Degree of political attention towards tourism: An analysis of party manifestos during German federal elections

The attention that political parties pay to the tourism sector’s issues has been an underresearched subject for tourism science. This paper aims to fill the gap by analysing political awareness for tourism-related topics on a national level. It will answer the question of whether tourism plays an important role in parties’ manifestos and in which context it is addressed. To facilitate the research, the paper applies a quantitative content analysis as well as a contextual analysis. Results show that within parties’ manifestos tourism topics are discussed and used for the political debate, not only for their economic aspects but in the context of infrastructure and sustainability as well. It becomes clear that tourism on a national level serves as a vehicle to communicate the general ideological message of the respective political party. The findings of this paper complement earlier studies regarding regional politics and tourism.