Tourism, Development and International Studies - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 401

remittances as a key source of financing for developing countries. All of these
changes are taking place in a highly complex global security and environ-
mental context (Kilby, 2012) and have the potential to impact significantly
on the tourism development process.
The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to explore the interaction of
tourist mobility and tourism development with current events and issues
that are of global importance. It begins by examining the nature of some of
the main contemporary global issues and risks. Current events quickly disap-
pear within a 24-hour news cycle, replaced by the next news event. Thus,
the chapter focuses on the issue-attention cycle to illustrate the immediacy
of events but also longer-term implications. A range of theories of interna-
tional studies, including realism, liberalism, cosmopolitanism, Marxism,
social constructivism, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, feminism and
globalisation are examined for ways in which they can be used as a lens to
investigate global events in the context of tourism development. There are
numerous theories, frameworks and perspectives that can be used to exam-
ine global issues, and each of these perspectives points to different factors as
being the most important while perhaps ignoring factors others may see as
essential. As Mansbach and Rafferty (2008: 44) suggest, 'realists, for exam-
ple tend to focus on power; Marxists emphasize class and economic condi-
tions; and liberals pay attention to normative factors and institutions'. How
tourism development is interpreted in the context of global events under
these various theories illustrates the value in taking an international studies
approach. In addition, international studies adopt an interdisciplinary
approach and, therefore, this chapter also examines selected disciplines appli-
cable to international studies in the context of tourism development before
concluding with some reflections on the barriers and challenges in the con-
text of international studies that global issues can have on the tourism devel-
opment process.
Before considering global issues and threats, for the purposes of this
chapter it is important first to include comments on the level of analysis, as
not only do global events cascade down to affect states, regions, destinations,
corporations and individuals (Mansbach & Rafferty, 2008) but also the cas-
cade effect can operate in the reverse direction. Anderson et al. (2013), include
in their book on international studies an analysis of various theoretical per-
spectives, historical backgrounds, geographical contexts, social-cultural
interactions, economic structures and political systems, as well as an exami-
nation of regions such as Europe, Latin America and the Middle East while
recognising the dangers of generalisations. International studies, therefore,
embraces multiple levels of complexity ranging from understanding the
impacts of global events to where and how they originated, and how those
that are affected directly and indirectly react to these events. It is beyond the
scope of this chapter to cover all aspects of international studies. Nevertheless,
it will highlight how the approach of this area of study along with various