Tourism and Economic Development Issues - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 95

difference in economic growth rates between the incoming and outgoing,
less developed and developed areas becomes smaller.
The development of convergence theory in tourism embraces two dis-
tinct themes. On the one hand, tourism is seen as an agent of economic
growth and regional development within a particular country, contributing
to the alleviation of regional imbalances, in particular between the metro-
politan centres and peripheral areas. On the other hand, tourism's develop-
mental role is considered in the context of a world divided into developed and
less developed countries, the assumption being that the gap between the two
may be reduced through tourism development projects in the latter. Some
authors refer to this theory as 'the dispersion of development to non-industrial
regions' (Bryden, 1973: 72). According to this classic view, tourism 'tends to
distribute development away from the industrial centres towards those
regions in a country which have not been developed' (Williams & Shaw,
1998: 12).
Although both themes (regional and country) stress the contribution of
tourism to development, there are a number of reasons why it is important
to distinguish between the two because they have different implications for
tourism's actual contribution to development. First, at the national level, the
attitude to tourism may vary considerably in less developed and developed
countries. In the former, tourism is frequently much more economically
important, for example in terms of its share of GDP (Table 3.1) and, as a
result, tourism development is often supported, with high expectations, by
a national tourism policy as, for example, in Turkey (see Daoudi & Mihalic,
1999; Pirnar, 2009). In developed countries, however, there may not be a
specific tourism policy. Rather, tourism development may constitute an ele-
ment of regional or industrial policy, other industries or service sectors may
have the potential for much higher added value, and tourism may be seen as
a priority economic activity only for less developed regions as opposed to the
whole national economy. Such a situation exists in a number of countries.
Second, the negative impacts of tourism development are frequently claimed
to be much more evident in less developed countries, primarily as a result of
the economic and socio-cultural gulf that exists between them and the devel-
oped countries that are the principal generators of tourists and, as a result of
both factors, much more attention has been given to tourism development
theory in the context of the less developed world.
Yet in reality, the extent to which convergence in growth rates and, con-
sequently, expected convergence in per capita GDP may be achieved also
depends on the ability of tourism businesses to add value in comparison to
other activities in the developed region and on the capital-output ratio in the
tourism region compared with that in the developed, generating region. If
the added value in the tourism industry is lower (and the capital-output ratio
higher) compared to added value (capital-output ratio) in other industries in
rich regions, then poorer regions can never catch up with the wealthier