Golf tourism development, stakeholders, differing discourses and alternative agendas: the case of Malta

Abstract

As one of the most rapidly expanding types of extensive land-use, golf course development has often attracted controversy when proposed as a policy to promote special-interest tourism. Malta is an extreme case in which such conflicts have arisen, being one of the world's most densely populated countries and having limited land and water resources. Focusing on the disputes arising from Malta's golf development proposals, this paper examines stakeholders' arguments in the context of contemporary concerns about sustainability. Using interview narratives and newspaper reports, the paper unpacks the different discourses involved to reveal some surprising collaboration as well as conflict. The paper points to the difficulties of generalised conceptualisation of such development conflicts, suggesting stakeholder mapping of power-interest matrices as a way forward by which tourism scholars and managers may interpret the complex relationships involved.