Tourism, Recreation and Regional Development

Perspectives from France and Abroad

Jean-Christophe Dissart, Jeoffrey Dehez, Jean-Bernard Marsat

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781472416223
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317009399
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

What factors contribute to tourism and recreation development? How can we characterise stakeholder rationales and organisation modes to enhance tourism resources and foster tourism and recreation services? To what extent do tourism and recreation contribute to regional development? What changes are taking place in terms of new destinations, stakeholders, policy objectives? Bringing together scholars from the fields of planning, economics, sociology, management studies and geography, this book examines cross-cutting issues in tourism and recreation with the aim of developing an extended view of leisure time. Focusing mainly on France with comparison to the experience of Northern and Southern European countries and North America, it combines a diverse range of case studies to address issues such as contrasting rural dynamics, changing public policies, sustainable development imperatives, evolving user behaviour and increasingly diverse recreation activities and stakeholder organisation. Specific topics are highlighted, such as the role of social capital or culture as factors of recreation development; resort organisation from international and experience-based perspectives; and the usefulness of the capability approach to evaluate tourism impacts on local development. Emphasising policy recommendations to help public or collective action on the issues and presenting emerging trends in the field, this book should be of interest to students, scholars and stakeholders in tourism/recreation planning and management.

PART I
Tourism and Recreation: Here and Not Somewhere Else

Chapter 1
Social Capital and Tourism Development in Rural Areas

Stéphanie Truchet and Jean-Marc Callois

Introduction

Traditionally associated with the coastline and mountainous areas, tourism in France now accounts for a considerable share of the economy in some rural areas. Over the past forty years, the number of visitors to these areas has gradually risen, driven in particular by the recent enthusiasm for natural areas and landscapes (Béteille 1996). The countryside now accounts for 30 per cent of person-nights in France’s tourism industry, second only to coastal destinations. This development has gone hand in hand with an increase in market accommodation capacity. Between 2001 and 2009, the number of beds available in listed campsites and hotels increased by 0.22 in rural areas, while, over the same period, it dropped by 0.62 per cent in urban areas. Moreover, in addition to traditional lodgings, new forms of accommodation specific to rural destinations have emerged. Between 1976 and 2004,¹ the number of ‘gîtes’ (country lodges) and ‘chambres d’hôtes’ (bed and breakfast establishments) increased from 16,000 to 42,000, and from 1,000 to 31,000 respectively. While these figures describe a situation that would generally appear to be favourable to rural tourism, a more extensive analysis means greater caution is in fact required. Indeed, while some rural areas are able to leverage the economic benefits generated by tourism, others do not fare so well. We can thus observe rural areas whose economy benefits greatly from attractive tourist sites, but also a majority of areas where the tourism economy is much less certain and does not create any ripple effect on local economic growth (Dissart et al. 2009). This spatial differentiation in tourism development within rural areas can be explained by differences in terms of resources – natural (e.g. climate), heritage (e.g. châteaux) or recreational (e.g. theme parks), and in terms of geographic position and accessibility. However, it is also due to differences in terms of organisation and collective dynamics.

This chapter will look at the influence of the ‘organisation’ within a region on its tourism development from the perspective of social capital theories. The first part presents an analytical framework. It starts with a summary of the reference work conducted on social capital, and of the work dealing with this concept while introducing a territorial aspect. It then goes on to propose transposing this analytical framework to tourism. This framework is based on the economic mechanisms – collective on the one hand, and individual on the other – through which a region’s social capital can either promote or hinder tourism development. The rest of the chapter illustrates the influence of individual social capital on tourism development and, in particular, on tourism entrepreneurship via an empirical analysis. The data and methods are presented in the second part of the chapter. The third section presents and discusses the empirical results. Lastly, the conclusion underscores both the benefits of this research and its limitations, before rounding off by opening up new avenues for research.

Social Capital as a Factor for the Development of Tourism

Social Capital and its Various Forms

‘Social capital’ is a term taken from sociology (Bourdieu 1986) that is now the subject of a wealth of economic literature, and that serves to address non-market phenomena and their origins (Stiglitz 2000). Many studies attempt to understand the role played by sociological characteristics in terms of individual performance or economic development, with social capital providing a relevant angle from which to explain this role. For all that, its very definition raises questions. In this chapter, we use the definition suggested by Nan Lin (1999: 35), according to which ‘social capital can be defined as resources embedded in a social structure which are accessed and/or mobilised in purposive actions’. This definition emphasises the fact that social capital does not merely boil down to social relations or networks; it represents all of the resources to which these relations or networks effectively give access.

The Distinction Between Two Forms of Individual Social Capital Traditionally, we can distinguish two forms of social capital in terms of their respective mechanisms of action. Firstly, social capital can promote economic development or individual success by facilitating the circulation and distribution of information. This effect is based on the existence of weak links (mere acquaintance). Research by Granovetter (1973) and Burt (1980) showed that a person with an open social network, i.e. one marked by weak links that connect to people in other social groups, will find employment more easily than others. Weak links allow a person to access information that is more diverse and less redundant than that obtained within one’s own social group. The second mechanism of action in relation to social capital rests on values conducive to cooperation such as trust and loyalty. Specific to strong links (links of friendship, close links) and dense social networks, these characteristics build economic resources. They help to stabilise market-based relationships or to reduce the risk of opportunist behaviour. They thus promote collective action (Fafchamps 2006) through which collective assets are safeguarded or supplied (e.g. environmental protection) (Adger 2003).

A Regional Form of Social Capital By analogy with this dichotomy between strong and weak links, Putnam (2000) characterises a region’s social capital via the following two components: bonding and bridging. Bonding comes about from strong links between people with similar socio-demographic characteristics (e.g. family, friends). It serves to grasp a region’s cohesion and the influence of the community. Bridging corresponds to the social capital generated by weak links between people from different cultural or socio-professional backgrounds. In the case of rural territories, which are sparsely populated and often characterised by a low level of sociological diversity, the weak links that bring with them resources useful to the territory may be relatively limited. Here, links outside the territory are the main source of diversity; bridging thus corresponds more to the extent to which the territory is open to the outside (Callois and Aubert 2007).

The Negative Effects of Bonding and the Radius of Trust Concept There is a wealth of material that underscores the economic virtues of social capital. However, some analyses show that bonding also has some negative effects. In fact, a high level of cohesion in a group is largely dependent on the homogeneity of its members. And yet, this homogeneity may sometimes turn into a need to conform, effectively inhibiting any form of individual initiative and limiting the group’s innovative capacity. In addition, while social cohesion within a community may offer certain benefits for its members, it can also bring about certain forms of exclusion and make matters worse for those who are excluded from it. Lastly, bonding alone is not always sufficient to bring about collective action. To better understand this mechanism, Callois (2007) suggests a reinterpretation of the radius of trust concept introduced by Fukuyama (2001). He defines an individual’s radius of trust as the extent of their relationships of trust within their reference space (sociological or geographical). From a territorial viewpoint, the implementation of collective action is thus constrained by individual variations in the radius of trust within the geographic space. Consequently, even if a territory benefits from considerable bonding, a highly heterogeneous radius of trust will only produce very small cohesive groups that will ultimately be insufficient to implement collective action.

The Influence of Social Capital on Tourism Development

These mechanisms of action in relation to social capital are likely to be particularly present in the case of tourism given the specificities inherent to this sector. We can distinguish between the potential effects of social capital on tourism development according to whether they involve collective or individual phenomena.

Social Capital, Collective Action and Tourism One particularity of a region’s tourism development is that it is largely dependent on the existence of collective assets. These may be tangible or intangible. Note that tourists choose their destination based on a set of characteristics in comparison with those of other possible destinations (Papatheodorou 2001). Their choice depends not only on the destination’s price index, but also on such factors as accommodation, recreational activities and natural or heritage-related amenities. The latter are often collective assets. Their supply may result from positive externalities or collective action (e.g. landscape). Tourism development also depends on the existence of intangible collective assets (such as reputation or advertising). When tourists choose their destination, they are confronted with the problem of imperfect information. Clearly, tourists will seldom be perfectly knowledgeable about all possible destinations and all the characteristics of these destinations. A given destination’s notoriety thus represents an important factor as it ultimately determines whether or not tourists actually come. Such being the case, a destination’s notoriety is partly contingent on entrepreneurs’ investments and the quality of their services (Claude and Zaccour 2009). Lastly, the information available to tourists can be improved by another collective asset: advertising. As with all collective assets, a given region’s tourism entrepreneurs will benefit from the quality of its amenities, its reputation and the advertising of the destination, but none of them will necessarily want to invest in their actual production. Consequently, the public sector and, more specifically, territorial authorities, play a key role in creating or perpetuating these collective assets. However, they rarely fulfil this function alone, and often rely on cooperation between the public and private sectors. As we saw earlier, social capital’s bonding component and the radius of trust within a region can promote collective action. In the field of tourism, a number of case studies have been conducted on professional networks. Even if they do not directly involve this concept, these studies provide food for thought regarding the effects of social capital’s bonding component. Bhat and Milne (2008) demonstrated that the characteristics of an inter-organisational network had an impact on each member’s level of investment in collective dynamics and, as a result, on the creation of a website to promote the destination. Similarly, Scott et al. (2008) showed that the structure of a destination’s professional network plays an important role in the effectiveness of both the communication policy and collective decision-making.

Social Capital and Tourism Entrepreneurship Besides its collective effects, social capital can have an impact on the development of tourism via its influence on entrepreneurship (Zhao et al. 2011). This influence may rest on two different mechanisms: access to information and entrepreneurs’ economic behaviour.

In tourism, as in many other fields, the emergence and subsequent development of a given economic activity hinge partly on access to information. In order for the tourist service proposed to match demand as closely as possible, an entrepreneur needs access to information concerning prices, tourists’ expectations, the market’s structure, etc. Furthermore, entrepreneurship requires resources, whether financial or non-financial (e.g. labour, equipment, property). Research by Burt (1980) and Granovetter (1973) leads us to believe that access to this information relies on the presence of weak links and the bridging type of social capital. However, from a geographic viewpoint, we can imagine that the form of bridging involved in passing on information depends on the more or less localised character of the resources sought by the entrepreneur. Thus, if an entrepreneur searches for information on local resources (e.g. labour, regional subsidies), he or she must mobilise the bridging form of social capital, but within the corresponding region. Conversely, if the information concerns resources that are not local (such as information on quality labels), an entrepreneur’s extra-territorial bridging may well compensate for the region’s weak internal bridging, a trait typical of rural areas.

Social capital may also promote tourism entrepreneurship by influencing entrepreneurs’ economic and strategic behaviour. Firstly, entrepreneurs who produce the same type of tourist service within a region are likely to be in competition with one another. The existence of strong links between these entrepreneurs and a bonding type of social capital may encourage them to adopt a more cooperative, altruistic form of behaviour (Von Friedrichs Grängsjo and Gummesson 2006). This may result in agreements concerning prices or the quality of services, sometimes to the detriment of the tourists themselves. Secondly, the bonding type of social capital may have negative effects on entrepreneurship. This situation typically involves cases in which an entrepreneur who does not belong to the community decides to create his or her business within that region regardless. The dense network formed by the region’s entrepreneurs may result in higher ‘entry costs’ for the newcomer, whether tangible (e.g. property) or intangible (e.g. hostility, social cost), and may ultimately dissuade them from creating their business (Kneafsey 2001).

Data and Methods

In this section, we will illustrate the influence of social capital on a region’s tourism entrepreneurship via a case study.

Areas of Study and Data Collection

This study was conducted with owners of tourist accommodation facilities within two territories in the Auvergne region in central France (Figure 1.1). These areas are known as the ‘Pays² de Lafayette’ and the ‘Pays des Combrailles’. These two territories, marked by rural tourism, were chosen for their similar characteristics (e.g. amenities, accessibility, institutional framework) and in order to control for the geographic effect. Situated in the northwest of France’s Puy de Dôme ‘département’, the ‘Pays des Combrailles’ includes three tourism sub-units associated with different landscapes: the ‘vallée de la Sioule’ (Sioule valley), which crosses the area from north to south, the ‘chaîne des Puys’ (Puys mountain range) to the east, and the ‘secteur des étangs’ (ponds area) in the southwest. The river system represents an important source of amenities, and is particularly used for various water sports. The area also benefits from a certain cultural heritage (e.g. Manoir de Veygoux, Château de Chazeron) and from its proximity to a major tourist site, the Vulcania theme park. Located to the west of the Haute-Loire ‘département’, the ‘Pays de Lafayette’ area is notably defined by the river Allier. According to experts, this river is the area’s primary asset, around which sporting and leisure activities (such as fishing and white water sports) are organised. However, the area also boasts a considerable cultural and architectural heritage, and enjoys a certain notoriety (e.g. the ‘Chaise Dieu’ site, the villages of Blesle and Lavaudieu). While the area’s tourism employment cannot really be compared with that of the ski resorts in Auvergne, these sources of amenities nevertheless represent a not insignificant share of jobs, accounting for 4.8 per cent of overall employment in the Combrailles, and 5.5 per cent in the Pays de Lafayette, which is above the regional average (4.4 per cent).³

Figure 1.1 Location of the two case study areas. Reproduced by permission of the creators G. Bretière and N. Guiffant, both at IRSTEA

The data are taken from a survey conducted via questionnaire in 2007 of a sample of tourist accommodation owners in each of the two territories. The purpose of these surveys was not so much to gain a representative image of a given territory, as to be able to compare the situation of entrepreneurs within the two territories and among France’s four tourist accommodation categories: ‘chambres d’hôtes’ (bed and breakfast), ‘hôtels’, ‘gîtes ruraux’ (country lodges) and ‘meublés de tourisme’ (furnished tourist accommodation). The two samples were thus assembled based on tourist accommodation files provided in one instance by the Departmental Tourism Committee (‘Comité Départemental du Tourisme’ – CDT) of the Haute-Loire, and in the other instance by the Combrailles Joint association for regional planning and development (‘Syndicat Mixte pour l’Aménagement et le Développement des Combrailles’ – SMADC), through stratified random sampling for each type of accommodation, rather than through quota sampling. The final sample comprises 73 tourist accommodation owners: 37 in the Pays des Combrailles area, and 36 in the Pays de Lafayette area. Among them are 10 owners of ‘chambres d’hôtes’, ‘gîtes ruraux’ and ‘meublés de tourisme’ in each area studied. Given a higher rate of non-response by hotel owners, hotels are represented less in both areas, albeit at an equivalent level (7 in the Combrailles, and 6 in the Pays de Lafayette). Conducted over the phone, the questionnaire comprised 77 questions concerning the characteristics of the entrepreneur and his or her accommodation structure on the one hand and the social capital of the entrepreneur on the other hand.

Social Capital Metrics

The issue of a tourist accommodation owner’s social relations is a vast topic. We decided to focus our analysis on the owner’s relations with other tourist entrepreneurs, distinguishing relations established within ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART I TOURISM AND RECREATION: HERE AND NOT SOMEWHERE ELSE
• PART II AT THE HEART OF DESTINATIONS: USERS AND STAKEHOLDERS
• PART III TOURISM AND RECREATION: OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLACES?
• PART IV CONCLUSIONS
• Index