Tourism has become one of the
most significant forces for change in the world today. Regarded by many as the
world’s largest industry, tourism prompts regular mass migrations of people,
exploitation of resources, processes of development and inevitable
repercussions on places, economies, societies and environments. It is a
phenomenon that increasingly demands attention. Tourism Geography reveals
how geographic perspectives can inform and illuminate the study of tourism, the
factors that have encouraged the development of both domestic and international
forms of tourism, highlighting ways in which patterns of tourism have evolved
and continue to evolve.
Issues and
approaches in the contemporary geography of tourism
Thirty years ago, the inclusion
of a book on tourism within a series of introductory texts covering differing
aspects of human geography would have been an unlikely event. Today, the
exclusion of tourism from the geography curriculum seems equally improbable.
From a position at the end of the Second World War when relatively few people
travelled for the purposes by which we now define the activity, tourism has
grown to a point at which it is commonly being heralded as the world’s largest
industry. The World Tourism Organization (WTO) estimates that international
travelers today number in excess of 528 million people annually with yearly
gross receipts from their activities exceeding US$320 billion. To these foreign
travelers and their expenditure must be added the domestic tourists who do not
cross international boundaries but who, in most developed nations at least, are
several times more numerous than their international counterparts.
Globally, an estimated 74 million people
derive direct employment from the tourism business: from travel and
transportation, accommodation, promotion, entertainment, visitor attractions
and tourist retailing. Tourism has been variously advocated as a means of
advancing wider international integration within areas such as the European
Union (EU) or as a catalyst for modernization, economic development and
prosperity in emerging nations in the Third World. Yet tourism also has its
negative dimensions. Whilst it brings development, tourism may also be
responsible for a range of detrimental impacts on the physical environment:
pollution of air and water, traffic congestion, physical erosion of sites,
disruption of habitats and the species that occupy places that visitors use,
and the unsightly visual blight that results from poorly planned or poorly
designed buildings. The exposure of local societies and their customs to
tourists can be a means of sustaining traditions and rituals, but it may also
be a potent agency for cultural change, a key element in the erosion of
distinctive beliefs, values and practices and a producer of nondescript,
globalized forms of culture. Also in the field of economic impacts, although
tourism has shown itself to be capable of generating significant volumes of
employment at national, regional and local levels, the uncertainties that
surround a market that is more prone than most to the whims of fashion can make
tourism an insecure foundation on which to build national economic growth, and
the quality of jobs created within this sector (as defined by their permanence,
reward and remuneration levels) often leaves much to be desired.
Geography and
the study of tourism
But what can geographers bring to
the study of this field? Tourism (with its focus upon travelling and the
transfer of people, goods and services through time and space) is essentially a
geographical phenomenon, and accordingly there are a number of ways through
which a geographical perspective can illuminate the subject they are as
follows:
The
effect of scale: To treat tourism as if it were a phenomenon
that is consistent in cause and effect through time and space, is to misrepresent
the dynamic diversity that is naturally present. However, the spatial perspective
allows us initially to recognize and make a valuable distinction between activity
at a range of geographical scales—global, international, regional and local—and
then to relate how patterns of interaction, motives for travel and its effects
and impacts vary as the scale alters. Without such differentiation some
significant parallels and contrasts will remain largely obscured.
Spatial
distributions of tourist phenomena: This is a
traditional area of interest for geographers and is concerned with several
central elements within tourism as a whole. This includes the spatial
patterning of supply, including the geography of resorts, of landscapes, places
and attractions deemed of interest to tourists or locations at which activity
may be pursued. Furthermore, geographers have a role to play in isolating
patterns of demand and associated tourist movements. Where are the primary
tourist-generating regions, how are they tied to the receiving areas by
transportation networks and what are the characteristic forms of flows of
visitors between generating and receiving areas?
Tourism
impacts:
Geographers
also have a bonafide interest in the resulting impacts of tourism since these
exhibit variations across time and space too. Impact studies have
conventionally considered the relatively broad domains of environmental,
economic, social and cultural impacts, each of which has a geographical
dimension. Indeed, it may be argued that geographers need to be more active in
exploring these issues. If we limit ourselves to conventional geographic
concerns for spatial patterns of people, resources and tourism flows, we gain
only a partial view of what tourism is about. Geography has the capacity to
provide a synergistic framework (i.e. a combining approach that emphasizes that
the product is often more than the sum of individual parts) for exploring more
complex issues such as the nature of links between tourism and development
processes or the socio/cultural/anthropological concerns for host—visitor
relationships.
Planning
for tourism: As it has
developed, tourism has inevitably become a focus of attention in spatial and
economic planning, The capacity for physical development of tourism
infrastructure to exert extensive changes in host areas is considerable, and in
order to minimize detrimental influences and maximize the beneficial attributes
of tourism, some form of planned development of the industry is often deemed
essential. The historically close links between geography and planning (with
their shared interests in the organization of people, space and resources)
therefore provide a fourth area in which geographers may contribute to the
understanding of tourism.
The Physical and
Economic Development of Tourism
Among the many impacts that
tourism may exert upon host areas, the processes of physical and economic
development are perhaps the most conspicuous. These effects may be evident in
the physical development of tourism infrastructure (accommodation, retailing,
entertainment, attractions, transportation services, etc.); the associated
creation of employment within the tourism industry; and, less visibly, a range
of potential impacts upon GDP, balances of trade and the capacities of national
or regional economies to attract inward investment. For developing regions in
particular, the apparent capacity for tourism to create considerable wealth
from resources that are often naturally and freely available has proven
understandably attractive, but the risks associated with over-development and
dependence upon an activity that can be characteristically unstable are
negative dimensions that should not be overlooked. There are benefits, but
there are also costs attached to the physical and economic development of
tourism.
Patterns of
physical development of tourism
Prerequisites for growth: The development
of tourism in any given location requires that several key elements come
together to produce the right conditions. These may be summarized under three
headings: resources and attractions; infrastructure; and investment, labour and
promotion.
Ø Resources and
attractions: Tourism
is a resource industry, dependent for its basic appeal upon nature’s
endowment and society’s heritage. The natural appeal of a locality may
rest upon one (or more) of its physical attributes: the climate,
landforms, landscapes, flora or fauna; whilst socio-cultural heritage
may draw tourists seeking to enjoy centers of learning or entertainment,
to visit places of interest or historic significance or to view buildings
or ruins of buildings. Socio-cultural attractions may also extend to the
perusal of artifacts or works of art; the experience of customs, rituals
or performing arts; enjoyment of foreign cuisine; or festivals and spectacles.
At the sane token the natural and social endowments of an area will typically
seek to develop the resource and attractions base to tourism through the
construction of specific, often artificial, tourist attractions. Examples might
include tourist shops, places of entertainment and amusement, theme parks,
swimming pools and leisure complexes.
Ø Infrastructure: Tourism
development requires infrastructure, primarily in the form of accommodation,
transportation services and public utilities. Tourism, by definition, is
centered upon travel and on staying away from home; hence the provision
of both transportation and accommodation will be integral elements
within development programmes. Transportation developments need to take
account of the needs for external linkages (ports, airports,
international rail terminals, etc.) to allow tourists to gain access to
their destinations, as well as provision that allows for circulation
within the destination area (local roads, vehicle hire services, etc.).
Accommodation developments may reflect particular market segments at
which the destination is being targeted (for example, luxury hotels for
discerning international travelers), but otherwise must cater for the
diversity of tourism demands by providing not just serviced accommodation
in the form of hotels, but also cheaper or more flexible forms of accommodation:
in apartment blocks, villa developments, time shares or caravan and camping
sites. The expectations of quality that many tourists carry with them also have
implications for provision of public utilities; water supply, sanitation and
electricity are essential underpinnings to most forms of modern tourist
development
Ø Investment,
labour and promotion: For tourism area to develop there is a need for
sources of capital investment, labour and appropriate structures for marketing
and promoting the destination to be established. Whilst some of the basic
attractions to tourists (especially the natural phenomena) may in a sense be
‘free’, infrastructural developments and the formation of artificial
attractions require investment, and the operation of the industry at the
destination requires pools of labour with appropriate training and experience.
In most developmental contexts, such needs are met by combinations of private
and public investment, with governments typically playing a greater role in the
promoting of destinations, infrastructural improvements involving transport and
public utilities, and, in some cases, in employment training. In contrast,
private finance is more prominent in the development of tourist accommodation
and attractions. However, the balance between public and private finance (and
between indigenous and foreign investment) will vary considerably from place to
place, depending upon local economic and political conditions.
Processes of physical and
economic development are the most visible ways in which tourism affects host
areas. However, developments not only alter the physical environments of
destinations but also exert a range of economic effects too. These will vary
from place to place, depending upon levels of local economic development, but
could include a range of impacts upon balance of payments accounts, national
and regional economic growth, and the creation of employment. Unfortunately,
the instabilities of tourism that make it vulnerable to a range of influences
(for example, exchange rate or oil price fluctuations; political crises;
changes in fashion) mean the industry is not always able to provide a firm
basis for economic development. For Third World countries, tourism may increase
levels of foreign dependence, and in many contexts the quality of employment
that the industry creates is low.
Finally, Tourism
has become an activity of global significance, and as an inherently geographical
phenomenon that centers upon the movement of people, goods and services through
time and space it merits the serious consideration of geographers. Our understanding
of tourism is, however, complicated by problems of definition, by the diversity
of forms that the activity takes, by the contrasting categories of tourists,
and by the different disciplines in which tourism may be studied. Geography, as
an intrinsically eclectic subject with a tradition in the synthesis of
alternative perspectives, is better placed than many to make sense of the
patterns and practices of tourists.
Reference
Gilbert, D.C. (1990) ‘Conceptual
issues in the meaning of tourism’. In Cooper,
C.P. (ed.) Progress in
Tourism, Recreation and Hospitality Management, Vol.
2, London: Belhaven
Mathieson, A. and Wall, G. (1982)
Tourism: Economic, Physical and Social
Impacts, Harlow: Longman.
Murphy, P.E. (1985) Tourism: A
Community Approach, London: Routledge.
Pearce, D. (1987) Tourism
Today: A Geographical Analysis, Harlow: Longman.
——(1989) Tourism Development, Harlow:
Longman.
Theobald, W. (1994) ‘The context,
meaning and scope of tourism’. In Theobald,
W. (ed.) Global Tourism: The
Next Decade, Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann
The
need for air travellers to experience comfort at anytime whether on air
or on the ground cannot be overemphasised as that forms the bedrock of
high passenger traffic yield.
The Durbar festival dates back hundreds of years to the time when the Emirate (state) in the north used horses in warfare. Durbar During this period, each town, district, and nobility household was expected to contribute a regiment to the defense of the Emirate. Once or twice a year, the Emirate military chiefs invited the various regiments for a Durbar (military parade) for the Emir and his chiefs.
