Tourism and Development Concepts and Issues

Aspects of Tourism is an innovative, multifaceted series which will comprise authoritative reference handbooks on global tourism regions, research volumes, texts and monographs. It is designed to provide readers with the latest thinking on tourism world-wide and in so doing will push back the frontiers of tourism knowledge. The series will also introduce a new generation of international tourism authors, writing on leading edge topics. The volumes will be readable and user-friendly, providing accessible sources for further research. The list will be underpinned by an annual authoritative tourism research volume. Books in the series will be commissioned that probe the relationship between tourism and cognate subject areas such as strategy, development, retailing, sport and environmental studies. The publisher and series editors welcome proposals from writers with projects on these topics.

[...]... disciplines of tourism studies and development studies In this first chapter, therefore, we consider the concepts of, and inter-relationship between, tourism and development, thereby providing the framework for the application of development theory to the specific context of tourism in Chapter 2 and the more specific issues in subsequent chapters Tourism and Development As previously suggested, tourism is... a number of issues that challenge the conventional understanding of tourism s economic benefits This is followed, in turn, by chapters that explore regional development issues, community development issues, human resource issues, sociocultural issues and environmental issues Chapter 4 examines the use of tourism as a regional development tool Governments around the world have selected tourism as a... prescriptive and restrictive set of guidelines for tourism development that, whilst offering environmentally appropriate, commercially pragmatic and ethically sound principles for optimising tourism s development role, draws attention away from the potential benefits of other forms of tourism and, indeed, other development agents Finally, drawing together the various concepts, themes and issues introduced and. .. the nature of tourism development, the consequences of development in destination areas, the nature of local development and the environment external to the tourism system Thus, although individual chapters address specific issues with respect to tourism and development, collectively they consider the potential developmental role of tourism within a broad conceptual framework founded in development studies... potentially militate against tourism s contribution to development The chapter then goes on to ask the fundamental 4 Tourism and Development Figure 1 Model showing the relationship between tourism and development studies Introduction 5 question: What is development? Making reference to social, economic and political factors that characterise underdevelopment, it argues that the concept of development has evolved... contribution of tourism to development in the less developed countries of the world In this context, tourism is seen not only as a catalyst of development but also of political and economic change That is, international tourism is viewed as a means of achieving both ‘economic and social development and progress’ and the redistribution of wealth and power that is, arguably, necessary to achieve such development. .. they are indicators of the developmental contribution of tourism Therefore, as a basis for exploring the relationship between tourism and development, it is important to Tourism: A Vehicle for Development? 21 define not only the desired outcome of tourism, namely, development , but also the means of achieving that outcome Defining Tourism Such has been the growth and spread of tourism over recent decades... tourism literature This relationship between tourism and development studies, and the consequential implications for the study and understanding of the potential contribution of tourism to the development of destination areas, is conceptualised in the model in Figure 1 This demonstrates the interdependence not only between tourism and broader sociocultural, political and economic environment within which... the myriad of organisations and businesses that comprise the tourism industry’ In other words, tourism has also developed into a powerful, world-wide economic force International tourism alone generated over US$453 billion in 1998 (WTO 2000) whilst, according to the World Travel and 11 12 Tourism and Development Tourism Council (WTTC), global tourism – including domestic tourism – is a US $3.5 trillion... development Parallels are then drawn between the changes in development theory and tourism development assessing the extent to which tourism reflects transformations in development thinking An analysis of tourism development under the four development paradigms is presented which then forms the basis for the subsequent proposal of a set of considerations that provide a potential framework for the development