THE COMMON POOL PROBLEM IN TOURISM LANDSCAPES

Management of scenic and historic landscapes and other background tourism elements is problematic because they very frequently are what property rights theorists call ''common pool'' resources. They are characterized by susceptibility to overuse and resource damage and by lack of incentive for productivity-enhancing investment. Property rights theory describes three property rights regimes for managing such resources: privatization, management by government, and common property regimes. All three regimes are widely found in the case of tourism resources, and mixtures of regimes are frequently encountered. Common property regimes, which involve community control or reciprocal actions among individuals, appear to be the least common, yet such arrangements have interesting potential for addressing common pool problems.