Institutional Change Processes in National Tourism Administrations: the Case of Servicio Nacional De Turismo, Chile
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INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE PROCESSES IN NATIONAL TOURISM ADMINISTRATIONS: THE CASE OF SERVICIO NACIONAL DE TURISMO, CHILE BY César Alejandro Guala Catalán A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Tourism Management Victoria University of Wellington (2013) ABSTRACT Three decades after the creation of the Chilean national tourism administration – the Servicio Nacional de Turismo (Sernatur) – the government initiated a process of institutional change. In 2007, a bill was submitted to Parliament and in 2010 the bill was enacted (Act 20423). Act 20423 replaced the existing national tourism administration (NTA) with a new set of public organisations performing various roles in tourism. The act not only created a new structure but also modified the allocation of roles in tourism to different agencies thereby creating a new public institutional framework for tourism in Chile. Although changes like those occurring in Chile have attracted some attention, such research tends to lack a broad perspective and fails to consider how and why processes of change occur and how changes in the general environment impact on the process. In order to address this broad perspective, this thesis concentrates on three research questions: what was the process that led to the creation of the new Chilean institutional framework for tourism, what were the factors that influenced and shaped the process, and how and why did the process and the factors influence the outcomes of the process. In this way, this research aims to provide a better understanding of how and why NTAs change over time. To address this problem, a conceptual framework is developed from three separate bodies of literature: tourism organisations, the administration of the public sector, and tourism policymaking. The framework illustrates two critical aspects to investigate a process of change in NTAs: a spatial scale and a temporal scale. The first scale shows that the process of change occurs in, and is influenced by, a broad context composed of two sub-systems and multiple interrelated organisations. The second scale presents the process of change over time and shows that changes in the environmental conditions also influence the process. The process of change and the influence of contextual factors are examined using an in-depth analysis of the relevant documentation. This method is complemented by in-depth semi-structured interviews with multiple stakeholders. In order to address ii the various aspects of the conceptual framework, a multi-phase approach is also adopted for the analysis of the data. The research reveals that in democratic countries like Chile, institutional change occurs in the context of a legislative process. Three policy stages are suggested to operationalise the process: pre-legislative, policy window, and legislative. In each of these stages there are several components of a policy process: evaluations, agendas, formulation, decision making, and implementation. During the process of change these components overlap and a division into consecutive phases as proposed by the Policy Cycle Model cannot be operationalised. The thesis also shows that the process is influenced and shaped by several factors arising from environmental conditions and evaluation reports. Environmental conditions directly impact on the process and shape the focus and outcomes of evaluation reports. In turn, evaluation reports impact on the process by shaping the proposals discussed during the policy stages. This also challenges the Policy Cycle Model on the ground that evaluations are not part of a single phase and that these evaluations play different roles during the policy process. Finally, this thesis suggests that the outcomes of a process of institutional change in tourism are influenced by both the environmental conditions and the features of the process (consultation, participation, agreement, disagreement, power, negotiation, and acceptance). Variations in the environmental conditions influence the features of the policy process and in turn, changes in these features directly impact the outcomes of the process. In summary, the analysis of the Chilean case reveals that processes of change in NTAs are directly influenced by the general environment in which these processes occur. This suggests that these processes are not isolated developments and therefore the general environment strongly influences the features and outcomes of the process. Hence, investigating the influence of these conditions is critical to explain how a process of change occurs and why particular outcomes result from the process. Variations in the environmental conditions impact on the features of the policy process so that changes in these features directly shape the outcomes of the process. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to say thank you to all my research participants. Without their involvement, this research could have not been possible. My deepest thanks to my principal supervisor, Professor Douglas G. Pearce. His guidance, patience and commitment were invaluable to reach this stage. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to start this journey and learn from you. I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Dr. Julia Albrecht. Her advice, empathy and support throughout these years made this a great learning process. Thank you to my wonderful parents and sister. Their commitment, dedication and endeavour have been an example for me to follow and an inspiration for whatever I do in life. This thesis is for them. To Steve; without your company and support this journey would have not been the same. This thesis is also for you. To Paola, Ximena, Carola, Fabiola, Christian, Aldo, Rocío, Max and many others friends from Chile; they were part of this dream from the very beginning and looked after me in spite of the distance. To my dear friends in New Zealand: Alf, Grant, Fraser, Harp, Shirley, Shane, Carlos, Ursula, Rodrigo, Begoña, Lili, Maggy, Phil, Regina, Daniel, Allan, Katja, Petra and many others. They were my family here for the last four years and will be always in my heart. To my good friend Huong, for her support and company during long sessions analysing data and writing up this thesis. To David Tecklin, Bronwen Golder, Deborah Collins and Emma Adcock for showing me New Zealand as the best place to carry out my PhD. To Jan Stewart, for her great support with my English. To my PhD colleagues at the university: Rebecca Bednarek (NZ), Zanele Ndaba (South Africa), Lois Parkes (Jamaica), Heike Schänzel (Germany), Chootima Longjit (Thailand), Garoon Pongsart (Thailand), Tuan Ngoc Le (Vietam), Ina Reichenberger (Germany), Robert Capistrano (Phillipines) and Tibor Zsirmik (Hungary). I would also like to thank Sophia and Megan for their help during these years. Thanks to the owners and staff of Café Astoria. Working there gave me the opportunity to take a breath from my thesis, meeting new people and discovering a different facet of what living in New Zealand is. Last, but not the least, to New Zealand Aid (NZAID) for granting me the scholarship and allowing me to come to New Zealand. Without these four years of funds my life here would have been a struggle and this thesis hard to finish. To all of them and many other people I have met during these years, thank you very much. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Why processes of change in national tourism administrations? ................... 1 1.2 Research questions..................................................................................... 4 1.3 What is a process of institutional change in NTAs? .................................... 6 1.4 Research methodology ............................................................................... 7 1.5 Structure of the thesis................................................................................. 9 1.6 Contribution ............................................................................................ 11 1.7 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2 Literature Review .................................................................................. 13 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................. 13 2.2 National tourism administrations.............................................................. 14 2.3 Tourism policy making: the Policy Cycle Model as an approach to explore institutional change processes in NTAs .............................................................. 18 2.3.1 The Policy Cycle Model. .................................................................. 19 2.3.2 The institutional approach. ................................................................ 21 2.4 A conceptual framework to investigate the institutional change processes in Sernatur ............................................................................................................. 22 2.5 The public sector administration: an approach to explore NTAs ............... 27 2.5.1 New Public Management: a dominant approach for the public sector. 27 2.5.2 Governance and Administrative reforms of the public sector............. 29 2.6 New elements for the interpretation of findings: An integrated conceptual framework to investigate the process of change in Sernatur ...............................