Collaboration and stakeholder involvement for sustainable silk road tourism in the Central Asian States and Western China

Abstract

The thesis examined the relations of the five Central Asian States (CASs, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) and Xinjiang of Western China, and their tourism collaboration through the Silk Road identity. The analysis of stakeholder involvement in the collaborative process is deemed vital and thus has constituted another pillar of the study. A conceptual framework, based on mutual ideas drawn from the widely adopted destination competitiveness and sustainability model, concepts of collaboration and stakeholder theory, was formulated to guide the research. Adopting a qualitative case study approach, primary data were aggregated by means of in-depth interviews, personal communications with important stakeholders and the candidate's prolonged engagement in Silk Road tourism-related activities. A wide range of secondary data, such as official documents, meeting records, newspaper articles and online resources, was used to triangulate with the primary findings and to build a coherent interpretation of the phenomenon studied. The four key informants and eleven elites participated in the study include high-level officials from the tourism ministries, key persons in major international organisations and donor agencies, representatives of private companies and research institutes in the CASs and China. Data analysis was guided carefully by the conceptual framework and therefore relied heavily on the research questions that had led to the study. Analytical techniques such as coding and content analysis were adopted. To enhance the rigour of the methods, the whole research process was documented in detail. The study objectives of 1) evaluating existing tourism resources and the management of such resources in the CASs and Western China; 2) analysing current collaboration and exploring the benefits and hindrances to the collaborative process; 3) identifying the different stakeholders and their respective roles and salience to collaboration; and 4) providing recommendations for effective collaboration between the CASs and China, were all fulfilled. To highlight some of the findings, major obstacles for tourism collaboration were revealed as follows: unmatched stakeholders' interests, organisational bureaucracy, inadequate trust and leadership and the absence of evaluations and/or results of current collaboration. In addition, the original analytical tool for stakeholder analysis developed based on the existing literature was proven inapplicable for the situation studied. An alternative approach, derived from the empirical findings and supported by previous literature, was proposed. That has resulted in a comprehensive stakeholder-relational map. The findings showed that powerful, legitimate yet uncommitted stakeholders represent the major inhibitors for effective collaboration. Whereas, highly urgent stakeholders are active in working together among which alliances can be formed to increase their lobbying power to persuade the other indifferent stakeholders to join forces and to harmonise different stakeholders' interests and objectives in the stakeholder network. The study attempted to synthesise and contribute to the knowledge of tourism development on the Silk Road and in the Central Asian region. Study limitations include potential bias of data resulted from the informants' political sensitivity and the inadequate duration of the project to study five countries and one locality in Western China at one go, especially when information and data were not easily accessible.