Government tourism organisations in China: an inter-organisational analysis

Abstract

China as an emerging tourist destination has attracted the attention of many researchers in the past couple of decades. However, no systematic research has been carried out on China's tourism organisations which play an important part in the country's tourism development. This thesis is based on Pearce's conceptual framework for inter-organisational analysis of tourist organisations and examines the government tourism organisation network in China. The study focuses on the structures, goals, functions and inter-organisational relationships of China's government tourism organisations at the national, regional and local scales. The China National Tourism Administration, the Liaoning Tourism Administration and the Dalian Tourism Bureau are selected as three case studies. In-depth interviews and documentation analysis are the key approaches for information collection to examine the three organisations. Government plays an important role in China's tourism development due to its large size and its unique centralised market economy in the socialist system. The government tourism organisations undertake a wide range of functions, such as tourism policy, planning and development, marketing, industry administration, and education and training. China's government tourism organisations are recognised as forming a top-down network. The China National Tourism Administration, as the sole national tourism organisation, has supreme power to control tourism development throughout the country as well as the tourism organisations at the regional and local levels. With the decentralisation policy, the regional and local tourism organisations begin to enjoy more freedom in tourism promotion and administration, but their power is still limited. Because of the overlap of some of the main functions of the government agencies, the tourism organisations sometimes find it difficult to collaborate with other sectors in implementing tourism policies. In addition, the public sector tourism organisations control too much of tourism development, which leaves the private sector little space to participate. It is suggested that the Chinese government should loosen its control gradually. Only in this way can the tourism industry in China adapt to international competition and achieve further development.