The State Intervention and the Public Organization of Tourism

Abstract

When speaking of tourism, there exist positive and normative motivations (see Sect. 2.7) for analyzing those institutions that govern and organize the economic relationships between tourism operators in the market. An institution can be defined as any organization accepted by the members of the society and with the power of regulating the behavior of individuals and to make decisions which consequences fall on the entire community. In fact, as a general rule of the economy, and this is particularly true for the tourism sector, many economic problems can be mainly settled through the intervention of an external authority, either being a voluntary organization (such an association of firms) or a public institution (such a public body), which sets the rules and enables to make them obligatory.