Tourism destination management impacts on cross-border regional development in the Germany-Belgium and Germany-Czech Republic borderlands

It has been widely acknowledged that regional development impacts of tourism are dependent on integrative destination governance. However, in (cross-)border regions, where tourism is regularly approached with aims to overcome socio-economic development struggles, the establishment of such governance structures can be highly challenging. Departing from earlier research that identified border-related tourism governance complexities, the goal of this paper is to assess the impact of different destination management regimes on tourism-induced cross-border regional development processes. The research is based on expert interviews and policy document analysis in comparative case-studies between the Germany–Belgium (Eifel–High Fens) and Germany–Czech Republic (Bavaria–Karlovarsky kraj) cross-border regions. Results indicate that the relatively mature German–Belgian destination-building process has become more integrated and participative due to reducing cross-border tourism governance complexities over time. This way, tourism institutions and local stakeholders are able to influence and equally benefit from the cross-border decision-making process. Cross-border institutional contact has also become more specifically targeted to strategically complement the destinations on both sides of the border. In contrast, the low integration of local tourism stakeholders in newly developing region-building processes between Germany and the Czech Republic have resulted in their highly selective representation in cross-border tourism projects. Moreover, structural governance mechanisms to equally distribute tourism-induced regional development impacts across the German–Czech border are practically absent. Hence, clear differences appear between a mature and newly developing borderland destination, reflecting the dependency on institutional brokers to avoid potentially growing asymmetry in tourism-related regional development in international borderlands.status: publishe