Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
At the same time, in the early 1990s the permitted value of duty-free goods
brought back into Japan was doubled, from 100,000 to 200,000 yen, thereby
increasing the expenditure of Japanese tourists in the destination.
In economic terms, international tourism receipts are classified as exports
and international tourism expenditure as imports. International tourism
brings in foreign currency, yet the export of such is not a physical good like
traditional exports. Due to its service characteristics and balance of pay-
ments impact, international tourism is seen as an invisible export or import.
As such, it has many advantages compared to classical the exports of goods:
•
Some goods which cannot become the subject of exchange within inter-
national trade, such as the natural and cultural or social attractiveness of
a country, can be valorised through tourism. They attract tourism
demand and are indirectly 'sold' in the tourism market in the form of
higher prices for tourism products (see the section below on environmen-
tal goods valuation in tourism).
•
Some products that are 'exported' by being sold to foreign tourists visit-
ing the country, such as a bottle of wine or food items, may achieve
higher prices than if exported 'traditionally' (that is, physically trans-
ported for purchase and consumption overseas).
•
'Exporting' by selling to tourists also results in higher profits because,
apart from the higher prices mentioned earlier, the costs are lower (for
example, lower or no transportation costs or insurance costs).
•
Some perishable goods, such as agricultural products, which are sold
to tourists in the country may simply not be suitable for export owing
to an insufficiently developed infrastructure and management of
export flows.
International tourism receipts from foreign visitors and expenditures arising
from the travels of residents abroad are presented in the travel balance, which
forms part of the service account of any country's balance of payments.
However, the balance of such a simply defined travel balance is relatively
meaningless from the perspective of tourism's economic impacts on the
national economy. It only quantifies the final payments made by tourists. It
is necessary to account for all tourism-related transactions in order to deter-
mine the true significance of tourism. This not only includes the final pay-
ments by tourists and payments for travel costs, but also all international
payments related to investments in the tourism industry and its operations.
That would lead to a 'correct' tourism balance which would contain all rel-
evant transactions related to tourism. For example, the increased travel pro-
pensity of Japanese tourists in the 1990s would be shown in the tourism
balance. Yet, parallel to this, Japan also increased its foreign direct invest-
ment (FDI) in a number of tourism businesses abroad, such as in Hawaii, and
this capital outflow also contributed to a reduction of the total balance of
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