This paper presents a normative modelof tourism planning which requires cooperation between government agencies, between various administrative levels of government, between same-level autonomous polities, and between the public and private sectors. These cooperative planning principles are examined in the context of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, where it was found that they are not a part of the planning practices already in place. Sociopolitical factors are considered the most important reasons for the lack of cooperative tourism planning in the study area and it is believed that other developing destinations with similar human environmental conditions would also be lacking in the use of cooperative planning principles.