An application of stakeholder theory to advance community participation in tourism planning: the case for engaging immigrants as fringe stakeholders

Community participation has long been viewed as an important tenet of tourism planning, and there is general consensus among researchers that engaging all stakeholder groups contributes to tourism sustainability. However, there are gaps in the literature, and challenges in practice, that call for further research. Among these are the dynamics of heterogeneous community groups and that not all community subgroups have equal opportunity to participate in tourism planning. This paper attempts to advance community participation by drawing on progressive approaches to stakeholder theory in the management field and by exploring, for the first time, the engagement of immigrants in tourism planning as fringe stakeholders, representative of present and future community dynamics. Bringing first generation immigrants as an important but less studied segment within the broader host community into focus moves tourism planning toward a more inclusive approach to community engagement, reflecting increased diversity and change in host communities.