Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa – Investment and Employment - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 246

In his study of Fiji, Britton (1982, 1983) has shown how one type of tourism
growth can lead to 'crumbs from the table' for host countries. In Fiji (and other
destinations cited by Britton), it was found that the foreign entities owned airlines,
resorts and other tourism service providers in the value chain. These entities also
employed mostly expatriate staff in senior employment positions. The outcomes
resulted in a high outflow of profits and benefits from the host country back to
foreign entities while the local economies received a low percentage of tourists'
total trip expenditure. These benefits were mainly in the form of low paying
employment positions.
Other studies (Wunder, 2000) have demonstrated how relatively low levels
of tourism investment and expenditure (from domestic capital sources) can
have significant, positive direct and indirect effects on participating communi-
ties who own a greater percentage of the tourism enterprises. We can use the
emerging global experience and research information to see where and how
policy has led to more responsible and equitable forms of development that help
host nations or destinations to capture a higher percentage of the tourism
expenditure (i.e. through the value chain) and retain it within the host
economies. A well-directed policy environment should minimize leakage from
the national and, in the instance of Madikwe and similar tourism initiatives,
from the local economy too. Failure to produce more than 'crumbs from the
table' in a modern tourism environment could indicate either a lack of tourism
policy or, as is more often the case, an existing but poorly implemented set of
tourism and economic policies.
There are a variety of studies being conducted under rubrics like
Community Based Tourism, Pro-Poor Tourism, Fair Trade in Tourism and
Responsible Tourism. Research methods and tools include Value Chains, Social
Accounting Matrices and statistical sampling to qualitative interviews, to name a
few. All work from different measurement perspectives but share the common
goal of how to use the results to re-slice, remix or re-bake the tourism pie so that
employment and poverty are addressed and participant communities get a
greater chance of improved living standards or better still - wealth creation. As
Mitchell and Ashley (2007, p1) have noted ' review [by theWorld Bank and the
ODI in 2006] revealed that there is more evidence available than is generally
marshalled into pro-poor tourism arguments. But at the same time, evidence is piece-
meal, use of definitions sloppy, and methodological divisions fragment the body of
knowledge and researchers '. Further, they noted that not 1 of 300 + studies in the
review has examined a 3-tiered approach to tourism and poverty being; (1)
direct (labour income, small enterprise income, non-labour income and liveli-
hood effects); (2) indirect (i.e. supply chain effects and associated
income/employment multipliers); and (3) dynamic impact effects (i.e. a basket
of economic effects which include changes to infrastructure, communications,
human resource capabilities, cross-sector effects, etc.). (For full details see
Mitchell and Ashley (2007, pp3-4).