Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
enormous investment in infrastructure that would be required. Nevertheless,
at first sight tourism as an economic sector has demonstrated healthy growth
and, hence, is considered an attractive and safe development option.
However, the overall global figures mask two important factors. First,
although international tourism can claim to be a growth sector (and, indeed,
has proved to be remarkably resilient to eternal events), certain periods have
witnessed low or even negative growth. The OPEC crisis of the mid-1970s,
the global recession in the early 1980s and the Gulf conflict in 1991 all
resulted in diminished growth figures and, for some countries, an actual
drop in arrivals. For example, although worldwide international arrivals in
1991 grew by just 1.25%, Cyprus, as a result of its proximity to the Middle
East, experienced a fall of 11.3% in its arrivals figures that year (CTO, 1992).
More recently, the events of 9/11 resulted in an overall decline in global tour-
ist arrivals in 2001, whilst a similar global decline in 2009 was directly attrib-
utable to the economic crisis which, at the time of writing, continues to
effect some parts of the world. Moreover, although global reductions in inter-
national tourist arrivals are rare, particular regions have experienced tempo-
rary falls in tourism, such as those destinations affected by the 2004 Indian
Ocean tsunami. Thus, tourism is highly susceptible to a variety of influences
which, at least in the short term, may have a significant impact at a destina-
tional level on tourism's economic development contribution. Moreover, the
highly seasonal character of tourism in many destinations, and the conse-
quential impact on income flows and employment levels, may also weaken
tourism's development role.
Second, as Shaw and Williams (1994: 23) point out, the global growth in
tourism does not imply that 'global mass tourism has now arrived and that
the populations of most countries are caught up in a whirl of international
travel'. Despite the growth of international tourism to and within certain
regions, in particular the Asia and Pacific area, the flows of international
tourism remain highly polarised and regionalised. That is, international
tourism is still largely dominated by the industrialised world, with the major
tourist flows being primarily between the more developed nations and, to a
lesser extent, from developed to less developed countries. Indeed, despite the
emergence of new, increasingly popular destinations, such as China, Poland
and Thailand, the economic benefits of tourism remain highly polarised,
with 'exchanges of money generated by tourism [being] predominantly
North-North between a combination of industrialised and newly industri-
alised countries' (Vellas & Bécherel, 1995: 21). For example, developing coun-
tries as a whole receive approximately one-third of international tourism
receipts, the remainder accounted for by industrialised countries. Indeed,
according to the UNWTO, 'advanced' economies accounted for 63.1% of
international tourism receipts in 2010, and 'emerging' economies just 36.9%
(UNWTO, 2011a). At the same time, the largest international movements of
tourists occur within well defined regions, in particular within Europe.
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