Environmental policy integration as a strategy for sustainable tourism planning: issues in implementation

Both in a national and global context, it is challenging to identify key conditions for the integration of sustainable tourism in public policy. By studying a number of recent planning processes pertaining to tourism development, this article aims to contribute recent insight into how sustainability may be integrated into tourism planning. The study was motivated by a publicized shift in the Norwegian government policy strategy on sustainable tourism, from a sector approach to an integration approach. Through case analysis, the concept of environmental policy integration is applied. Findings show that sustainable tourism is partially integrated in all cases and three key issues are outlined. First, although Norway is characterized by a high degree of sector organization, it has a weak structure for overall tourism policy integration. Second, the integration of sustainable tourism has been stimulated by national horizontal integration, bottom-up integration prepared by institutional changes, public participation, and by active use of the municipal system of planning. Third, this study could not find any evidence for the announced shift from a sector approach to an integrated approach to sustainable tourism.