توسعه پایدار در شهرداری های گردشگری: نقش کالاهای عمومی

It is usually argued that, since many of the inputs used in the production function of private firms in tourism municipalities are depletable, unsustainability looms over the horizons of tourism jurisdictions. However, this reasoning forgets that public goods are an important part of tourism products. Since public goods are nonrival (and hence nondepletable), a way out of the apparent unsustainability might exist. By considering well-established growth models, this paper argues that a correct supply of public goods may contribute to achieve sustainable development throughout time in tourism municipalities.

Many activities related to tourism intensively use the territorial and natural resources of the jurisdiction where they are located. This is the case, for instance, of the hotels located in a given tourism municipality. Economic activity in the jurisdiction is directly related to the number of tourists visiting it. Although greater numbers of tourists increase the economic activity of the jurisdiction where the tourism supply is located (thus increasing the jurisdiction's income levels), increasing numbers of visitors also imply more pressure on the jurisdiction's resources. For instance, as more hotels are built to accommodate increasing demand, natural and territorial resources become scarcer and, since those resources are clearly limited (a jurisdiction has fixed boundaries), a limit to growth is to be reached some time into the future. This reasoning lies at the heart of Kenneth Boulding (1966): (…) I am tempted to call the open economy the ‘cowboy economy,’ the cowboy being symbolic of the illimitable plains and also associated with reckless, exploitative, romantic, and violent behaviour, which is characteristic of open societies. The closed economy of the future might similarly be called the ‘spaceman’ economy, in which the earth has become a single spaceship, without unlimited reservoirs of anything, either for extraction or for pollution, and in which, therefore, man must find his place in a cyclical ecological system which is capable of continuous reproduction of material form even though it cannot escape having inputs of energy. Indeed, it could be argued that there is no way to escape the apparent unsustainability of development and growth in tourism municipalities. However, this paper argues that a way out of the trade-off exists for municipalities which base their tourism supply on the provision of local public goods. One should understand a jurisdiction's “public goods” in a broad sense, including cultural legacy (monuments, gastronomy, traditions, etc.), preservation of the environment and landscapes, brand image (reputation, prestige) and public services and infrastructures (roads, public safety, cleanness of public places). Since public goods are nonrival, they can be enjoyed by many users (tourists) without decreasing the amount available to additional users.1 Thus, because they are not depleted by use, public goods might lay the ground for sustainable development in tourism municipalities. Higher quantities of inputs having public good characteristics would imply higher output for a municipality (i.e., higher income and welfare for its inhabitants). In a sort of virtuous circle, higher output would lead (by means of higher total tax revenues) to higher levels of public goods feeding back successive waves which would not stop because of (the apparently inescapable, in a traditional tourism development model) diminishing returns. Since at the end of the day the sustainability of the tourism activity at local level depends on a municipality's ability to reproduce the inputs entering the production function of its firms, a development model based on public goods is more likely to be sustainable than one relying on depletable inputs. However, sustainability in a tourism model with public goods assumes that the public sector provides the optimal quantity of those goods.2 If the public sector fails to do so, then unsustainability looms over the horizons tourism municipalities. This paper tackles the sustainability of economic activity in tourism municipalities in five sections. Section 2 discusses what sustainable development is in a tourism setting. Section 3 reviews well-established endogenous growth models in order to identify how a correct supply of public goods may contribute to achieve a sustainable development level throughout time in tourism municipalities. Section 4 presents some implications regarding the role of the public sector in managing the provision and financing of public goods. Finally, the paper's main conclusions are summarised in Section 5.

Long-run sustainable development in jurisdictions whose main economic activity is tourism is only possible if the inputs entering the tourism firms’ production functions are incessantly replicated without incurring in diminishing productivity. Some inputs, such as physical capital and labour may be replicated without problems, but they are subject to diminishing marginal productivity when increasing quantities of them are used without increasing other inputs. Besides, in the tourism sector (with respect to other industries), physical capital has strong linkages with a municipality's territorial surface. This implies that restrictions in the available territorial surface limit in turn the scope for capital generated growth. Apart from capital and labour, public goods are important inputs for the tourism industry. Owing to their nonrivalry property, because of which they may be consumed by many tourists without depleting a municipality's available endowments of them, public goods might be a source for sustainable development and growth. Indeed, public good provision influences tourism municipalities’ growth in two (opposite) ways. On the one hand, public good provision diminishes economic growth by means of decreasing capital and labour's marginal productivity when, in order to finance the provision, output is taken away from the economy. On the other hand, public goods boost growth by increasing the productivity of capital and labour. From this point of view, tourism and the environment's preservation might be complementary activities. The latter can be understood as a kind of public good, so that it allows economic growth in tourism municipalities to be sustained and sustainable throughout time. Therefore, a tourism model based on the supply of public goods may escape form the apparently unavoidable trade-off between economic development and preservation of the environment. However, if investment in public goods were lower than optimal, then economic growth in tourism municipalities would be lower than what would be socially optimal and, in some circumstances, the sustainability of development might be in danger. This is likely to happen when higher levels of government can set taxes (without links to local taxes) on the municipalities’ economic activity, since then excessive tax burdens may fall on the tourism municipalities’ inhabitants, so that the local public sector may be unable to finance the necessary quantities of public goods.