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Indeed, 75% of FDI flows are concentrated in North America, the EU and
Japan while, at the same time, 70% of FDI outside these blocs is absorbed by
only 12 countries (Hoogvelt, 1997: 77). Even the precipitous rise of the so-
called BRIC economies has so far failed to considerably reverse this figure; in
2008 the combined outward FDI from these states amounted to less than
that of the Netherlands (Nolan & Zhang, 2010: 101). Where tourism is con-
cerned (mainly concentrated in hotels and restaurants), it is estimated that
it only accounts for 2-3% of total outward FDI from the advanced industri-
alised nations (indeed outward FDI from within the developing and emer-
gent markets is rising more quickly), whilst by far the largest proportion is
absorbed by the large emergent economies such as Argentina, Brazil and
Mexico (Endo, 2006). Similarly, it has been argued here that economic glo-
balisation and the transnational restructuring of ownership and labour rela-
tions in tourism has not been an even process. It is apparent, therefore, that
parallel to the processes of market concentration at a global level, the geo-
graphical unevenness of development creates the potential for the peripher-
alisation of regions and populations that cuts across national boundaries.
There thus needs to be an element of caution when considering the pre-
cise magnitude and scope of globalisation and transnational corporate pen-
etration into regional tourism industries, as well as the degree to which the
expansion of tourism in the 1990s and 2000s has been evenly distributed
both worldwide and within specific regions. During the early stages of mass
tourism expansion in the 1950s and 1960s, the geographic distribution of
tourism production to a large extent mirrored former colonial trading net-
works, as indicated by Britton (1980b) and others (e.g. Harrison, 2001b: 29).
Yet, although the past 20 years has witnessed the opening up of new tour-
ism regions (e.g. the expansion of tourism and capital into Eastern Europe),
the dominant tendency has arguably been the growing importance of des-
tinations and intensification of market forces within existing tourism
regions, such as the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. This therefore rep-
resents the 'thickening' of exchanges within particular regions in tandem
with the partial widening and deepening of tourist flows to new and emer-
gent regions.
The uneven geographical distribution and economic weight of tourism
worldwide is illustrated by regional patterns of expansion and contraction in
the growth/decline of international tourist arrivals and tourism receipts.
Whilst East Asia and the Pacific witnessed growth in its market share
of international tourist arrivals from 7.5% to 14.4% during the period
1980-1997, Africa experienced a far less impressive rise from 2.6% to 3.7%
during the same period (WTO, 1999a). In contrast, the recent political tur-
bulence along the southern Mediterranean shore and Syria in particular has
temporarily halted the recent resurgence of tourism in the Eastern
Mediterranean which registered as rise of between 17% in Lebanon and 40%
in Syria during the period 2008-2009 (UNWTO, 2011e).
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