In recent years, the tourism sector has been undergoing global structural changes due to the emergence of new technologies and the imperative to integrate environmental and climate management into destination management. These factors are giving rise to new governance models and reshaping the rules of the tourism ecosystem.
In response to these phenomena, the foundations of administrative intervention have substantially evolved over the last few decades, progressively expanding the branches of law that directly or indirectly impact the sector.
In addition to the need to preserve the remarkable economic significance of tourism, other reasons have emerged to justify regulation, such as the necessity to safeguard the cultural and natural heritage of destinations, ensure the protection of tourists, and balance the competition rules between digital actors and traditional tourism service providers, among others.
These factors are increasing the complexity of the regulatory framework and continuously expanding the regulatory areas that the tourism sector needs to be aware of. Furthermore, the international tourism crisis resulting from COVID-19 has highlighted the need to rebalance the responsibilities of different sector stakeholders to address the new post-pandemic tourism market conditions. It also underscores the importance of strengthening regional coordination among the legal and regulatory frameworks of various countries in LAC to respond to global challenges.
All these new trends imply changes to the status quo of sector regulation. In the specific case of the LAC region, the complexity of regional tourism governance makes it challenging to meet the necessary criteria for effective sector regulation: there are regulations becoming outdated, leading to high costs, or lacking support from evidence or stakeholder participation throughout the regulatory cycle.
In this context, UN Tourism and the IDB have decided to jointly establish the Observatory to better address the need to analyze the existing tourism regulations in various LAC countries. The aim is twofold: on one hand, to establish a general guiding framework for achieving harmonized, coherent, and updated regulations for the sector; and on the other hand, to optimize governance models for the tourism regulatory process.
The UN Tourism and IDB Observatory targets all stakeholders in the tourism sector across the region, whether as regulators, regulated entities, or those affected by sectoral regulations. The Observatory aims to facilitate communication among these actors and provide the necessary information and knowledge, in real time, to promote awareness of Tourism Law, encourage proactive measures, and foster the exchange of best regulatory practices. Furthermore, the Observatory will support the gradual harmonization of tourism legislation, respecting the legal and technical frameworks specific to each country, to enable the development of effective and participatory legal frameworks and governance models throughout the regulatory process.