Tourism and Economic Development Issues - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 77

3 Tourism and Economic

Development Issues

Tanja Mihaliˇ

Introduction

Over the last six decades, tourism has expanded to become one of the
largest economic sectors in the world. Receipts from international tourism,
excluding international fares, rose dramatically from US$2 billion in 1950
to reach US$919 billion by 2010 (UNWTO, 2011b, 2011h). If we also take
domestic tourism into consideration, the tourism volume figures would be
some six to 10 times greater. In 2010, based on slightly different methodolo-
gies, tourism contributed between 5% and 9% to gross domestic product
(GDP) and 6% and 9% to world employment (UNWTO, 2011h; WTTC, 2011). 1
While in some advanced economies tourism's contribution to GDP might
be minimal, in some developing destinations tourism might create a sig-
nificant share of GDP and employment.
The last few decades have witnessed the spatial diversification of tour-
ism development which is still progressing intensively, with many new des-
tinations emerging alongside those that existed in the 1950s. Then, almost
all international tourism was concentrated in just 15 principal tourism
countries whereas nowadays many, if not all, countries promote themselves
as tourist destinations. Consequently, over the last six decades the top 15
countries' share of international tourism arrivals has dropped from 97% to
55% (Kester & Croce, 2011; UNWTO, 2011g). Emerging destinations are not
only boosting their physical international tourism flows, but are also
increasing their competitiveness, as reflected in higher spending per visitor
at the destination.
Many developing countries and regions see tourism development as an
opportunity for economic and social development. This is also reflected in
the list of top tourism countries which, in the 1950s, was dominated by
advanced economies but by 2010 was increasingly populated by emerging
countries such as China, Turkey, Malaysia, the Russian Federation, Ukraine
and India (UNWTO, 2011h). At the current rate, it is likely that tourism will

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