Abstract
The aim of this research was to investigate 'barriers to effective collaboration in sustainable tourism to find an answer to a practical reason why the principles of sustainable tourism have not been well implemented in the field. This study focuses on the relationship between stakeholders anddeals with issues of collaboration using examples of sustainable tourism in Korea as the context of this study. Given this positioning the dissertation does not include discussion of the theoretical conceptualisation of sustainable tourism. The objectives of this study were achieved by combining the results of the two stages of research (triangulation). In the first stage, barriers to effective collaboration were identified by comparing two selected sustainable tourism cases (Gacheon green tourism and Janghang fishing village tourism) in South Korea. In the second stage, a case of sustainable tourism development (Gacheon green tourism) was compared with a case of conventional tourism development (Jungmun resort tourism) by employing multivariate data analysing techniques in order to identify whether sustainable tourism faces the same level of hindrance to collaboration between stakeholders as conventional tourism and whether there are significant relationships between intrinsic attributes of sustainable tourism and the degree of hindrance. The results indicate that: Sustainable tourism faces a wide range of barriers to effective collaboration and these barriers are not only relate to structural problems including institutional limitations, inefficient administration, collaboration environment and industrial structure, but they are also identified as being associated with attitudes and limited capabilities of stakeholders themselves; The success of sustainable tourism significantly depends on effective collaboration between stakeholders; Sustainable tourism is more likely to experience a high degree of hindrance to collaboration compared with conventional tourism; High level of hindrance to collaboration can partly be explained by incorporating characteristic attributes of sustainable tourism. Based on these findings, this study contended that barriers to collaboration in sustainable tourism need to be considered in the context of two issues, essential needs for environmental protection and community participation. Also, five research implications and recommendations for policy makers and project managers to secure effective collaboration were suggested.