Sustainable tourism planning and development: Understanding the capacity of local government

Abstract

Through decentralization, local governments play an increasingly important role in tourism development. While there has been much research on local government's role in achieving sustainable tourism, relatively little research has been conducted on the capacity of local government to achieve sustainable tourism. This is particularly the case for developing countries such as Thailand. Applying the Nominal Group Technique and using in‐depth interviews with key stakeholders, this paper seeks to examine the capacity of a local Thai government administration, namely, the Tambon Administrative Authority (TAA). This research also examines the local government's influences on and responses to sustainable tourism development. The research findings demonstrate the TAA has adequate capacity in terms of legislative authority mandate, but limited capacity in terms of its resources including insufficient knowledge of tourism issues, budget and staffing. The paper concludes these limitations have resulted in a number of tourism issues affecting the ability to achieve sustainable tourism development in Koh Tao. Such issues may also affect sustainable development in other developing countries which have similar patterns of tourism development.