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| A LITERATURE REVIEW OF TOURISM STAKEHOLDERS ABROAD AND ITS ENLIGHTENMENT |
| GUO Hua1,2 |
1. Department of Tourism Management, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China;
2. College of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510630, China |
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Abstract The concept of Stakeholder originates from management literature, which is defined as any group or individual who can affect, or is affected by, the achievement of a corporation's purpose. Since 1970s and 1980s, because of the environmental pressure and negative social influence led by tourism activities, more and more foreign scholars have paid attention to the issue of tourism stakeholder. They regard the stakeholder theory as an ideal approach to maintain the balance between tourism activity and social, environmental concerns. Now, tourism stakeholder has become a hot topic in tourism research area in foreign countries. Based on collecting and analyzing plentiful literatures, this paper gives a systematical review of the research on tourism stakeholders abroad, and points out that the results have been increasing year after year. The major results are mainly concentrated on the following four areas: firstly, definition and categories of tourism stakeholders. Secondly, stakeholders concerned with tourism planning and management. Thirdly, stakeholders concerned with tourism environmental ethic. Fourthly, community tourism and stakeholders' coordination.
Although the research of tourism stakeholder abroad has not been so systematized yet, rich fruits have appeared and empirical analysis is the main method used by foreign researchers. Comparatively, in China, the concept of tourism stakeholder was not introduced till the end of the 20th century. The researchers have been showing great interests in applying the stakeholder theory to tourism planning and management. Totally speaking, the relative research in China is weaker, normative analysis method is used mainly.
The lights of research abroad which can be thrown on domestic research are discussed at the end of the paper in order to promote the progress of correlative research in our country. Four aspects can be explored in the future: firstly, further classification on stakeholders in different kinds of tourism destinations or communities; secondly, the diversities of stakeholders' power relations under different political backgrounds; thirdly, the evolution of stakeholders' power relations; lastly, the stakeholders managing in regional tourism cooperation.
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Received: 15 January 2007
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2008, Vol. 23 
