Touristic public management potential and challenges, Case of Souss Massa Draa region - Morocco

Abstract

Touristic development in the context of globalization became a very competitive field: to sell one’s “destination”, it’s no longer enough to communicate on one’s territorial landscape, culture and infrastructures; one must see to the consistency and efficiency of its strategic planning. This article is therefore designed in an efficiency perspective of touristic management through a review of the related literature and theories of disciplines such as: governance, efficiency management, strategic planning... It then offers a brief historical review of the evolution of touristic public governance over time, in order to better understand the current state of touristic public management in the Souss Massa Draa region – Morocco. This portrait is designed using a method inspired from Balanced ScoreCard planning for territorial project management (work of Ioppolo et al. 2012) and enriched with multiple interviews with officials of touristic matter in the region. The resulting model reflects an ongoing incoherence of the different political ideologies managing the sector, and its effects on public management practices: overlapping of different administrations responsibilities and fields of action, competition between these administrations regardless on the effect of this competition on global performances of the sector, etc. Subsequent to situation analysis, we found inspiration in the work of some authors: Wolson (1987), Harty (1996), Solange (2008) to conclude with some of their best practices and improvement tactics as a way to better the public management of tourism and all other public management fields.