Policy learning and policy failure in sustainable tourism governance: from first- and second-order to third-order change? more

Policy learning and policy failure in sustainable tourism governance: from first- and second-order to third-order change? C. Michael Hall∗ Department of Management, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand 5 (Received 29 June 2010; final version received 6 January 2011) Sustainable tourism presents a paradox. At one level sustainable tourism is a success given the concept’s diffusion among industry, government, academics and policy actors. Yet, it is simultaneously a policy failure given the continued growth in the environmental impacts of tourism in absolute terms. This paper analyses sustainable tourism, and the governance systems for sustainable tourism, via the concepts of policy learning and failure. The tractability of sustainable tourism policy problems is identified. Policy learning is discussed in instrumental, conceptual/paradigmatic and political learning/strategic terms. Although policy failure should encourage learning with respect to sustainable tourism this has only related to first- and second-order change which focus on changes to indicators and settings rather than the dominant policy paradigm. This is despite the dominant paradigm of “balanced” sustainable development that promotes economic growth failing on a number of indicators. A reason for this may be the unwillingness of key actors in tourism policy networks to acknowledge policy failure. The paper concludes that although exogenous factors such as a crisis event may lead to policy paradigmatic change, there is insufficient evidence that such a shift in sustainable tourism policy will necessarily occur given the entrenched dominance of the existing paradigm. Keywords: institutional norms; economic growth; degrowth; environmental change; liberal environmentalism; steady-state tourism Policy learning and policy failure in sustainable tourism governance: From first and second order to third order change? Abstract: Sustainable tourism presents a paradox. At one level sustainable tourism is a success given the concept’s diffusion among industry, government, academics and policy-actors. Yet, it is simultaneously a policy failure given the continued growth in the environmental impacts of tourism in absolute terms. This paper analyses sustainable tourism, and the governance systems for sustainable tourism, via the concepts of policy learning and failure. The tractability of sustainable tourism policy problems is identified. Policy learning is discussed in instrumental, conceptual/paradigmatic and political learning/strategic terms. Although policy failure should encourage learning with respect to sustainable tourism this has only related to first and second order change which focus on changes to indicators and settings rather than the dominant policy paradigm. This is despite the dominant paradigm of ‘balanced’ sustainable development that promotes economic growth failing on a number of indicators. A reason for this may be the unwillingness of key actors in tourism policy networks to acknowledge policy failure. The paper concludes that although exogenous factors such as a crisis event may lead to policy paradigmatic change, 1 there is insufficient evidence that such a shift in sustainable tourism policy will necessarily occur given the entrenched dominance of the existing paradigm. 198 words Introduction: The sustainability of sustainable tourism (8256 words) By some measures the notion of sustainable tourism must be regarded as one of the great success stories of tourism research and knowledge transfer. It has become incorporated into the fabric of tourism discourse in academic, business and governance terms. In addition to a specific academic journal (Journal of Sustainable Tourism), there are a number of dedicated texts (e.g. Gössling, Hall & Weaver, 2009; Hall & Lew, 1998; Mowforth & Munt, 1998; Swarbrooke, 1999; Weaver, 2005) as well as a steadily increasing number of academic articles. Table 1 illustrates the growing significance of the topic as an area of academic interest as evidenced by a search of the number of times the term “sustainable tourism” has been used in abstracts, keywords or titles in three major databases of academic literature from 1989 to 2010. Insert Table 1 about here At the same time that sustainable tourism has grown as an area of academic interest, the term been increasingly adopted into tourism policy making by both the public and private sectors at all levels of governance. For example, the concept of sustainable tourism has been at the forefront of the policy statements of organizations such as the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) (2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2009), United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) (2007a, 2010) and the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) (2003, 2009, 2010), as well as joint exercises between them (e.g. International Task Force on Sustainable Tourism Development, 2009; United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Tourism Organization, 2005; World Travel & Tourism Council, International Federation of Tour Operators, International Hotel & Restaurant Association, International Council of Cruise Lines, 2002). The concept is also mentioned in most national or regional government tourism policies or statements (e.g. Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, 2008; Industry Canada, 2006; Ministry of Tourism, Tourism New Zealand, & Tourism Industry Association New Zealand, 2007; South Australian Tourism Commission, 2009; USAID, 2007) as well as corporate statements (e.g. Tourism Industry Association of Canada, 2010; TUI Travel PLC, 2010). Despite the success of the concept of sustainable tourism in academic and policy discourse, tourism’s contribution to environmental change, one of the benchmarks of sustainability in terms of the maintenance of ‘natural’ or ‘ecological’ capital (Pearce, Barbier & Markandya, 1990; World Commission for Environment and Development, 1987), is greater than ever. Gössling (2002) provided the first comprehensive overview of the global environmental consequences of tourism and argued that from a global perspective, tourism contributes to: changes in land cover and land use; energy use; biotic exchange and extinction of wild species; exchange and dispersion of diseases; and changes in the perception and understanding of the environment. Gössling’s (2002) estimates for 2001 with respect to tourism’s contribution to global environmental change and updated in Gössling and Hall (2006) have been more recently examined in Hall and Lew (2009) and Hall (2009a) and suggest that the contribution of tourism to global change is continuing to grow as a result of increasing numbers of domestic and international tourist trips as well as increases in distance travelled (Table 2). In the case of CO2 emissions resulting from tourism for example the 2 United Nations World Tourism Organization, United Nations Environmental Programme & World Meteorological Organization (UNWTO, UNEP & WMO) (2008) estimate that approximately 40% come from air transport, 32% from car transport and 21% from accommodation, with growth continuing to occur in all areas (Gössling, Hall, Peeters & Scott, 2010). Insert Table 2 about here Some issues of environmental change are plagued by a lack of tourism specific data. For example, although the rate of biotic exchange is increasing and tourism is recognised as a major mechanism for biological invasion, the exact contribution of tourism is difficult to determine (Hall, 2010c, 2010d, 2010e, 2011). Nevertheless, Vilà and Pujadas (2001) in a study of the socio-economic parameters influencing plant invasions in Europe and North Africa found that the density of naturalised species was positively correlated to the number of tourists that visit a country (r = 0.49), with Mediterranean international tourist destinations also having high densities of naturalised species. Mozumder, Berrens and Bohara (2006) also identified the association of tourism with increasing biodiversity risk when examining the regression results between the log of tourist arrivals and the log of an upgraded national biodiversity risk index for 61 countries (see also Hall, James, & Wilson, 2010). Given the relationship observed by Ehrlich (1994) between energy and emissions as well as energy use and biodiversity loss, Hall (2010a) conservatively estimated that tourism is responsible for approximately 3.5-5.5% of species loss with a future higher figure being likely if climate change scenarios are considered. Indeed, the estimated growth of future emissions from the tourism industry despite potential technological improvements ((UNWTO, UNEP & WMO, 2008; World Economic Forum, 2009a), is one of the most significant contributing factors to tourism being regarded as unsustainable (Gössling et al., 2010). Car travel has a large potential to become more energy efficient in the future, with supply-side approaches including use of biofuels, increased use of gas, new engine concepts, hybridisation, and use of hydrogen fuel (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2007), but due to a rapidly increasing number of cars in countries such as India or China, it is anticipated that despite these efficiency gains, overall tourism related emissions from this transport mode will continue to increase (Gössling et al., 2010). Similarly, in order to meet the emission reduction target of 25-30% for tourism related aviation by 2020 (WTTC, 2009), efficiency gains in the order of 6% per year would have to be achieved between 2010 and 2020. However, the final report of International Civil Aviation Organization’s Group on International Aviation and Climate Change (GIACC) (2009) did not include any emission reduction target for the sector over either the near- or long-term. The only commitment was to a fuel efficiency goal of 2% per annum through to 2020, although the rate of aviation growth means that emissions would continue to grow in absolute terms. Even the most optimistic emission reduction scenarios presented by scientists do not expect emission reductions beyond 2% per annum by 2030 (e.g. Lee et al. 2009). Furthermore, the annual gains in fuel efficiency may inevitably decline due to physical and technical limits, with the pace of efficiency reductions showing strong reductions over time from over 6% annually in the 1960s to c.1.5% by 2000 (Peeters & Middel, 2007). As Gössling et al. (2010, p.124) observe Overall, it would appear that technologically optimistic perspectives dominate the discourses of GHG emission reductions in the tourism sector. While observed emission trends from aviation and tourism continue to grow, the technology needed to bring about absolute emission reductions is always in the near future - though never at hand. 3 The growing contribution of tourism to environmental change while it is simultaneously being promoted as a means of economic growth suggests that sustainable tourism development is a significant policy problem and that policy making is a significant part of the governance process. That is, ‘a sub-issue, issue or suite of issues perceived to require resolution in some way’ (Dovers, 1995, p.95), that poses the governance challenge of selecting an optimum set of policy actions and their associated implementation. The difference between the goals of sustainable tourism and the actualities of tourism’s impacts at various scales has been referred to as an implementation gap or deficit (Hall, 2009b; Hjalager, 1996; Treuren & Lane, 2003). However, the literature on policy failure, and the subsequent opportunities for policy learning that such failure might bring, may also potentially help explain how policies, and therefore governance, change over time, and therefore provide a better understanding of the differentials between policies, actions and outcomes (Hall, 2010f). Policy failure can be said to have occurred if policy has failed to achieve an objective or perceived set of outcomes. “Learning is the process in which information becomes knowledge. Governance allows for mutual, interactive learning in image formation” (Kooiman, 2003, p.33). Nevertheless, notions of policy failure and learning are public policy concepts which, although applied to issues of sustainability and environmental policy (e.g. Brody, 2003; Szarka, 2006), are surprisingly underutilised in studies of tourism (Kerr, 2003; Michael & Plowman, 2002; Mycoo, 2006). The following, therefore, examines the utility of the concepts of policy failure and learning in helping to explain the difficulties encountered in achieving more sustainable forms of tourism. However, before looking at policy learning and failure in detail it may be advantageous to re-examine the policy problem attributes of sustainable tourism which affect its tractability. The policy problem attributes of sustainable tourism Sustainability is a meta-policy problem that has led to new institutional arrangements and policy settings at international, national and local scales. Sustainable tourism is a sub-set of this broader policy arena with its own specific set of institutions and policy actors at various scales as well as being a sub-set of tourism policy overall. Sustainability problems may also pose different challenges than other policy problems (e.g. education, taxation, health) because of its attributes including (Butler, 1991; Dovers, 1996; Gössling & Hall, 2006; Hall, 2008; Hall & Lew, 1998, 2009): • Temporality - Natural systems function over time scales that are often vastly greater than those which determine political and policy cycles. • Spatiality – Sustainability and environmental problems tend to be cross-boundary in nature and for some types of problems, such as climate change, global in scale. One of the most significant forms of spatial problem in sustainability is the mismatch between government, regulatory space, and ecological/environmental boundaries which greatly complicates difficulties in managing watershed and species habitat issues for example. • Limits – The concept of sustainability suggests that there are limits to exploitation of natural capital because of its limited capacity for renewal • Cumulative – Most anthropogenic impacts are cumulative rather than discrete. • Irreversibility – Some natural capital or environmental assets cannot be renewed once they have gone, such as a species, or are not easily substitutable. In some cases, (e.g. soil or ozone), the timescale for renewal is well outside the normal parameters of policy cycles. • Complexity and connectivity – Sustainability problems are interconnected or interlocking (World Commission for Environment and Development (WCED), 1987), meaning that 4 issues such as climate change and biodiversity cannot be easily separated in scientific terms although they often are in policy-making and institutional arrangements. Furthermore, solutions to sustainability problems impact on social and economic policy. • Ontology – The terms ‘human impact’ or ‘tourism impact’ ontologically positions tourism and tourists as ‘outside’ the system under analysis, as outside of nature from a realist material ontology of classical empiricism. This is despite research on global environmental change demonstrating just how deeply entangled tourism is in environmental systems (Gössling & Hall, 2006). The emphasis on the moment(s) of impact also assumes a stable natural, social or economic baseline (Hall & Lew, 2009). Such an approach is inappropriate for understanding complex and dynamic socioenvironmental systems (Head, 2008; Hall & Lew, 2009), while putting a significant explanatory divide between humans and nature requires the conflation of bundles of variable processes under such headings as ‘human’, ‘climate’, ‘environment’ and ‘nature’ (Head, 2008). • Uncertainty – Some aspects of sustainability are characterised by ‘pervasive uncertainty’ making it difficult to judge the efficacy, implications and socio-economic impacts of policy measures (Dovers & Handmer, 1992). • Ethical issues – Although ethical questions are integral to all policy choices, sustainability is complicated by the centrality of generational and intergenerational equity to the concept, as well as the rights of non-human species. It has long been recognised that the various elements of sustainability affect the capacity of public policy-making to provide effective sustainable tourism outcomes (e.g. Bramwell & Lane, 1993; Butler, 1991; Hall & Lew, 1998; Wheeler, 1993). Yet, despite the length of time the policy problem attributes of sustainability have been recognised, there appears little advance in making the sustainability of tourism more tractable to solution. Several reasons for this can be advanced. It is possible that policy-making is continually seeking to ‘catch up’ with the issue of sustainability because environmental change, as well as associated economic, social and political change, is occurring faster than corresponding changes in policy systems. The sheer complexity of sustainability issues and sustainable tourism potentially requires a ‘whole of government’ response that lies outside of the usual jurisdiction of tourism-specific governance (Hall, 2008). This may be an issue of spatial scale, in that a government body may have limited or even no jurisdictional authority over a policy problem, or it may be an issue of means with respect to the existence of operational policy processes, technologies and/or institutional arrangements. Or perhaps the policy capacity to respond to issues of sustainable tourism may reflect the political acceptability of any solution, i.e. increases in tax, greater regulation, concern over travel lifestyle change. These issues are illustrated in Table 3. Insert Table 3 about here The typology presented in Table 3 has two qualifications. First, it is heuristic and approximate. Second, it is designed to apply to the problem set faced by a given polity and is therefore scale dependent (Dovers, 1996). In order to make policy problems more tractable, there has been a tendency to seek to address them via micro-policy means that work within existing policy processes and arrangements. However, the nature of the sustainability problem is such that while policy actions may appear logical or appropriate at the microscale, the emergent nature of tourism systems, let alone the inherent complexity of environmental and related change, can mean that such measures may have little effect at the meso or macro-scales (Dovers, 2005). Indeed, Table 3 suggests that the larger the scale the 5 more the sustainability of tourism is affected by what is occurring outside of the tourism policy domain. Such a situation, if correct, therefore poses particular challenges for destination and regional governance and sustainability, which is, by definition, spatially constrained as well as to the position of the tourism industry within broader governance and policy network contexts. It also possibly suggests that if sustainable tourism policy only focuses on micro-scale solutions then it may be inherently doomed to fail. So is this the reason for the failure of sustainable tourism policies? Policy failure and learning The failure of policy can provide a significant opportunity for policy learning. Dissatisfaction with policy performance and outcomes can provide a stimulus to consider other policy and implementation alternatives. At a more fundamental level, policy failure can also lead to a reconsideration “of the existing dominant causal reasoning about policy, potentially leading to social learning” (May, 1992, p.341). Nevertheless, even though dissatisfaction may serve as a strong stimulus for a search for new policy ideas, it does not necessarily mean that they will be forthcoming. Several reasons why this may be the case have been put forward in the policy literature (Freeman, 2006; Grin & Loeber, 2007). First, organizations may limit evaluative efforts because of concerns about the repercussions if they are deemed to have failed to achieve policy goals. Fear of policy failure may be a factor in writing policy goals in such a way that they are ‘fuzzy’ and difficult to assess objectively. Second, governments may be unwilling to acknowledge failure. This may be especially strong in ideologically based administrations in which acknowledgement of the need to learn from failure would entail a fundamental reconsideration of the utility or appropriateness of core ideological values with respect to specific policy problems (May, 1992; Sabatier, 1988). Such a behavioural perspective recognises that the notion of what constitutes a policy fact, or at least how facts will be interpreted, will be shaped by the values of the viewer (Majone, 1989). Learning is an integral part of the public policy process (Freeman, 2006; Grin & Loeber, 2007). Some scholars have long regarded policy making as a form of social learning (e.g. Deutsch, 1963, 1966; Freeman, 2006; Klein, 1997; Rose, 1993); Meppem and Gill (1998) also regarded planning for sustainability as a learning concept. Three different types of learning are usually identified in the policy literature with respect to learning within policy domains (Nilsson, 2005; Grin & Loeber, 2007). First, instrumental or technical learning which is concerned with adjusting or modifying existing policy instruments in order to pursue policy goals. Such incremental learning is generally regarded as a normal part of the policy process (Bennett & Howlett, 1992; Hall, P., 1993). Second, conceptual or social policy learning that is concerned with changes in basic policy beliefs and paradigms (May, 1992; Hall, P., 1993; Fiorino, 2001). These first two types of learning are broadly comparable to “single-loop” and “double-loop” learning as identified in the organisational learning literature (Busenberg, 2001; Grin & Loeber, 2007), where the former refers to superficial change with respect to goal achievement and the latter to more fundamental changes in organisational goals and norms (Argyris, 1992). For Hall (P., 1993, p.279) a “policy paradigm” is the “framework of ideas and standards that specifies not only the goals of policy and the kind of instruments used to attain them, but also the very nature of the problems they are meant to be addressing”. A third type of learning is that of political learning, proposed by May (1992) which “entails lessons about policy processes and prospects. Policy advocates become more sophisticated in advancing problems and ideas by learning how to enhance the political feasibility of policy proposals” (May, 1992, p.332). This third type of learning therefore potentially provides for a distinction between strategic behaviour and a genuine shift in policy beliefs. 6 Hall’s (P., 1989, 1993) approach towards policy learning has been extremely influential (Grin & Loeber, 2007). His interest in the field grew out of an attempt to understand long-term changes in British economic policy from the time of Keynes to that of Thatcher (Hall, P., 1989). Hall (P., 1993, p.278) regards policy learning as “a deliberate attempt to adjust the goals or techniques of policy in response to past experience or new information. Learning is indicated when policy changes as the result of such a process”. According to Hall (P., 1993, p.227) there are three central elements of this “prevailing model of social learning as utilised by contemporary theorists of the state”. First, previous policy settings or “legacies” are more influential on policy than contemporary economic and social conditions. (And, in the present context, we can add environmental conditions). As Hall (P., 1993, p.277) argues, “one of the principal factors affecting policy at time=1 is policy at time -1”. Second, policy experts or “entrepreneurs” (Dolowitz & Marsh, 1996; Mintrom & Vergari, 1996; Mintrom, 1997; Rose, 1993) located both within and at the edge of the state act as promoters of policy learning in given policy domains. Third, Hall (P., 1993) argues that policy learning is also affected by the extent to which policy experts, (and the instrumental arrangements that they put into place to implement policy), are insulated from external public political pressure, also referred to as societal pressure. Paradigm shifts, such as when the dominant economic paradigm in western liberal democracies shifted from Keynesianism to monetarianism, may occur as a result of public political pressure over perceived policy failures of government (Greener, 2001; Hall, P., 1989). Hall (P., 1993) also regards the elements of policy learning as being related to different orders of change that usually involve three core variables: overarching policy goals; the policy instruments, techniques and technologies used to achieve policy goals; and the settings of policy instruments (Greener, 2001). The work of Hall and Taylor (1996) was also extremely influential on Kooiman (2003) who refers to three orders of governance first-order governing involved in day-to-day problem solving and opportunity creation, and second-order governing dealing with institutional governance conditions. …third-order governance is of a different type. It folds back on the theory and practise of governing and governance as such. Meta governing is like an imaginary governor, teleported to a point ‘outside’ and holding the whole governance experience against a normative light. (Kooiman, 2003, p.170). First order change is likely to be characterised by incremental, routinised, satisficing behaviour that is based around government officials and policy experts that leads to a change in the “levels (or settings) of the basic instruments of… policy” (Hall, P. 1993, p.279). Second order change is characterised by the selection of new policy instruments and techniques and policy settings due to previous policy experience but the overarching policy goals remain the same. Second order change is therefore more strategic in form although officials and policy experts still remain relatively isolated from external political pressures. According to Greener (2001) this order of change is far more significant for policy learning than what Hall (P., 1993) had suggested. Third order change, or a policy paradigm shift, takes place when a new goal hierarchy is adopted by policy makers because the coherence of existing policy paradigm(s) has been undermined, “Where experiment and perceived policy failure has resulted in discrepancies or inconsistencies appearing which cannot be explained within the existing paradigm” (Greener, 2001, p.135) and set of institutional norms that support particular kinds of values and goals (Bernstein, 2002). In situations where existing institutions and policies cease to be relevant to policy problems, policy failure may also lead the state to search for policy advice outside of previous internal and external sources, including academia, think tanks and non-government organizations (Pierre & Peters, 2000). For paradigm shifts to be sustained, the promotion of sympathetic individuals to key positions within government agencies, changes in the composition of advisory bodies, and the 7 development of new sets of institutional arrangements are necessary. This is what Hall (P., 1993, p.280) described as “significant shifts in the locus of authority over policy”. This order of change is also similar to what May (1992) described as ‘social policy learning’ in which the policy elites of a specific policy domain undertake the social construction of a policy. According to May (1992, p.337) The foci are the policy problem itself, the scope of policy, or policy goals…. The process of social construction is the central component of this definition of social learning. The objects of social construction are beliefs about cause and effect… preferences concerning desired policy outcomes, perceptions of policy targets, and beliefs about the policy ideas that undergird policies. As Greener (2001) observes, the resemblance between May and Peter Hall’s approaches is “striking”. The social policy learning of May is equivalent to Peter Hall’s third order change, while “political learning” concerns “strategies for advocating policy ideas or drawing attention to policy problems” (May, 1992, p.339); and “instrumental learning” relates to “new understandings about the viability of policy interventions or implementation designs” (May, 1992, p.335), and is comparable to first and second order change. Furthermore, May (1992), drawing on the advocacy coalition framework of Sabatier (1988), also highlights the way that policy-making is socially constructed within policy networks. Similarly, Hall (P., 1993) comments: Organised interests, political parties and policy experts do not simply "exert power"; they acquire power in part by trying to influence the political discourse of their day. To the degree that they are able to do so, they may have a major impact on policy without necessarily acquiring the formal trappings of influence. The resultant flow of ideas is an important dimension of the process in which policy is made (Hall, P., 1993, p.290). Although in re-analysing Hall’s (P., 1993) suggestion with respect to the relationships between networks and third order change, Pemberton (2000, p.789) argues that policy networks are better understood as “a particularly important intermediate variable”. Noting, in a manner similar to Kooiman’s (2003) concept of meta- or third-order governance, that although policy change was brought about by learning in policy networks, such networks are also shaped by changes in the policy environment as part of a recursive policy process (Pemberton, 2003). The relative complexities of policy problems and the required order of change are therefore related to different types of learning. May’s understanding of policy learning is significant as it suggests the possibility of policy learning occurring “without a paradigm shift that is, the social construction of a policy changing without its replacement” (Greener, 2001, p.137). This can occur if political learning does not occur in tandem with conceptual learning. For example, if the proponents of alternative social constructions of a policy problem and its solution are unable to implement their ideas because of insufficient political capital (Bourdieu, 1998), political resources, or power within a policy network (Hall, 1999; Pemberton, 2000, 2003), and/or set of governance structures (Papadopoulos, 2007). Power in this sense, reflects the definition of Deutsch (1963, p.111) as “the ability to talk instead of listen. In a sense, it is the ability to afford not to learn”. Sustainable tourism and policy learning What then does policy learning and the different orders of change potentially suggest with respect to sustainable tourism? Although the concept of sustainable development has been described as ‘as the central challenge of our times’ (Wheeler, 2002, p.110), its impact on 8 policy and governance has arguably been one of incremental rather than paradigmatic change and has often been associated with an issue-attention cycle (Downs, 1972; Hall, 2002). Indeed, the antecedents of sustainable development extend back well over a hundred years in Western economic and environmental thought with respect to the notion of economic conservation (Hall, 1998). In tourism policy terms, sustainability is primarily seen as being ‘environmental’ and development as ‘economic’ (and to a lesser extent ‘social’) and the concept of sustainable tourism or sustainable tourism development aims to mitigate the paradox between them (Hall, 2008, 2009a; Saarinen, 2006; Swarbrooke, 1999). Baeten (2000) argues that, as portrayed via government and supranational institutions, the sustainable development concept suggests that contemporary economic development paradigms are able to cope with environmental crisis without fundamentally affecting existing economic relationships. This approach is conveyed at various scales of governance (e.g. Czech, 2008; Gössling & Hall, 2008), but is perhaps most widely accessible in the work of extremely influential supranational organizations in international tourism policy networks such as the World Economic Forum (2009a, 2009b), the UNWTO (2002, 2007b), and the WTTC (2003, 2009). For example, the UNEP and the UNWTO (2005) publication Making Tourism More Sustainable: Guide for Policy Makers was described by Eugenio Yunis, UNWTO Head of sustainable development of tourism as “applicable world-wide. It is a ‘bible’ for all decision-makers who are encouraged to be actively involved in the development of an environmentally and socially responsible tourism which creates long term economic benefits for the businesses and destinations” (Yunis, 2006, p.2). The UNEP and UNWTO (2005) argue that the concept of sustainable development has evolved since the 1987 Brundtland definition: Three dimensions or ‘pillars’ of sustainable development are now recognized and underlined. These are: • Economic sustainability, which means generating prosperity at different levels of society and addressing the cost effectiveness of all economic activity. Crucially, it is about the viability of enterprises and activities and their ability to be maintained in the long term. • Social sustainability, which means respecting human rights and equal opportunities for all in society. It requires an equitable distribution of benefits, with a focus on alleviating poverty. There is an emphasis on local communities, maintaining and strengthening their life support systems, recognizing and respecting different cultures and avoiding any form of exploitation. • Environmental sustainability, which means conserving and managing resources, especially those that are not renewable or are precious in terms of life support. It requires action to minimize pollution of air, land and water, and to conserve biological diversity and natural heritage. It is important to appreciate that these three pillars are in many ways interdependent and can be both mutually reinforcing or in competition. Delivering sustainable development means striking a balance between them (UNEP & UNWTO, 2005, p.9). (author’s italics) The UNEP and the UNWTO (2005, p.71) identified a number of instruments and indicators “that governments can use to influence the sustainability of tourism”. A number of the proposed indicators included information that was potentially already collected such as levels of tourism. However, information with respect to the state of the environment and society may constitute a new set of policy indicators. The introduction of new policy indicators may potentially demonstrate that a change is taking place in the policymakers' worldview, and therefore represent either a first or second order change. However, when new policy instruments are not adopted, but alternative measures are instead developed that demonstrate that existing policies are working, or which help policymakers get better feedback on the success or otherwise of their polices even when the old indicators seem to be implying otherwise, then change is only of the first order (Greener, 2001, p.138). Although given that policy indicators are a social construction (Callon, 1998; May, 1992; Peeters, 9 2005), when it occurs alongside political learning, their change may also be a “symptom of possible future paradigm change, or at least present paradigm dissatisfaction” (Greener, 2001, p.139). The selection of policy indicators is not a neutral device. “Imposing the rules of the game, that is to say, the rules used to calculate decisions, by imposing the tools in which these rules are incorporated, is the starting point of relationships of domination” (Callon, 1998, p.46) not only between institutions, but also of one policy paradigm over another. Similarly, Majone (1989, pp.116-117) stressed that “policy instruments are seldom ideologically neutral… distributionally neutral… [and] …cannot be neatly separated from goals” and instead tend to reflect the values of the policy paradigms within which they are selected. “The performance of instruments depends less on their formal properties than on the political and administrative context in which they operate” (Majone, 1989, p.118). Majone states that: The choice of policy instruments is not a technical problem that can be safely left to experts. It raises institutional, social, and moral issues that must be clarified.... The naive faith of some analysts in the fail-safe properties of certain instruments allegedly capable of lifting the entire regulatory process out of the morass of public debate and compromise can only be explained by the constraining hold on their minds of a model of policymaking in which decisions are, in James Buchanan's words, "handed down from on high by omniscient beings who cannot err" (Majone, 1989, p.143). In the case of the UNWTO policy recommendations, as well as those of many other supranational, national and destination governance bodies, one of the cornerstones of the sustainable tourism policy paradigm is that of “balance” (Hall, 1994, 2010a; Hunter, 2002; Mercer, 2000; Wall, 1997). For example, according to the then UNWTO Secretary-General Francesco Frangialli, the UNWTO is “committed to seek balanced and equitable policies to encourage both responsible energy related consumption as well as anti-poverty operational patterns. This can and must lead to truly sustainable growth within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals” (UNWTO, 2007a). Similarly, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (2009) state that “The term Sustainable Tourism was conceived and adopted at the World Earth Summit in 2002 and has provided a platform for propelling the importance of a balance between the economic, environmental and socio-cultural aspects of tourism”. Yet what does balance mean? Perhaps one of the best statements can be found in an editorial in The Ecologist which referred to an inquiry undertaken by the British Independent Television Commission in 1998 with respect to an attack on the environmental movement in a Channel Four television programme “Against Nature” first shown in the UK in November and December 1997. In the programme’s defence, Michael Jackson, Chief Executive of Channel Four, wrote “The small but significant group of people who hold views opposed to the environmental lobby have rarely been seen on British television” (quoted in Edwards, 1998, p.201). In response The Ecologist editorial stated “Jackson’s view is the norm for a culture in which business dominance is so total, so normal, that any challenges to that domination are seen as ‘biased’ and ‘strange’, requiring immediate balance” (Edwards, 1998, p.201). The centrality of continued economic growth in conceptualising sustainable tourism is also a theme in much academic writing on the subject. For example, Edgell (2006, p.24) states that, “For sustainable tourism to be successful, long-term policies that balance environmental, social, and economic issues must be fashioned” with his book preface noting that it, “stresses that positive sustainable tourism development is dependent on forwardlooking policies and new management philosophies that seek harmonious relations between local communities, the private sector, not-for-profit organizations, academic institutions, and governments at all levels to develop practices that protect natural, built, and cultural environments in a way compatible with economic growth” (2006, p.xiii) (this author’s emphasis). 10 Yet the continuing contribution of a growing tourism industry to environmental change (Table 3) raises a clear question as to whether sustainable tourism can actually be achieved via a so-called ‘balanced’ approach that seeks to continue to promote economic growth. For example, even the highly conservative World Economic Forum (2009a) estimate that CO2 emissions from tourism (excluding aviation) will grow at 2.5% per year until 2035 with annual increases in carbon emissions from aviation growing at about 2.7%. The International Air Transport Association (2010) forecasts 16 billion air travellers by 2050, although noting “Today’s jet fuel cannot sustain air transport in the long-term. We must find a sustainable alternative and our most promising opportunity is bio fuels, which have the potential to reduce our carbon footprint by up to 80%”. The notion that you can promote international tourism as a means of alleviating poverty while simultaneously reducing tourism’s contribution to climate change is also increasingly criticised (Gössling, Hall, & Scott, 2009; Hall, 2007a, 2010a), given that there is clear evidence that there is not a simple and predictable relationship between pollution and per capita income so that as incomes or GDP rise the level of pollution and biodiversity loss declines (the so-called environmental Kuznets curve) (Czech et al., 2005; Dietz & Adger, 2003; Mills & Waite, 2009; Mozumder, Berrens & Bohara, 2006; Stern, 2004). In economic policy terms Hood (1994, p.68) observed that social and economic factors cause anomalies with policy until “the conditions which it requires no longer exist” (see also May, 1992). Could the same also be the case with respect to sustainable tourism? For example, even though the UNEP and UNWTO (2005) promote the voluntary Guidelines on Biodiversity and Tourism Development of the Convention on Biological Diversity (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), 2004), the reality is that few countries have implemented them (Hall, 2010c). This is despite them being developed “in order to promote sustainable tourism” which “has the potential to reconcile economic and environmental concerns and give a practical meaning to sustainable development”, and them being “a tangible tool in keeping with the commitment of Parties to focus on the practical implementation of the Convention and the target to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss, which is at the heart of the Convention’s strategic plan” (Hamdallah Zedan, Executive Secretary Convention on Biological Diversity, in Secretariat of the CBD, 2004, p.1). Instead, the Secretariat of the CBD (2010, p.9) note that the target agreed by the world’s Governments “‘to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth’, has not been met. There are multiple indications of continuing decline in biodiversity in all three of its main components — genes, species and ecosystems”. Furthermore, the five principal pressures directly driving biodiversity loss – habitat change, overexploitation, pollution, invasive alien species and climate change – and to which tourism is a significant contributor (Hall, 2010e), “are either constant or increasing in intensity… The ecological footprint of humanity exceeds the biological capacity of the Earth by a wider margin than at the time the 2010 target was agreed” (Secretariat of the CBD, 2010, p.9). In such circumstances, Greener (2001, p.140) notes, “policymakers may well realise that existing policy is not working, but be afraid of the political implications of appearing to learn from the error”. For example, the fourth UNEP Global Environment Outlook report (2007, p.159) identified that “Biodiversity loss continues because current policies and economic systems do not incorporate the values of biodiversity effectively in either the political or the market systems, and many current policies are not fully implemented”. Nevertheless, the voluntary, market-oriented instruments of the dominant paradigm of sustainable tourism and sustainability have remained little affected. May (1992) and Greener 11 (2001) observe that this is because if instruments were substantially changed then policymakers could then be accused of making a policy 'U-turn' and abandoning their values. Nevertheless, there is clearly the development of an alternative ecological economic or ‘degrowth’ perspective with respect to sustainability and sustainable tourism that seeks to provide a different paradigm from the so-called “balanced” approach to sustainable development (Gössling, Hall, Lane & Weaver, 2008; Hall, 2009a, 2010a). Fundamental to this alternative articulation of sustainable development is the centrality of the need to conserve natural capital. Hall (2010a, p.137) suggests that “much tourism growth, as with much economic growth in general, is already uneconomic at the present margin as we currently measure it given that it is leading to a clear running down of natural capital”. As Daly (2008, p.2) commented in a report to the UK Sustainable Development Commission: The growth economy is failing. In other words, the quantitative expansion of the economic subsystem increases environmental and social costs faster than production benefits, making us poorer not richer, at least in high-consumption countries. Given the laws of diminishing marginal utility and increasing marginal costs, this should not have been unexpected. Hall (2009a) argues that sustainable tourism needs to be understood from a steadystate economic perspective that explicitly recognizes the extent to which economic development, including tourism, is dependent on the stock of natural capital. Steady state tourism is a tourism system that encourages qualitative development but not aggregate quantitative growth to the detriment of natural capital (Hall, 2010a). A steady state economy, including at the destination level, can therefore be defined in terms of “a constant flow of throughput at a sustainable (low) level, with population and capital stock free to adjust to whatever size can be maintained by the constant throughput beginning with depletion and ending with pollution” (Daly, 2008, p.3). Such an approach focuses on economic sufficiency as well as economic efficiency. The sufficiency approach aims to slow the rate and amount of consumption via a mix of market and regulatory mechanisms. The focus on time in much of the sufficiency literature has meant the approach is often related to the notion of ‘slow’ consumption as well as the concept of ‘décroissance’, ‘degrowth’ or ‘slow tourism’ (Flipo & Schneider, 2008; Hall, 2009a; Martínez-Alier, Pascual, Vivien & Zaccai, 2010). Elements of such an approach in tourism policy terms include (Hall, 2007b, 2010a): • The development of voluntary and mandated environmental standards at various scales of governance • The adoption of cradle-to-cradle lifecycle analysis in determining tourism infrastructure and product life spans • Relocalisation schemes that reinforce the potential economic, social and environmental benefits of consuming, producing and travelling locally • Ethical consumption measures that focus on living better by consuming less and the satisfaction of non-material needs • Taxation and other measures that reflect the full environmental cost of travel and tourism development The necessity of such measures is perhaps also beginning to be recognised in ‘official’ documents of lead organizations involved in sustainability. For example, the Secretariat of the CBD (2010, p.12) state “The real benefits of biodiversity, and the costs of its loss, need to be reflected within economic systems and markets.” The establishment of the Sustainable Development Commission in the UK in 2000 was also perhaps an indication of the need to articulate alternative expert policy advice. However, when a new hierarchy of policy goals is being adopted, the framework of ideas which becomes dominant is not 12 necessarily the most technically coherent. Instead, with respect to the idea of political learning and its relationship to paradigm change, it will be the one whose supporters are best politically able to implement it despite opposition. As Greener (2001, p.136) notes, “Politicians have the most influence over the final choice of goals, but they must mobilise popular support within the media and public to carry the electorate with them”. One potential driver for change in policy paradigms is the influence of exogenous shocks or “crises” on the wider public of policy (Hall, P., 1993; Hall, 2010b). Greener, along with May (1992) and Peter Hall (1993), emphasised that, “The oil price and currency shocks of the early 1970s helped create hostile economic conditions which made it possible for advocates of monetarism to question the ability of Keynesians to run the economy” (Greener, 2001, p.136). In the same way the combined pressures of biodiversity loss, climate change and peak oil as well as other elements of environmental change might contribute to a policy paradigm change with respect to sustainability and sustainable tourism. Conclusion This article has set out to relate the relevance of the concept of policy learning and policy failure to our understanding of the policy domain of sustainable tourism and consequent change. Drawing primarily on the work of May (1992) and Greener (2001), it has highlighted that policy learning within policy domains takes different forms ranging from instrumental learning through to conceptual and political learning. It has also sought to connect the different levels of policy problems to the different orders of policy learning (Hall, P., 1993). It has been argued that most sustainable tourism policy learning, as well as academic work on sustainable tourism, is primarily focussed on the setting of policy instruments and/or indicators and therefore constitutes only first order change. Or, where there has been change to policy instruments, this has occurred within the existing policy paradigm of “balanced” sustainable development (second order change). These measures have been evidenced with respect to the work of some of the key institutional actors in tourism policy networks, such as the UNEP, UNWTO, WEF and WTTC. However, such an approach is also to be found at various levels of government (e.g., Department for Culture, Media and Sport Tourism Division, (UK), 2005; Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, 2005). It has also highlighted that there is a developing alternative paradigm of sustainability and sustainable tourism variously described as “de-growth”, “slow”, or “steady-state” tourism (Hall, 2007b, 2009a) and has posited that environmentally related exogenous pressures on public perceptions of policies may influence policy paradigm change or reorientation towards the alternative paradigm (see also Heinberg, 2007; Zhao, Feng & Hall, 2009). Nevertheless, such third-order change is by no means guaranteed. Indeed, the announcement in July 2010 by the UK coalition government that it would withdraw its funding from the Sustainable Development Commission despite Prime Minister Cameron pledging to be the “greenest government ever” (Bevins, 2010) and the Commission having “delivered efficiency savings totalling many times what the organisation has cost the Government, and contributed towards much greater sustainability in Government – both in the way it runs itself, and the decisions it makes about our wellbeing and our future” (Sustainable Development Commission, 2010), only reinforces the difficulties of achieving fundamental change. As discussed above, May’s (1992) notion of policy learning is significant as it highlights the possibility of policy learning occurring without a paradigm shift as a result of political rather than conceptual learning. This is particularly likely to happen when the holders of the alternative policy paradigm do not have sufficient political capital, political resources, or power within a policy network. Arguably this has already 13 happened with respect to the articulation of an alternative development paradigm. In the late 1960s and early 1970s as a result of oil and other environmental shocks substantial concerns were expressed with respect to an overconcentration in government policies on economic growth without consideration of the limits of natural resources (e.g. Daly, 1974; Meadows, Meadow, Randers & Behrens, 1972; Mishan, 1967). These were also discussed with respect to the implications of tourism and travel. For example, Mishan (1970) in concluding his evaluation of the Commission on the Third London Airport commented … equity is wholly ignored. If indeed, the business tycoons and the Mallorca holiday-makers are shown to benefit, after paying their fares, to such an extent that they could more than compensate the victims of aircraft spillover, the cost-benefit criterion is met. But compensation is not paid. The former continue to enjoy the profit and the pleasure; the latter continue to suffer the disamenities (Mishan, 1970, p.234). Similarly, in an article entitled “slow is beautiful” Gleditsch (1975) noted, “the severe environmental problems involved in an unlimited or uncontrolled further growth in aviation” (1975, p.91) as well as the uneven structure of personal mobility. In a prescient observation of what would now be described as the “hypermobile” (Gössling, Ceron, Dubios & Hall, 2009), Gleditsch (1975, p.91) “hypothesized … that topdogs will secure a disproportionately high share of the advantages and a disproportionately low share of the disadvantages of any new transportation system. … With resources such as education and income, topdogs are in a position to make use of new transportation technology - and avoid its cost.” The above comments suggest that the alternative policy paradigm for sustainable tourism is a continuation of previous critiques of a public policy focus on economic growth at the expense of environmental and social concerns. But they also suggest that, some 40 years on, an alternative policy paradigm has failed to make significant policy headway. The degree of policy failure with respect to conservation of natural capital is considerable but it has not yet been matched by an accompanying conceptual policy change that removes the focus on economic growth and the market. Significant issues also remain with respect to the relationship between orders of change and scales of governance. As Dovers (2005, p.167) notes, “the issue of spatial scale is deeply recurrent in sustainability and deserves closer attention”. This paper has tended to concentrate on examples of the dominance of the “balanced growth” paradigm of sustainable tourism and sustainable development at the international/supranational scale but it is something that permeates all levels of governance in tourism. Within the public policy and governance of sustainable development literature the notion of subsidiarity has become quite significant (e.g. Kemp, Parto & Gibson, 2005), whereby “responsibility should be located at the lowest level of government in terms of effectiveness and appropriateness for the function in question” (Dovers, 2005, p.167). This has often been interpreted as the region being the optimal scale for sustainable management (Roberts, 2006), particularly in terms of the capacity to develop greater policy integration; common objectives, criteria, trade-off rules and indicators; information and incentives for practical implementation; and system innovation (Kemp et al., 2005). However, while regions are the ideal basis for sustainable adaptive management and innovation (Hall & Williams, 2008), or even being “islands of sustainability” that “can be seen as 'trouble makers' which infiltrate the whole unsustainable system and act as cells of development” (Wallner, Narodoslawsky, & Moser, 1996, p.1763), they remain framed by national and supranational institutions and regulation. This means that while the old adage to “think globally, act locally” is undoubtedly integral to sustainability, the macro-policy global nature of many environmental and economic problems (see Table 3) also necessitates the development of a global institutional and regulatory superstructure. Yet while this 14 superstructure remains wedded to assumptions based on the compatibility between the environment and economic growth and acceptance of market forces the development of steady-state perspective on sustainability remains all the more problematic (Demerritt, 2006; Gareau, 2008; Igoe, Neves & Brockington, 2010; MacDonald, 2010). As Bernstein (2002, p.2) notes, “the institutions that have developed in response to global environmental problems support particular kinds of values and goals, with important implications for the constraints and opportunities to combat the world’s most serious environmental problems”. Undoubtedly, from a steady-state perspective paradigm change is something that is required at all levels. However, in order to achieve change the norms that are central to all governance structures need to undergo a substantial shift. Far too much attention has been given to the assumption that a well-designed institution is “good” because it facilitates cooperation and network development rather than a focus on norms and institutionalisation as fiŽrst and necessary steps in the assessment of what kind of changes institutional arrangements are promoting and their potential outcomes. As this paper has suggested, such an approach has only reinforced first and second order change rather than conceptual policy learning. …the consequence is that liberal environmentalism has resulted in enabling certain kinds of responses to global environmental problems consistent with it, such as possibilities for the privatization of environmental governance in some areas or the increasing use of market mechanisms. But at the same time it has made trade offs much more difficult because it denies that they may be necessary among values of efficiency, economic growth, corporate freedom, and environmental protection (Bernstein, 2002, p.14). Nevertheless, it is the growing awareness of the contradictions in, and policy failure of, liberal environmentalism that may also offer an opportunity for third order change. The role of policy failure and learning with respect to sustainable tourism policy and governance issues in relation to first and second order change is important and clearly warrants further study. However, any understanding of the potential for third order change needs to be grounded in research of the interrelationships between power, values, norms and interests and how they influence the selection of policy instruments, indicators and settings within broader frames of governance and change. 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Records of the term “sustainable tourism” in major academic databases Year Within Scopus Keywords Scopus Abstracts Within ScienceDirect Keywords Within ScienceDirect Abstracts 15 8 4 3 5 10 4 2 6 6 3 3 4 2 4 3 2 3 1 Within ISI Web of Knowledge Titles 24 32 35 16 19 13 14 6 14 11 14 6 6 17 11 8 4 2 2 1 - 2010 59 80 9 2009 55 58 9 2008 40 58 3 2007 34 46 3 2006 30 49 2 2005 20 32 6 2004 12 30 1 2003 11 30 2 2002 19 33 9 2001 9 25 5 2000 6 24 1 1999 2 16 1 1998 2 9 2 1997 6 13 1996 8 7 1995 8 7 2 1994 7 7 2 1993 3 1992 5 8 1991 1990 1 1989 2 Searches undertaken 1 June 2010; 6 January 2011 24 Table 2. Tourism’s contribution to global environmental change Dimension Number of international tourist arrivals Number of domestic tourist arrivals Total number of tourist arrivals Change of land cover – alteration of biologically productive lands Energy consumption Emissions Biotic exchange 2001 estimates 682 million1 3,580.5 million2 4,262.5 million2 0.5 percent contribution3 2007 estimates 898 million1 4,714.5 million2 5,612.5 million2 0.6-0.66 percent contribution4 14,080 PJ3 1400 Mt of CO2-e3 Difficult to assess3 18,585.6 PJ4 1848 Mt of CO2-e4 (1461.6 Mt of CO2)5 Difficult to assess, however rate of exchange is increasing4 Difficult to assess, particularly because of time between initial tourism effects and extinction events but increasing. One estimate of 3.5-5.5% of species loss with a future higher figure being likely if climate change factors are considered6 Difficult to assess in host populations, but sickness in tourists in tropical destinations assessed at 50% by WHO7 6,632.2 million 84.6% 13.5% Extinction of wild species Difficult to assess3 Health Difficult to assess3 World Population8 Total number of tourist arrivals as % of world population Number of international tourist arrivals as % of world population 6,169.8 million 69.1% 11.1% 1. UNWTO figures 2. Hall and Lew (2009) estimates based on UNWTO data 3. Gössling (2002) estimate 4. Hall and Lew (2009) extrapolation based on Gössling’s estimates and other research 5. UNWTO and UNEP (2008) estimate for 2005 6. In Hall (2010) 7. World Health Organisation (2003) 8. Mid-year world population estimate by US Census Bureau International Data Base (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpop.html) 25 Table 3. The relative tractability of sustainable tourism policy solutions Policy problem Macropolicy Spatial scale Spatially and temporally diffuse. International or global in scope. Problem nature Complex and highly uncertain and often connected to other macropolicy issues as part of the meta-policy problem of sustainability. Ill-structured, ‘wicked’ or ‘messy’ policy problem. Significant problem that is often high on the policy agenda. Moderately structured policy problem. Policy challenge Potentially highly disruptive of natural and socio-economic systems and challenges existing patterns of consumption and production, policy processes and institutional arrangements Examples International biodiversity conservation, emissions reduction and climate change conventions Mesopolicy Usually addressed within a national or bilateral governance context Routine policy management. Does not pose overwhelming threats to existing patterns of production and consumption, policy processes, and/or institutional arrangements Day-to-day policy management. Does not require large resource commitment. Uses existing technology, policy process, and/or institutional arrangements Integrated catchment management, transboundary pollution and resource problems Micropolicy Spatially and temporally discrete. Usually local or sectoral scale Not overly complex or uncertain. Well-structured policy problem. Environmental impact assessment, tourism development approval, pollution licensing, tourism industry regulation Sources: Dovers, 1995; Hall, 2008 26