebulous, encouraging organisations that were previously isolated from one another to begin working collaboratively. They also point to tightening budgetary constraints, combined with political and public pressure for greater accountability, as key incentives for collaboration in the tourism industry.

Interest in collaboration in tourism has arisen at a time of increasing environmental turbulence and operational complexity for organisations of all kinds, particularly since the terrorist atrocities committed in New York and Washington, DC on 11 September 2001 (now widely referred to as '9/11'). The transition to alternative forms of collaboration, in particular strategic alliances, has been recognised by organisational theorists and practitioners alike, and has intensified scrutiny on all issues 'collaborative' (Long, 1997). For example, collaboration is now widespread in many public tourism initiatives, especially in the European Union (EU) where funding for many urban and regional regeneration projects demands collaboration as a precondition. Collaboration also represents a ready 'bridge' between the traditional 'bureaucratic' production culture of the public sector and the 'marketing culture' of the private tourism sector (Palmer, 1996). Arguably, in many instances it is the lack of a marketing culture in the public sector that has motivated collaboration with private-sector organisations, the aim being to gain access to core competencies in marketing and related activities. Waddock (1989) supports this viewpoint by stating that the private sector generally has a much greater commitment to a market orientation, which it can exchange for access to the public sector's political and economic resources, which cannot be obtained on the open market.

In spite of the above rationale, and regardless of the existence of considerable environmental pressures, the intrinsically competitive nature of tourism has not always assisted in the development of effective collaboration among tourism organisations. This tendency has been particularly evident at the local level. Unsophisticated communication systems, endemic geographical and organisational fragmentation, issues pertaining to jurisdictional boundaries and the ideological divide between public and private sectors have often inhibited the adoption and implementation of effective collaborative tourism initiatives.

It may therefore be considered surprising that, although the subject of collaboration has been researched in depth in the fields of health, organisational behaviour, corporate strategy and public policy, its emergence on the tourism research agenda is still relatively recent. Publications by Crotts et al. (2000), Palmer (1998b), Palmer and Bejou (1995) and Selin (1993) have contributed much to greater understanding of the issues, actions and implications of collaborative behaviour in tourism. However, the study of collaboration in the tourism context nevertheless remains in its academic infancy, both in respect of tourism generally and applied to tourism marketing in particular. Long (1996), for example, claims that there is a distinct lack of studies that employ theoretical frameworks and methods associated with the analysis of collaboration in tourism, while Pearce (1992) suggests that limited research has been conducted on tourist organisations per se. In a more recent publication, Bramwell and Lane (2000: 3) argue that 'despite increasing interest in tourism partnerships, until recently there has been little systematic research on the internal processes and external impacts of these organisational forms'.

A central argument being put forward in the present text is that questions directed at co-ordination and inter-organisational interaction are critical, indeed fundamental,...