The Politics of Tourism Development : Booms and Busts in Ireland

Moving beyond both tourism and politics literatures' current understandings of how tourism is developed, this book offers an original theory of interlocking regimes to account for the manner in which public and private bodies either facilitate or prevent development within tourism. O'Brien provides an innovative analysis that moves beyond current understandings of how tourism is developed. She offers a new theoretical concept of interlocking regimes to conceptualize the interactions of the state and the private sector, which either facilitate or prevent development. The book questions the classic presentation of the Irish tourism's underdevelopment, which did not occur because of inadequate visitor numbers but because the state actively refused to develop the sector. It also challenges classic accounts of the tourism 'boom' which propose that it was achieved due to the liberalisation of air access and resource transfers from the European Union. These factors were politically mediated, for better or worse, by the Irish state. Following the 2008 crisis, the state's capacity to engage with tourism development was undermined by their failure to radically reverse the declining fortunes of the industry by 2011 Front Matter....Pages i-viii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Introduction....Pages 3-15 Capitalist Economies, Sectors, and States: Understanding Tourism....Pages 16-34 Explaining Irish Development....Pages 35-55 State Development and Regime Change....Pages 56-71 Front Matter....Pages 73-73 Tourism, the Irish State, and Developmental Failures....Pages 75-96 Tiger Growth: Tourism’s Roaring Trade 1987–2007....Pages 97-121 Crisis in 2008....Pages 122-146 Front Matter....Pages 147-147 Crisis: The Catalyst for Change....Pages 149-163 Narrating Crisis in 1987 and Lessons Not Learned in 2008....Pages 164-176 The Future of Irish Tourism and Conclusions....Pages 177-191 Back Matter....Pages 192-213