Mobilities on the Gold Coast, Australia: implications for destination governance and sustainable tourism

Mobilities of people, capital, labour, expertise, resources and images create significant challenges for sustainable destination governance. This paper discusses the implications of mobilities for destination governance where fluid populations of tourists, residents, second home owners and recreationists, and transnational flows of labour and capital intersect to create and recreate the physical, social, economic and political characteristics of place. Three key processes that affect destination management are identified: the spatial restructuring of destinations, the pluralisation of destination management and the re-envisioning of community. In a study of the hyper-neoliberal destination of the Gold Coast, Australia, mobilities are examined and implications for governance are discussed. Our research highlights the challenges of measuring, evaluating and understanding the extent and complexity of mobilities, and explores the tensions between mobilities and established sustainable tourism principles that suggest governance should be grounded in local community dialogue and values. The differences between “hard” and “soft” power structures in destination governance are noted. The paper contributes methodological insights into the study of mobilities and to theoretical and practical debates about the influence of mobilities on sustainable destination management, especially the need to re-visit the meanings of long-accepted concepts in sustainable tourism, including “public interest”, “community” and “community-based” tourism.

[1]  C. Hall,et al.  Tourism: Rethinking the Social Science of Mobility , 2005 .

[2]  Dianne Dredge,et al.  Histories of placemaking in the Gold Coast City: The neoliberal norm, the State story and the community narrative , 2011 .

[3]  R. Elmhirst.  Methodological dilemmas in migration research in Asia: research design, omissions and strategic erasures , 2012 .

[4]  C. Hall,et al.  Tourism, governance and the (mis-)location of power , 2007 .

[5]  T. Edensor.  Mundane mobilities, performances and spaces of tourism , 2007 .

[6]  Angeline Goreau.  A sunny place for shady people , 1994 .

[7]  R. Sills,et al.  The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy , 1999 .

[8]  J. Kijas.  A place at the coast: Internal migration and the shift to the coastal-countryside , 2002 .

[9]  M. Bell,et al.  Towards comparative measures of circulation: Insights from indigenous Australia , 2012 .

[10]  Roger Farrell.  Organisation, Motivations and Case Studies of Japanese Direct Investment in Real Estate 1985-94 , 1998 .

[11]  B. Faulkner,et al.  Entrepreneurship, chaos and the tourism area lifecycle. , 2004 .

[12]  M. Sheller.  The new Caribbean complexity: Mobility systems, tourism and spatial rescaling , 2009 .

[13]  Peter Burns,et al.  Tourism and mobilities : local-global connections , 2008 .

[14]  R. Spilsbury.  The Tourism Industry , 2012 .

[15]  M. Bevir.  Governance: A Very Short Introduction , 2012 .

[16]  R. Yin.  Case Study Research: Design and Methods , 1984 .

[17]  B. Berry,et al.  Urbanization and counterurbanization , 1978 .

[18]  Jean Hartley,et al.  Case study research , 2004 .

[19]  Tourism Urbanization , 1995 .

[20]  D. Müller,et al.  FROM SECOND HOME TO PRIMARY RESIDENCE: MIGRATION TOWARDS RECREATIONAL PROPERTIES IN SWEDEN 1991–2005 , 2012 .

[21]  C. Keller.  TOURISM, MOBILITY AND SECOND HOMES: BETWEEN ELITE LANDSCAPE AND COMMON GROUND , 2005 .

[22]  Dianne Dredge,et al.  Tourism Planning and Policy , 2006 .

[23]  Jesse Abrams,et al.  Amenity migration: diverse conceptualizations of drivers, socioeconomic dimensions, and emerging challenges , 2011 .

[24]  Dianne Dredge,et al.  Place change and tourism development conflict: Evaluating public interest , 2010 .

[25]  T. Mordue.  Tourism, Urban Governance and Public Space , 2007 .

[26]  R. Broomhill.  Australian Economic Booms in Historical Perspective , 2008 .

[27]  R. Rhodes.  Understanding governance : policy networks, governance, reflexivity and accountability , 1997 .

[28]  B. Bramwell,et al.  Governance, the state and sustainable tourism: a political economy approach , 2011 .

[29]  W. J. Booth.  Communities of Memory: On Witness, Identity, and Justice , 2006 .

[30]  M. Castells,et al.  The Network Society: From Knowledge to Policy , 2006 .

[31]  T. Jamal,et al.  The short and long of collaborative planning in the mountain resort destination of Canmore, Canada , 2011 .

[32]  S. Fainstein,et al.  Cities and visitors : regulating people, markets, and city space , 2003 .

[33]  T. Jamal.  Conflict in Natural Area Destinations: A Critique of Representation and ‘Interest’ in Participatory Processes , 2004 .

[34]  C. Hall,et al.  Tourism place-making: Governance of Locality in Sweden , 2012 .

[35]  P. Mullins.  Cities of post-industrialism, cities of post-modernity , 2000 .

[36]  Simon Milne,et al.  Tourism, economic development and the global-local nexus: Theory embracing complexity , 2001 .

[37]  Laura L. Ellingson,et al.  Engaging Crystallization in Qualitative Research: An Introduction , 2008 .

[38]  B. Bramwell,et al.  Tourism Collaboration and Partnerships: Politics, Practice and Sustainability , 2000 .

[39]  Dianne Dredge,et al.  Mongrel management, public interest and protected area management in the Victorian Alps, Australia , 2009 .

[40]  John Minnery,et al.  Why People Move to the 'Sun-belt': A Case Study of Long-distance Migration to the Gold Coast, Australia , 1998 .

[41]  Tazim Jamal,et al.  Collaboration theory and tourism practice in protected areas: stakeholders, structuring and sustainability , 2009 .

[42]  N. Brenner.  Urban governance and the production of new state spaces in western Europe, 1960–2000 , 2004 .

[43]  R. Yin,et al.  Case Study Research: Design and Methods (4th ed. , 2009 .

[44]  M. Gottdiener,et al.  Las Vegas: The Social Production of an All-American City , 2000 .

[45]  D. Gladstone,et al.  Tourism Urbanization in the United States , 1998 .

[46]  C. Mitchell,et al.  Making sense of counterurbanization , 2004 .

[47]  Nicole Gurran.  The Turning Tide: Amenity Migration in Coastal Australia , 2008 .

[48]  Simon Springer,et al.  A Brief History of Neoliberalism , 2007 .

[49]  S. Britton,et al.  Tourism, Capital, and Place: Towards a Critical Geography of Tourism , 1991 .

[50]  G. Griffin.  Where green turns to gold: strip cultivation and the Gold Coast hinterland , 2002 .

[51]  J. Nye,et al.  Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics , 2004 .

[52]  A. Gill,et al.  Finding a pad in paradise: amenity migration effects on Whistler, British Columbia. , 2006 .

[53]  A. G. Champion.  Urbanization and counterurbanization , 1999 .

[54]  Allan M. Williams,et al.  Tourism, migration, circulation and mobility , 2002 .

[55]  J. Urry,et al.  Tourism Mobilities: Places to Play, Places in Play , 2004 .

[56]  R. Stimson,et al.  Communities of the Postindustrial City , 2002 .

[57]  C. Hall,et al.  A typology of governance and its implications for tourism policy analysis , 2011 .

[58]  Allan M. Williams,et al.  Tourism and migration: New relationships between production and consumption , 2000 .

[59]  J. Hajdu.  The Gold Coast, Australia: Spatial model of its development and the impact of the cycle of foreign investment in property during the late 1980's , 1993 .

[60]  M. Uysal,et al.  Handbook of Tourism and Quality-of-Life Research: Enhancing the Lives of Tourists and Residents of Host Communities , 2012 .

[61]  P. Mullins.  TOURIST CITIES AS NEW CITIES , 1990 .

[62]  Ash Amin,et al.  Globalization, Institutions, and Regional Development in Europe , 1995 .

[63]  J. Tunbridge,et al.  The tourist city , 2000 .

[64]  R. Mayntz.  The architecture of multi-level governance of economic sectors , 2007 .

[65]  D. Holmes.  Monocultures of globalization: touring Australia's Gold Coast. , 2001 .

[66]  Martin Bell,et al.  Comparing temporary mobility with permanent migration , 2000 .