Marius Mayer

Tourismus und Regionalentwicklung in Bayern Marius Mayer

Tourism and Regional Development in BavariaTourism has great significance for regional development due to its importance as an economic factor and for employment, especially in rural, structurally disadvantaged areas. Despite this, tourism is now scarcely mentioned in the new Bavarian State Development Programme. The "Tourism Policy Concept of the Bavarian State Government" from the year 2010 is supposed to serve as a substitute, but, firstly, fails to provide for the relevant needs with specialised legislation and, secondly, lacks spatial specificity in addressing these needs. Across-the-board tourism cannot be said to be an economic driver for Bavaria as a whole, as many parts of the federal state are very little influenced by overnight tourism. It is rather the case that tourism is strongly concentrated in specific destinations or sub-regions. Bavarian tourism has lost tourist market share in Germany and is further characterised by uneven spatial development, i. e. by divergence between strongly growing tourism in agglomeration areas (with booming incoming tourism) and declining or even stagnating tourism in peripheral areas. This is the reason that the ARL working group "Tourism and Regional Development" of the LAG Bavaria has critically assessed the tourism policy statements of the Bavarian government and focused on current and future challenges within the fields of tourism and regional development, challenges that arise from weaknesses in offerings and marketing combined with global trends such as, for instance, demographic transformation, climate change, the effects of peak oil and the energy transition. The findings of the investigations of the working group "Tourism and Regional Development" are summarised in this report. Authors from both academia and practice shed light on the current challenges and practical and planning implications in Bavaria. Particular attention is paid here to tourism development in (peripheral) rural areas.