Create a 8 pages page paper that discusses how europe hits home. The theoretical framework can be found useful in evaluating the efficiency of the collaborative stakeholder-based processes such as fra

Create a 8 pages page paper that discusses how europe hits home. The theoretical framework can be found useful in evaluating the efficiency of the collaborative stakeholder-based processes such as framing the tourism policy and planning.

Tourism policy and planning is one of the central topics in the academic tourism research as well in the functional directions of national, regional and local tourism organizations. It is considered as an important part of tourism destination strategy and planning. (Heath & Wall, 1992. Prideaux & Cooper, 2002) From the perspective of tourism planning, tourism can be identified as a complex system. This system is considered central to the analysis of power relationships among the various stakeholder groups which are involved in the process of decision making. The tourism system can be described as one which is structured around "a core [that] generally consists of an assemblage of structures, goods, services, and resources directly contributing to the sector, the comprehensive tourism system includes significant social, economic, geological, and ecological components, along with processes and functions that complement its totality and are essential to its sustainability'. (Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004)

Tourism has been considered as a context for research rather than a discipline in its own tenets (Cooper, Fletcher, Fyall, Gilbert & Wanhill, 2005. Jafari & Ritchie, 1981) On this basis sociology offers a theoretical perspective to the study on tourism. This theoretical perspective is discussed in this paper in the context of the application of stakeholder and collaboration theory on tourism policy and planning. The complexity&nbsp.of the Tourism System. The linking of so many diverse kinds of products and services has made the tourism industry and the system as a complicated one (Edgell 1990). The tourism system is so fragmented (Shaw & Williams, 2002) that there exist a number of different players involved in a problem domain who have different interests and attribute different values (Trist, 1983). It is but critical to have a methodology that studies the stakeholder power structure precisely. Further, the tourism decision making process is usually characterized in terms of the collaborative power that the stakeholders possess (de Araujo & Bramwell, 2000. Keogh, 1990. Ladkin & Bertramini, 2002. Murphy, 988)

However, Reed (1997) points out that the authors on community tourism do not mention any issue of power being involved in the process. Collaborative processes, like destination branding, are therefore at risk of power imbalances that can inhibit both their initiation and success (Jamal & Getz, 1995).

Tourism as a Product. Tourism, when considered as a product, can be construed as an experience of a place with its location and people visited at a particular time (Wheeler 1995) Tourism as a product has been conceptualized in a number of ways. Medlik and Middleton (1973) considered the tourism product as a bundle of activities, services, and benefits that constitute the entire tourism experience. Tourism was looked at from two viewpoints by Middleton (1989). In one angle he looked at tourism as a discrete product resulting from the offer of a single business. In another way, tourism was looked like a total product describing the relative experience of the tourist. Smith (1994) had&nbsp.identified the following elements as being consisted of the product of tourism.&nbsp.