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tourism is viewed as a chance for regional development in the South-East and
East Anatolia region (Seckelmann, 2002).
In the context of core-periphery, Christaler (1963) argued that tourism
could be a means of obtaining economic development in peripheral regions,
with rich tourists travelling from the metropolitan centre to the periphery,
bringing foreign exchange and creating jobs. Coastal, rural or alpine regions
represent destinations for metropolitan visitors and, since these regions can
fall below national averages on indicators of socio-economic well-being, tour-
ism can act to redistribute wealth from the richer metropolitan areas to the
poorer peripheral regions (Pearce, 1989). If, however, regional tourism devel-
opment is based primarily on external inputs of capital, labour, know-how
and technical resources, then the resulting high rates of leakage will prevent
tourism from being an effective regional development tool (Pearce, 1989; see
Chapter 2 on dependency). The challenge in using tourism for regional devel-
opment is 'to what extent tourism actually contributes to the regional dis-
persion of economic development, and to what extent it is a better regional
development agent than other industries or services remains largely unex-
plored' (Oppermann & Chon, 1997: 35).
The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the potential of tourism to
contribute to regional development in a variety of different scales and desti-
nations. It begins with an examination of the changing concepts related to
regional development, highlighting the shift to new regionalism, before
going on to look at the relationship between tourism and regional develop-
ment by considering some of the models presented in the tourism literature
relating to regional development. The role of the state and public policy in
regional tourism development is then explored, as it is frequently the state
that proposes, plans and potentially funds regional development schemes.
The chapter then considers tourism in a variety of different regions including
urban, rural, islands, peripheral regions, as well as tourism regions which
cross international borders. It concludes by stressing the need for strong col-
laboration and linkages to the surrounding region if tourism is to be used
successfully as an agent for regional development.
Before turning to the concepts related to regional development, it is first
useful to highlight Higgins and Savoie's (1988) rationale for paying particular
attention to the regional structure of a national economy:
•
Regional disparities create social and political problems that need to be
addressed in any political society and especially in countries where
'regions' and gaps among them correspond to states or provinces.
•
National economies are aggregations of regional economies which vary
in the degree of integration. Some regions in some countries are more
integrated with the world economy than with other regions of the same
country. These regional differences need to be understood in order to
develop effective plans.
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