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development simply serves to redistribute existing labour. That is, the poten-
tial attraction of working within tourism means that traditional industries,
in particular agriculture, lose their labour force and go into decline. As a
consequence, more primary products have to be imported, contributing to a
negative balance of payments. At the same time, it has also been suggested
that working seasonally may be more attractive to the local labour force and
thus non-tourist industries with higher value-added potential may not con-
sider it worthwhile locating in the area (Mathieson & Wall, 1982). Yet,
despite these problems there is little doubt that through its employment
generation potential tourism effectively contributes to economic develop-
ment, particularly in areas where few, if any, alternative employment pros-
pects exist. Given the enormous variety of businesses which directly and
indirectly facilitate travel and in light of the positive trends in the growth of
travel and tourism it is likely that in the future significant new job opportu-
nities will directly and indirectly depend on tourism. So far, there has been
little research on the quality of indirect and induced job places whose char-
acteristics are certainly different to jobs in the direct tourism industry, which
is very often studied in terms of data for the hotel and restaurant or travel
agent sectors.
In general, in developed countries fewer and fewer jobs are available in
primary and secondary sectors in both relative and absolute terms on account
of the increased capital intensity, a decline in the traditional food production
and raw materials extraction sectors, as well as because of technological
progress and the reallocation of production to developing countries with
cheaper labour. To some extent, this reduction is compensated by increasing
employment in the tertiary sector which encompasses tourism. In addition,
tourism also generates additional job places in the quaternary sector as it is
an increasingly important user of services like ICT, culture, education or
governmental services. Indeed, tourism is seen as a relatively labour-intensive
industry, which is especially true in the initial stages of development. Yet as
it develops, the tourism industry may become increasingly more capital-
intensive, depending on the type of tourism involved. For example, Bull
(1995) cites Morocco as an example of a labour-intensive tourism industry
that in total employs 18.9% of the working population as opposed to London,
where tourism development is capital-intensive and provides jobs for 6.9% of
total employees (Table 3.3).
Conclusion and Discussion
While it is evident that tourism development research requires a more
holistic approach that would take account of all development dimensions
and correlations, this chapter has employed an approach based on the disci-
pline of economics. It has considered the economic dimension of tourism
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