National Tourism Policy. Analytical Framework for the Evaluation of Efficiency and Effectiveness: The Case of Italy

There is a long lasting debate about the concept of governance. There is no real agreement upon the interpretation and use of this term. Moreover, concerning tourism sector, it becomes more and more confused. Thus, it is fundamental to try to clarify and put order among some concepts in this sphere. governance is a term that can be considered strictly related to other terms such as Policy and Planning. Comparing definitions of many authors in this topic (Chadwick, Dror, Dye, Hall, Kooiman, Lanoo, Morales-Moreno, Stoker, Rhodes), Policy can be understood as a continuous cycle of activities, developed by governmental institutions, starting with certain needs that are transformed in goals, developed through strategies and evaluated according to certain indicators. At the same time, Planning, is nothing else but the first phase of a policy, induced by a received need. It has to be kept in mind that policy is a public activity which is of interest for all the citizens and for all the interests it defends.

As a matter of fact many diverse actors, with diverse natures (public, private, mixed) and interests, work and influence policy process. Therefore, given all the above mentioned concepts, it can be introduced the definition of governance:
“Governance refers to self‐organizing, inter‐organizing networks characterized by interdependence, resource exchange, rules of the game and significant autonomy from the State” (Rhodes 1997).
So governance, in general, is about the capacity and way of managing all the relations, flows, interests, thus diversity, that coexist within the complex picture of policy. Another differentiation that has to be made is the one between governance and governmental Institutions. Very often, these two concepts are misunderstood or used as synonymous. In reality, taking into consideration the many definitions presented by academics, Governance has to be considered as the “action, manner or system of governing […]” (Stoker 1995) or the “whole system of rights, processes and controls[…]” (Lanoo 1995).

On the contrary, Institutions are the bodies or systems of actors that are in charge of governing. Thus, it can be affirmed that governance is the process developed by governmental institution in order to reach the goals of the process itself. However, the fact that governance is an intangible element makes it difficult to analyze and evaluate. That is why, very often, the structure and system of institutions is considered as a “window” to have a look on governance processes. This is the origin of confusion and misunderstanding upon the two concepts. So when, for example, academics speak about levels of governance, they often speak about the institutions that carry out governance at that level. It would be more correct to speak about the process of governance characterizing a certain territorial level (national, regional etc.) and the governmental institutions that develop it at the same level.