Abstract
In the European Union and its neighborhood, regional development has increasingly come to focus on agglomerations during the last three decades. Notably, during the 1990s and early 2000s, clustering was the major policy focus in regional development. Currently, the concept of smart specialization is applied all over the European Union and is attracting interest in the EU’s neighborhood. The tourism sector particularly tends to agglomerate regionally and even locally. While there is a large body of literature describing tourism clusters and while tourism features as a priority sector in many regional development strategies such as smart specialization strategies, there is a research gap on policy approaches applying agglomeration-oriented policy concepts to tourism destinations in an institution-sensitive way. This article argues that both cluster policy and smart specialization can be of considerable value for institution-sensitive tourism development, either when adapted to the specificities of the tourism sector or when integrating tourism development into wider, cross-sectoral strategies of regional development. Such a policy can be a valuable tool for local and regional development, provided that policies are designed in an institution-sensitive manner and respond to the particular institutional context prevailing in a tourist destination. The article illustrates some preliminary thoughts for institution-sensitive tourism development through cluster policy and smart specialization in Cyprus, Israel, and Tunisia.
Highlights
While there is a large body of literature describing tourism clusters and while tourism features as a priority sector in many regional development strategies such as smart specialization strategies, there is a research gap on policy approaches applying agglomeration-oriented policy concepts to tourism destinations in an institution-sensitive way
This article argues that both cluster policy and smart specialization can be of considerable value for institution-sensitive tourism development, either when adapted to the specificities of the tourism sector or when integrating tourism development into wider, cross-sectoral strategies of regional development
The article illustrates some preliminary thoughts for institution-sensitive tourism development through cluster policy and smart specialization in Cyprus, Israel, and Tunisia
Summary
Traditional sun, sand and beach package tourism typically clusters in sharply delimited local zones These tourism zones can be observed, for example, in well-known Mediterranean tourist destinations such as Antalya, Turkey, Ayia Napa, Cyprus, Sousse/Monastir, Tunisia, or Palma de Mallorca, Spain. One of the major theoretical strengths of cluster policy and smart specialization is that—at least on a conceptual level—these approaches facilitate the elaboration of regional or local development strategies that are sensitive and adapted to the idiosyncratic institutional context of particular locations. Still, such an institutional fine-tuning is not always done in practice. The article concludes by relating agglomeration policies to wider policy goals to promote the diffusion of inclusive growth and employment effects emanating from tourism to peripheral regions, situating the subject examined here within the larger context of actual policy challenges in economic development
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