Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
14
Tourism, Development and
International Studies
David J. Telfer and Atsuko Hashimoto
Introduction
The tourism development process needs to be understood within a
broader context and international studies offers an interdisciplinary approach
to understanding the complexity of an ever increasingly connected and glo-
balised world (Anderson
et al.
, 2013). Advances in information technology,
media, transport and global finance instantly bring news of events from one
side of the world to the other, and these events more readily impact other
nations, corporations, tourists and destinations. The recent global financial
crisis of 2008, for example, resulted in financial bailouts for several countries
in Europe, including Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus, while the
Arab Spring protests beginning in late 2010 in countries such as Tunisia,
Egypt, Libya and others have affected regional security.
Until recently, the process of globalisation was thought to be facilitating
a limitless expansion of the tourist industry. However, the proliferation and
growing severity of ecological, political and, in particular, financial crises
have posed new obstacles, encouraging counter trends to globalisation and
impacting the global tourism system (Cohen, 2012). These events have the
potential to influence the role of tourism in the development process. Kilby
(2012) observes that there have been major shifts in development studies
since 2000 as a result of fundamental changes in the global economy in gen-
eral, and in development finance in particular. The first is increased security
concerns after 9/11 and other terrorist attacks. The second is the relative
failure of the neoliberal project from the 1980s and 1990s, including the
weakening of the Bretton Woods institutions of the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and World Bank as development drivers. The third is the rise of
China as a global economic force, and with it, other large developing coun-
tries that have become major aid donors. The final change is the rapid rise in
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