Tourism and Economic Development Issues - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 90

not yet available and, hence, such a list cannot be created. Theoretically, the
output of the tourism sector, on which the capital coefficient value depends,
tends to be higher, ceteris paribus , if a country is more developed and so the
tourism capital coefficient is sensitive to the general level of development of
a given country. In addition, some existing assumptions, such as less devel-
oped tourism countries primarily being in the Majority World, are not help-
ful. Furthermore, the main demand data that inform the UNWTO's lists of
tourism destinations present tourism demand volumes and the quantitative
importance of tourism in given countries, not the level of tourism develop-
ment. The existing lists neglect the country size and relative tourism
impacts. Relative measures, such as per capita international tourism receipts,
tend to place tourism countries with a smaller population on top of the list,
whereas a measure like tourism's contribution to the economy will, ceteris
paribus , favour tourism developing countries with a smaller volume of GDP.
It should be noted that there have been some promising attempts to
measure tourism development using the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness
Index (TTCI) (WEF, 2011). Unfortunately, however, the TTCI ranking is
based on an extensive list of different indicators that combine factors and
policies relevant to tourism development and is therefore not fully relevant
for the purpose. Kester and Croce (2011) also demonstrate that a country's
rank on the TTCI tourism list depends on the country's general development
level. They found that the list tends to rank advanced economies higher than
countries at a lower development stage since the TTCI criteria include condi-
tions for tourism development which more developed countries can better
provide. Consequently, they have attempted to eliminate the impact of a
country's development level on its tourism position by employing the Human
Development Index as a measure for development. As a result, Thailand,
China, India, Gambia and South Africa made up the top five tourism coun-
tries on a new TTCI list relative to country development.
We can also try to measure the level of tourism development by looking
at tourism consumption relative to its volume or structure. The TSA pro-
vides country data on tourism demand or tourism consumption broken
down by products, such as accommodation, food and beverages, transporta-
tion, culture, entertainment and recreation, shopping and health. Is a coun-
try that earns more money per visitor per day more developed ? Can we
assume that destinations where a smaller share of total tourism spending is
used for basic tourist needs, such as travel, accommodation and food, com-
pared to spending on other activities are more developed ? For example,
according to available TSA data, the share of internal tourism consumption
of food, drinks and travel in Germany in 2000 was 48% whereas in Cyprus
in 2007, visitors spent 85% on the same products from characteristic tour-
ism industries (Eurostat, 2009). Moreover, does a higher share of spending
on tourism-connected and non-specific products produced by other indus-
tries demonstrate the diversification level of the economy and tourism