Tourism and Economic Development Issues - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 96

regions. At the same time, it must be stressed that parity between metropoli-
tan centres and less developed peripheral regions is rarely, if ever, an objective
of tourism development; the goal may simply be to gain some economic
developmental benefit through tourism.
Some authors who support the theory of dependency go so far as to claim
that tourism is another form of colonialism or imperialism (Harrison, 2000a)
(see Chapter 2). This suggests that less developed tourism regions exhibit a
reliance upon external factors and, as such, derive their growth from corre-
sponding growth in the developed regions. Tourism development may there-
fore reflect the symptoms of dependency when it results in the enrichment
of developed countries or regions at the expense of poorer ones (Fletcher,
2000). Tourism development might introduce leakages from the economy
arising from the import of products used in the tourism industry and the
domination of foreign and multinational firms in the hotel, tour operating
and transport sectors that redistribute tourism expenditures back to the
developed areas in which they are located. Wealthier tourist-generating cen-
tres become richer from tourism in developing destinations on account of the
tourist expenditure that leaks out of these destinations, either in the first
round when tourists buy imported goods or in subsequent rounds when
tourism companies purchase goods and services from suppliers outside the
borders of the region/country. Furthermore, tourist-stimulated consumption
in the place of residence before and after travel has the same effect. Lacher
and Nepal (2010) studied the dependent relationship of the developed urban
area and its rural hinterland in Northern Thailand and found that between
15% and 61% of village tourism revenues leak out of the villages, depending
on several factors. Yet they emphasise that the revenue which does stay
should prove beneficial for further development and that the villagers are
eager to engage in tourism.
Further evidence against convergence theory is provided by the regionally
uneven tourism development in China. Recent developments have created an
economic disparity between the prosperous coastal region and impoverished
inland region, and tourism development has significantly exacerbated this
disparity, being even more concentrated in coastal areas. The three coastal
gateways (Shanghai, Beijing and Guanzhou) that enjoy the highest per capita
GDP and account for 40% of the total population have attracted 62% of the
country's tourist receipts since the mid-1980s (Wen & Tisdell, 2001). In addi-
tion, some researchers (Nowak et al. , 2010) have shown that the scale of
cross-border tourism production is quite substantial. Particular countries
may be competitive in some parts of the tourism product only, whereas they
may not be efficient enough to compete in other parts. For example, tourism
products are becoming increasingly based on information and communica-
tion technology (ICT) and it is logical to expect that countries with tech-
nological advantages in ICT will also possess a comparative advantage for
these services.