Features of the spatial development of economic systems based on public-private partnership

The survival of the tourist activity depends on the coordination between the different actors. This is more challenging and important to complete the sustainability of the tourism industry. Its development must be guided by more dialogue, more cooperation and partnership between the private and the public sectors. Collaborations between the various stakeholders enable the success of planning, tourism management, marketing, product development, training and education in this sector. The process of collaboration and partnership is key to planning and managing tourism products, partnerships are at the heart of sustainable tourism development [4].

Tourism plays a key role in the development of the economy of several countries in the world, if properly planned and managed, it allows a significant contribution to the sustainable development and the conservation of the environment. Yet tourism is more than an activity and an industry, it is interconnected with the environment and culture. It is identified as a driving sector for most economies, public sector engagement is considered important to support the growth of this activity. Indeed, the public sector is an essential component of the heart of the tourism industry, its key role is that of providing the necessary infrastructures, setting up attractiveness programs and supporting the private sector in its investment. As for the private sector, its role is to provide sustainable products and services such as accommodation, transportation, catering and a variety of attractions and experiences. As a result, the private sector plays a key role in the management and development of sustainable tourism activities and must engage in the same way as local, regional and national authorities in the growth of sustainable tourism.

In the 2000s, the tourism industry was reluctant to establish public-private partnerships because of the arduous competition it faces, it was reluctant to participate in the objectives of public authorities materialized in respect of the environment with what it can generate in terms of cost and loss of competitiveness. Collaboration occurs when a group of autonomous stakeholders of a problem engaging in an interactive process mobilizing the shared rules, norms and structures to act and decide on actions in relation to that problem. Tourism was identified in 1992 at the top of the earth in Rio as one of the sectors capable of contributing positively to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, therefore in 1994 the WTCC, UNWTO and the Earth Council launched agenda 21 for tourism and travel. A document that contains appropriate actions and suggestions for its implementation, it provides a framework for analyzing sustainable tourism, summarizing how it is fundamental and essential to adhere to the principles of sustainable tourism for the establishment of sustainable tourism - sustainable development in tourist destinations [5].

While many companies and governments can individually improve sustainability, collaboration in this area can provide better results. The process of collaboration and partnership is the key element of sustainable tourism development. The latter may be at the origin of initiating a process of dialogue between all stakeholders and identifying mechanisms and action plans for achieving sustainable tourism objectives (UNCSD, 1999). This partnership can include regulation systems (self-regulation in water consumption, waste management ...), concerted indicators (to measure degrees of completion of sustainable development principles), certifications (granted to companies respecting the environment ), and the financing of attractiveness and marketing programs for the sustainable destination. The achievement of these objectives depends largely on the quality of the partnership, and collaboration with mutual benefits is a source of success. It must include a broad representation of tourism stakeholders who are able to play a leading role in the implementation of the principles of sustainable tourism and wide dissemination among other actors [6].

Both public and private sectors can participate in the establishment of a sustainable partnership. Indeed, the public sector must offer and support legislation that encourages sustainable tourism initiatives and help to establish a climate of free action in this industry, it can also offer coordination mechanisms between local, regional and national authorities with actors who engage in sustainable tourism actions. It also has the mission to provide the necessary infrastructure so that the actors can engage in actions of respect for the environment (for example wastewater treatment plants, facilities for recycling ...), it can also assist tourism operators to target a type of non-destructive tourism of the environment through the accompaniment in fairs and international tourism fairs. The private sector composed of several actors and stakeholders is the task of implementing the principles of sustainable tourism. Indeed, it is up to him to promote the interaction between tourists and host communities and therefore contribute to respect for the culture of the natives. Tourism stakeholders also need to work with small and medium-sized businesses to transfer experience, market development, and technology transfer.

In the current context of globalization, the national and international dimension of the relations that public tourist institutions maintain with tourism operators are strategic. In this perspective, alliances and networking with other international operators are intensifying and contributing to the achievement of the objectives set by international sustainable tourism bodies. A multitude of collaborative initiatives with international tourism operators, be they carriers, travel agencies have been observed in recent years for the implementation of common tourism policies, and increased participation of companies and associations in the development sustainable tourism. The emergence of partnerships and collaborations in the tourism sector have not been addressed by social scientists as important as this topic can present. Indeed, after 2000, researches tend to understand the interrelationships between companies, the forms of networking between organizations. With globalization and the complexity of emerging economies, tourism stakeholders have realized that it is difficult to act unilaterally to achieve the common goals of sustainable tourism. Collaboration with governments and local authorities is, therefore, a prerequisite for the survival and maintenance of sustainable tourism [1].

This research follows the paradigm of constructivism, the data is analyzed through an induction process, when the researcher constructs and reconstructs meaning for the data in relation to the research question. This study seeks to broaden the understanding of the forms of stakeholder partnerships to implement sustainable tourism, given that different perceptions of tourism stakeholders to the return on investment of cooperation with the public sector are behind success or failure - failure to set up principles of sustainable tourism. If tourism is conceived as a system, at the same time economic, cultural, political, relational and social, it does not remain about it less than the partnerships allow, to put in harmony the economic activity of the actors with the ethic environmental and cultural.

So, we must adopt this methodology in order to take into account an approach that is both critical and empirical. The systemic that encompasses all this will allow us to deal with this issue more realistically.

The collection of data is conducted in two phases. The first phase engaged the public sector, as a central group consisting of central authorities (Ministry of Tourism) and territorial authorities (regional tourism delegations, local authorities). The second phase of the data collection involved tourism stakeholders consisting of semi-structured interviews with the following stakeholders: grand tourism enterprises (1), small and medium-sized tourism enterprises (2), residents (3), employees of tourist enterprises (4), special interest groups (5) and tourists (6). This method of studying multiple cases gives access to a deep understanding of partnership phenomena, the processes that compose them and the actors who are stakeholders. It should be mentioned that most tourism stakeholders in Syria feel the need for a real consensus on the concept of sustainability, so we have developed a questionnaire on the fundamentals of sustainable tourism (Figure 3), which requires more or less defined according to a close partnership between the private and the public sectors. Taking into account all these principles are not obvious for most tourism companies, while local authorities believe that the public-private partnership goes through the establishment of a real joint task force strategic and pre-operational.

Table 1 – The principles of sustainable tourism to be tested

Socio-cultural principles	Economic principles	Environmental principles
Protection of cultural characteristics and traditions for locals	Ensuring the well-being of the local population and other interested parties	Qualitative management of water
Joint management of the	Receiving   an   appropriate	Pollution management

region (involvement stakeholders in the planning, development and monitoring processes)	permanent income
Incorporation of the premises	Budget planning	Protection of wildlife, vegetation and energy resources
Human resources management	Investment arrangement	Respect the landscapes

Protection of cultural characteristics and traditions for locals

According to the results of the research, we found that the Ministry of Tourism, the high authority of tourism in Syria, has been engaged for years in the development and monitoring of sustainability programs in the tourism sector. Indeed, and with the aim of consolidating the establishment of sustainable tourism, a guide of good practices respecting tourism and sustainable development has been developed and submitted to the tour operators. Sustainable tourism competitiveness caravans were launched in collaboration with regional tourism observatories and local tourism authorities (Regional Tourism Centers), with the aim of proposing solutions for tour operators to their questions about sustainable offers, as well as creating exchanges with the administration and tourism stakeholders. In the same vein, several meetings and symposia were organized to bring together more participants and exchange ideas with national and international experts on sustainable tourism. It has been noted that the involvement of tourism stakeholders in setting up sustainability in this sector is on the rise, following the increasing the participation in the responsible trophies and the label and certifications [2].

When it comes to respecting economic, socio-cultural and environmental principles, tourism stakeholders in Syria work for partnerships with one another in order to involve more actors and more institutions, this is becoming more and more vital because of the transversality of the tourist activity. At the economic level, the creation of the Syrian company of tourism engineering is hailed for the integration and the follow-up of the sustainability for the projects of tourist scale. This side consolidates the efforts with the different operators to measure sustainability in terms of good practice indicators.

Measures to encourage the employment of young people have been taken as part of a 2020 vision plan in terms of attracting and proposing training offers in line with the jobs created by tourist operators. In the same time, the government authorities have developed, in collaboration with other institutions, legal obligations in terms of tourism investments. This is new building code and the new construction standards of tourist establishments, we have found that tourism operators get more and more involved when it comes to taking into account sustainable tourism guidelines for new investments, on the other hand when it requires redesign and adjustments the actors feel a reluctance [3]. As for socio-cultural effects, the survey highlights the growing need of local populations to be fully integrated into the decision-making process of tourism in their territories. It was vital to develop indicators to measure the impacts of tourism on indigenous people, a delicate task that requires a huge amount of work on the ground. Regional operators promote any action that aims to promote heritage through the growing and permanent support in the organization of meetings and festivals that serve to promote the tangible and intangible heritage of a tourist area. Our research has shown that at different stages of application of socio-cultural principles, the representativeness of actors is questioned, so we have noted the need for participatory local governance as a trigger for the development of any sustainable tourism action. To speak of sustainable tourism is above all to deal with the environmental aspect, which is a cornerstone of any sustainable policy; we have observed a vertiginous involvement of tourism stakeholders. Actually, the reasonable management of water and energy is the main worksite for tourist establishments. Tourism stakeholders are starting to set up water cooling systems and wastewater stations as an action against the excessive use of water.

From the review of literature of strategic alliances, project management, communication, relationship marketing and our research on the partnership between tourism stakeholders for the implementation of sustainability, 4 factors have identified as potentially having an impact on the success of the collaboration for the implementation of sustainable tourism. Factors related to sharing the same values, willingness and common ethics, mutual trust and communication between actors.

One of the first observations is the explanatory power of two of the four factors that make up the partnership dimension of collaboration between tourism stakeholders, and particularly the power of the communication factor, which seems to be the most important to ensure the success of a public-private partnership. This construct incorporating the sub-dimension mutual trust between the actors which is a revelation of our results. We have found that the keystone of successful sustainable tourism projects from central actors (Ministry of Tourism, National tourist organizations, tourism observatory ...), require coordination at all levels of governance from the formalization of partnerships through the preparation of action plans to the accountability of stakeholders to the monitoring and control of actions. Sustainable tourism is first and foremost a consciousness and a will that translates into practice, the mobilization of this will by the various stakeholders leads to palpable results in terms of the action plans, which materialize in a proposition of offers and services for responsible and fair tourism.

Partnership activities in sustainable tourism have a fundamental characteristic: They require that the different stakeholders agree on the same values. This observation is valid in the case of collaboration between companies. We have noted that the values of sustainable tourism have been formalized within the framework of the Syrian charter of responsible tourism which presents a good way to feed the debate on the effective application of the principles of this charter in the tourism offers of the actors of tourism involved. In terms of mobilizations, our interviews allowed us to understand a number of important factors for the realization of partnership activities. Thus autonomy and flexibility seem to be imperatives for working in the partnership environment in sustainable tourism, the private and public actors of tourism development cooperate in the implementation of the principles of the partnership charter and must exercise a control of their effective application [7].

Partnership, unlike an alliance, is a form of collaboration between actors who are not competitors, but who seek to achieve some common projects. It includes a power relationship between actors and therefore it requires good governance, to ease tensions between actors by setting up a continuous debate. This concept also refers to certain cross-cutting notions of issues, influence, power, and uncertainty. At this level we learned that the transfer of information between the partners allows the steering of collaborative actions between sustainable tourism actors, a successful management will create a relational trust that will ultimately create the transfer of information. This partnership should allow the periodic meeting of the actors, the exchange and the organization of the roundtables around the accomplishments and the objectives to achieve.

Tourism stakeholders in Syria are more confronted with the issue of the representativeness of local actors in decision-making bodies, it was mentioned by some managers of small structures in Latakia city, this is mainly due to the size of these structures deemed uncritical. This observation is verified by the tourism ministry, which sees that this goes beyond its responsibilities and that the election of representatives of tourism stakeholders is a task specific to these organizations.

We have found that this can hinder the spread of good practices and therefore the development of sustainability in this sector, knowing that these small unrepresented structures are more and more present in the hinterland of Latakia, and to them, the task of proposing sustainable offers, especially the socio-cultural dimension of sustainable tourism, comes back.

As a result, the balanced management of tourism territories and tourism stakeholders looks more important before talking about sustainability, the renewal of modes of governance with more participatory approaches is a challenge to be taken up by the central tourism actors so to adapt tourism practices to the requirements of sustainable tourism to develop locally. We are not looking for a one-way approach, but participative management seems to be the feasible and relevant solution for developing sustainability actions, putting them in place, empowering all stakeholders and controlling actions in the last place.

Determining a framework within tourism partnerships

We have noted that the sharing of values and common ethics is considered a fundamental base for the smooth functioning of partnership in tourism. In order to ensure a good conduct of the collaborative actions between the actors of sustainable tourism in Syria, it can be recommended the definition of a framework in the form of a partnership charter which must be elaborated in consultation with all the tourism actors involved in the actions of sustainability. It is a form of deep negotiation on the missions, the objectives and the means to be determined, and around the values to be shared in the framework of future partnerships.

It also can be noticed that several tourist stakeholders have mobilized in the responsible tourism charter, which is an action that can give the partnership an assurance against the uncertainty that can present any collaborative action in sustainable tourism, the actors-that we have the opportunity to interview- have insisted that they are involved and motivated to collaborate with other actors (Ministry of tourism, national tourist organizations, ...) if a framework is marked in which each stakeholder, engages in well-defined missions and well-defined deadlines. In addition of noticing the growing need of tourist stakeholders for evaluation, a function we did not feel during the analysis of partnerships set up.

Conclusion

The existence of partnerships and collaborations between tourist stakeholders is an important condition for successful sustainable tourism experiences. First of all, the partnerships between public and private actors make it possible to finance the necessary infrastructures for the development of tourism that respects the environmental, economic and socio-cultural requirements, the sharing of experiences and the know-how of local communities. At the local level, the partnerships make it possible to diversify the tourism offer by proposing sustainable offers. Certainly, in this sector there is a mismatch between the supply and the demand for sustainable tourism products, this can be minimized through the establishment of a participative cooperation between the various tourist stakeholders in the region. It has been found that among the factors that can lead to the failure of any form of sustainable tourism, the lack of prior studies of tourism demand in line with what tourist stakeholders can offer as a sustainable offer. A temporal conflict between the logic of public actors and private tourist enterprises has been raised by several stakeholders, so if the most of partnerships offer conditions of good practice, it remains to develop a special working methodology for the tourism sector seen its transversality.

The authors see the great potential of RRR research from the standpoint of spatial development. It is the PPR tools that allow the integration of the development of territories, industries and corporations within the framework of the implementation of new investment projects. At the next stages of our research, we will attempt to develop an integration mechanism for the PPP, which allows the interests of key stakeholders to be coordinated in the dynamics of negotiations (taking into account the negotiating power of each of the counterparties).

Пространственное развитие