Tourism-led Development Research Articles

Is financial development a prerequisite for the tourism-led growth phenomenon? World-wide evidence

Purpose This study aims to re-examine the growth effects of tourism and role of financial development in this process for countries across the globe for the period 1995–2018. Design/methodology/approach Considering the asymmetric effect of tourism on economic performance, the author makes use of a recently developed method of moments approach of quantile regression with fixed effects proposed by Machado and Silva (2019). Findings Model-based on tourist arrival shows a positive effect of tourism on economic performance. Yet, the effect is conditional and shows that relatively low-income economies are benefited more than high-income economies. The results also show that all types of tourism are beneficial for growth, yet business-related tourist arrivals are found to be comparatively more effective than other types of tourism. The evidence also shows that excess tourism does not dampen growth. Finally, the evidence suggests that financial development offers critical absorptive capacity, and tourism-led growth cannot be realised without it. Originality/value In contrast to previous studies, the approach effectively deals with non-normality, endogeneity and heterogeneity across issues. Furthermore, this study uniquely tests the role of financial development in channelling tourism-led development.

From empowering women to being empowered by women: A gendered social innovation framework for tourism-led development initiatives

Female entrepreneurship plays a crucial role in fostering tourism-led development (TLD). However, TLD narratives often focus on individual women's empowerment while overlooking underlying gender inequalities. They also neglect broader societal changes needed. To address this, we examine the interplay between empowerment and gendered social innovation in the context of a TLD project aimed at women entrepreneurs. Using a qualitative approach, this research involved in-depth semi-structured interviews with 32 women tourism entrepreneurs from Ecuador and México; and dialogues with 7 project team members. Results shed light on the intricate connection between individual and relational empowerment and gendered social innovation. This study's original contribution is a multiangled framework of gendered social innovation as an ongoing process of social change attached to female tourism entrepreneurship, empowerment, and evolving social practices of working with and among women tourism entrepreneurs as local partners. Theoretical and practical implications for policymakers and tourism-led development practitioners are discussed.

Still on UNESCO’s “Tentative List of World Heritage”? Heritage, Tourism, and Stunted Growth in Sarnath (Varanasi), India

It is not unusual for a place to wait for years before being inscribed on the World Heritage List, but Sarnath—the place where the Buddha delivered his first sermon—has been on UNESCO’s “tentative list” for close to 25 years. As a sacred place for Buddhist pilgrimages, Sarnath continues to attract thousands of visitors annually and yet, remains under-developed, unlike other pilgrim towns or religious tourism destinations. This paper examines the reasons for the stunted growth of Sarnath. The findings are based on fieldwork conducted in Sarnath in 2019. The analysis of stakeholder interviews suggests several reasons for Sarnath not being able to capitalize on its religious and cultural heritage for tourism-led development. It was found that the protection of the site as an archaeological park by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which has been controlling development surrounding the park as well as prohibiting the performance of any rituals, have been the key endogenous factors that have contributed to the relative under-development of a Buddhist pilgrimage economy in the town. A handful of monasteries are where Buddhist followers stay and perform their pilgrimage rituals, rendering them as enclaves. Private-sector accommodation is also limited to around 15 hotels and guesthouses. Administratively, Sarnath does not have an independent governance structure. It is governed as just one ward (an electoral constituency) by the Municipal Corporation of Varanasi and is, thus, always under the shadow of Varanasi city. Varanasi is one of the most significant Hindu sacred cities and, hence, visitors stay there for much longer durations to soak in cultural offerings, including religious ceremonies around the Ganga River; a visit to Sarnath is secondary and often limited to a half-day tour. Moreover, the archaeological park at Sarnath serves a recreational purpose as a picnic site for domestic visitors. The exogenous factors mean that the interests of Sarnath (as a Buddhist site) are hardly acknowledged by the Hindu city of Varanasi. This paper argues that the multi-layered contestations that exist at the site level, the town–ward level, and between visitors and managers have further contributed to the poor state of heritage and tourism in Sarnath.

EXPLORING SUSTAINABILITY FACETS OF PRO-POOR TOURISM PROGRAMS IN INDIA

This paper intends to explore local-specific sustainability facets of pro-poor tourism initiated in India's Protected Area (PA). Mixed methodology, i.e., interview and structured questionnaire adopted for data collection and followed by the factor analysis for testing hypothesis. The result indicates that the sustainability facets of pro-poor tourism have five distinct facets: monetary, environmental, societal, cultural heritage, and governance. The study assumes significance in the pro-poor approach in tourism development for addressing various Sustainable Development Goals and in understating the ground-level reality of sustainability in the context of tourism-led development in developing countries. It also throws light on setting standards for approach-based tourism programs that cater to various segments of society and the environment.

Tourism and low-carbon performance: an fsQCA approach

ABSTRACT This study applied a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to investigate the influence of tourism on changes in low-carbon performance. We additionally introduced economy, renewable energy use, and research and development investment as the antecedent conditions. The results show that the impact of tourism on low-carbon performance is diversified and non-linear. Tourism is not the necessary condition of high or weak low-carbon performance. We found three different low-carbon development models, namely the economy-led development in emerging economies, tourism-led development in developing countries, and innovation-led development in developed countries. We also found the causal asymmetry in the driving mechanism of low-carbon performance.

The nexus of tourism, renewable energy, income, and environmental quality: an empirical analysis of Pakistan.

In the current study, we investigate the dynamic association of tourism, renewable energy, income, foreign direct investment (FDI), and carbon dioxide (CO2e) for Pakistan over 1990–2017. We established four plausible hypotheses and verified by employing the autoregressive distributed lags model and Granger causality based on vector error correction model (VECM). Considering the cointegration relationship between the variables, the outcomes of autoregressive distributed lags suggested that tourism increases economic growth, and economic growth induces tourism in the long-run, thus confirming tourism-led development, and growth-led tourism hypothesis; similarly, the tourism generates CO2e emissions, which supported the tourism-led emission hypothesis. The role of renewable energy consumption found to be a significant moderator, thus helping to enrich tourism, accelerating economic growth, and combating CO2e in the country. VECM causal results indicated the significant bidirectional causal linkages between tourism and economic growth—another causality found between tourism and CO2e. There is one-way causality from FDI and renewable energy towards income simultaneously. Overall, the designers of policies will find this study useful for policymaking at government levels for smooth economic growth, investment, and sustainable tourism sector.

Tourism and Crime: Evidence from the Philippines

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted)IntroductionThe tourism industry in the Philippines has expanded rapidly in recent years due primarily to intensified marketing of the country's rich geographical and biological diversity and of its historical and cultural heritage. In 2000-10, the tourism sector consistently made substantial contribution to the Philippine economy, averaging about 5.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) on an annual basis. In 2011, tourism revenues further increased by 10.2% from 2010, and its share in GDP inched up to 5.9% (National Statistical Coordination Board 2012). In the same year, the tourism sector provided 778,000 employment opportunities nationwide. Most recently, the count of foreign visitor arrivals for January- August 2013 reached 3.2 million, an increase of about 11.3% from 2.9 million visitors recorded in the same period in 2012 (Department of Tourism 2013). The Philippine tourism industry is expected to continue to expand in the coming years. From 2012 to 2022, travel and tourism contribution to GDP is forecasted to rise at an annual average of 6.5%, and its employment generation by 3.3% (World Travel and Tourism Council 2012).With its extensive forward and backward linkages-transport, hotel and restaurant, wholesale and retail trade, banking and finance, construction, food processing, agriculture and livestock, manufacturing, etc., the tourism industry promises to have a high income generating potential that can spur growth of local economies and the national economy as a whole. The sector, however, is associated with negative externalities such as environmental degradation and higher incidence of crimes, social costs that are shouldered by residents of tourist destinations in terms of lower quality of life (Pizam 1982). Notwithstanding the significant positive contribution of the tourism industry in the growth of the Philippine economy and as the goal of development planners must be no less than over-all societal welfare with income and quality of life components, there is a need to properly assess the social costs associated with the tourism sector. For a tourism-led development policy to effectively and sustainably raise people's welfare, it must be coupled with measures to address the sector's negative environmental and social consequences, if these exist.The positive link between tourism and crime is suggested in the Routine Activity Theory on Crime developed by Cohen and Felson (1979). Tourists are suitable targets, one of three essential elements that are necessary for the success of predatory activities. Fujii and Mak (1980) point to the characteristics of tourists that make them highly desirable targets-they carry money and valuable objects, they are on a holiday mood and hence tend to be less prudent, and they are perceived to be safer targets since they rarely report crime to the police. Ryan (1993) points that some tourism activity arises from the demand for illegal goods and services, as in the case of sex tourism (Johnson 2011) and tourism for substance abuse, a phenomenon that is also suspected to prevail in the Philippines. Becker's (1968) quantitative economic model of criminal activity predicts that the incidence of crime increases with higher expected net returns from committing crimes. Expected returns increase with more tourists who commonly possess money and other valuables (expected income from crime) and who are less likely to report crimes (lower probability of detection).Empirical studies done in both developing and developed countries lend some support to the hypothesized positive relation between tourism and crime. McPheters and Stronge (1974) found that the season of crime coincided with the season of tourism in Miami, USA. Jud (1975) likewise confirmed that growth of tourism-based businesses had a strong positive relationship with crime incidence in his study of 32 states in Mexico. Pizam's study (1982) using data from 50 states in the United States found significant positive relationship between tourism expenditures and crime incidence in four (namely, crime against property, robbery, rape, and aggravated assault) out of nine categories of crime investigated in the study. …

The Tourism-Led Development Strategy in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has an ability become one of the best tourism countries (TCs) in Asia. However, it missed opportunities on a number of occasions due to inappropriate economic policies, continuous political violence, and wars. Since 1983 the Sri Lankan tourism sector was seriously affected by the nearly three decades of separatist war which ended in May 2009. Immediately after the end of war tourism in Sri Lanka bounced back and it now has become the engine of economic growth in post-war Sri Lanka. In this paper, a historical analysis has been undertaken to demonstrate how Sri Lanka miss matched their development strategies in terms of tourism, although the country had the potential to attract a record number of tourists. The post-war tourism boom has given Sri Lankans and the Sri Lankan tourism sector new hopes and optimism. This paper demonstrates that the Sri Lankan tourism sector has potential and opportunities to play a vital role in the post-war inclusive development strategy in terms of generating much needed foreign exchange, poverty alleviation via employment generation, accelerating economic growth and uplifting living standards of all Sri Lankans.

Paving the way for Philippine tourism via interagency collaboration on road networks

Promoting tourism and improving roads are generic objectives for developing countries. Despite their relationship—tourists often reach destinations via roads—both are seldom considered together while evaluating options in improving the accessibility of tourist destinations. Since government agencies for tourism and infrastructure are usually separate, coordination difficulties arise. This article analyzes how the Philippines is attempting to surmount obstacles to beneficial collaboration linking tourism with road infrastructure by addressing rent-seeking, bureaucratic turf, and incentives to better align the activities of government agencies with tourism-led development. It enhances the literature by focusing on these governance challenges impeding the joint consideration of transport and tourism in developing countries. Additionally, it highlights the catalytic role played by a civil society organization. After providing a case to illustrate this collaboration in practice, the authors consider how the framework developed may be extended by the Philippine tourism ministry in working with other agencies overseeing complementary objectives to ensure seamless intermodal transport in this archipelagic nation.

The contribution of HRD to tourism-led development in an African context

The development potential of tourism is widely recognised, and its promotion has been embraced by many developing countries. While many African countries are among these, in most, tourism’s potential remains underexploited. Africa’s share of the global market remains low despite the region’s advantages. Interlinked reasons for this commonly include poor service standards and a shortage of suitably skilled labour in the sector. Because human interaction forms a crucial component of any destination’s tourism product, a country can enhance the economic contribution of tourism through the development of the people employed (or employable) in the industry, i.e. human resource development (HRD). This study uses concepts from management studies and economics to explore the links between tourism, economic development, and HRD, and highlights the role that tourism HRD can play in tourism-led development in an African context.

Tourism and the Millennium Development Goals: perspectives beyond 2015

As 2015 approaches, debates about the contribution to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (UN MDGs) are growing in momentum. The aim of this review is to interrogate the potential contributions of tourism to the UN MDGs, specifically of poverty alleviation, and of how the relationship between tourism development and the UN MDGs has been framed in existing scholarship. It is argued that whilst the global tourism industry potentially can contribute to economic development goals in destination regions, its impacts are ambivalent so that there is a growing concern surrounding the local benefits of global tourism including support for realisation of the UN MDGs. To avert the risks in the Global South of tourism-led development, the industry needs to be clearly positioned as a potential tool for, not at the end of local, regional, national and global development agendas. Several promising research avenues for interrogating tourism impacts for UN MDGs are identified. Issues relating to greening of tourism, inclusive business models and backward linkages offer a powerful policy-relevant agenda for tourism scholarship to move forward our understanding of the UN MDG objectives, which were originally set down in 2000, beyond 2015.

Tourism-Led Land-Use Changes and their Environmental Effects in the Southern Coastal Region of Hainan Island, China

Wang, J. and Liu, Y., 2013. Tourism-led land-use changes and their environmental effects in the southern coastal region of Hainan Island, China. Journal of Coastal Research, 29(5), 1118–1125. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Tourism has been often considered as an effective way to promote economic growth for coastal areas in developing countries. As the most important tourist destination and the largest Special Economic Zone in China, Hainan chose tourism-led development and achieved rapid economic growth. This paper analyzes land-use changes driven by tourismled development and their environmental effects during a period of time from 1991 to 2007 in Sanya City, southern coastal region of Hainan Island. High-resolution remote sensing and detailed socioeconomic data were used in the study. Based on a combination of remote sensing and geographic information systems methods, a matrix of land-use change was constructed to identify land-use changes between 1991 and 2007. The outcomes indicate that the changes from farmland to construction land and from forestland to orchard are the main transformation types. From 1991 to 2007, farmland and forestland decreased by 15% and 29% respectively; on the contrary, construction land and orchard increased by 242% and 258%. The transformation from farmland to construction land mainly occurred in plains along the coastline, while the changes from forestland to orchard mainly occurred in middle platform areas. Booming tourism not only led to the increased demand for tourism infrastructure and rapid urban expansion, but also boosted the demand for tropical fruit products quickly. However, rapid increases of tourism infrastructures occupied large fertile farmland, urban expansion caused construction land increase and farmland loss, and forest was converted to orchard, driven by the high speed of market demand of fruit products. Tourism-led development restructured the land-use pattern dramatically, which brought about landscape fragmentation, vegetation degeneration, and coastal erosion. Irrational tourism and land development have destroyed Sanya’s tourism resources and dissipated its initial advantage to some extent, which will hinder the sustainable development of tourism. Finally, some suggestions are given to coordinate the tourism-led land development in coastal regions.

BEYOND GROWTH: Reaching Tourism-Led Development

Many communities around the world seek tourism to improve their livelihoods. The changes brought by tourism are often reflected in economic and infrastructural growth. Nevertheless, such growth does not always reflect development goals. Framed around interactional theory, this study intends to open the “black box” of community relations by examining the causal factors, processes, and outcomes associated with tourism-led development. A case study methodology was applied in two amenity-rich Costa Rican communities known to present divergent growth and development outcomes after their incursion in tourism. The study findings suggest the critical relevance of open communication, widespread participation, tolerance, and communion among residents and different tourism-related stakeholders for the promotion of processes leading to tourism-led development.

Informal Labour Use in Tourism-Led Development: The Case of Marmaris

Informal Labour Use in Tourism-Led Development: The Case of Marmaris

The emergence of tourism-led local development: the example of Livingstone, Zambia

This article examines at local level the emergence of tourism as a lead sector for economic development. The example of Livingstone, Zambia illustrates the importance of locality-based studies in African tourism. Livingstone's development as a tourism centre is traced from 1905 and linked to the changing political economy of development in Southern Africa.

The Poverty of Tourism under Mobilizational Developmentalism in China

ABSTRACT In China tourism has been promoted not only as a passport to development in general, but also as an effective instrument to help the poor, and to regulate the serious regional disparity between the coastal and inland areas. In practice, tourism has been adopted popularly by local state elites as an important local economic development strategy, especially in poverty-stricken areas. This article studies the pattern of tourism development in China through the historically specific institutional dynamics of mobilizational developmentalism, which is generated from a blending of mobilizational bureaucracy with developmentalism. With the analytical framework of mobilization developmentalism, this article studies a case of “industrialization of tourism” in which the Miao New Year was promoted by a nationally designated poor county as a tourism-led development project. On one hand, this article analyzes how local bureaucrats at various levels of the government responded to the political mobilization of a tourism-led development project. On the other hand, this study explores how local communities respond to tourism projects mobilized from above. This article argues that mobilizational developmentalism shapes a specific set of political, economic and cultural processes among local state elites, tourist operators, and local communities in developing tourism in China.

Skills development in tourism: South Africa's tourism-led development strategy

Skills development for tourism has attracted only a limited scholarship in the developing world. In this paper the role of skills development in advancing South Africa's tourism-led development strategy is investigated. Skills development has a central role to play in ensuring the effective and sustainable transformation and development of the tourism industry in developing countries and, in the case of South Africa, in ensuring that poorer South Africans begin to benefit from this industry. It is argued that the current lack of an integrated and co-ordinated approach to tourism skills development seriously limits the potential of skills development to impact positively on tourism transformation and development in South Africa.

Blaenavon and United Nations World Heritage Site Status: Is Conservation of Industrial Heritage a Road to Local Economic Development?

This article examines the policy issues connected with a programme of economic redevelopment centred upon the conservation and renewal of industrial heritage. The article examines the case of Blaenavon Industrial Landscape in South Wales which has recently been successful in gaining status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Tourism-led economic development focusing on industrial heritage is shown to present some unique trade-offs between promoting the needs of visitors over local communities, and between the maintenance of cultural value and site commodification.

TOURISM AND SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES: THE CASE OF THE MAPUTO DEVELOPMENT CORRIDOR

ABSTRACT Tourism in South Africa is a strategic sector and potentially one of the driving forces of the economy in the 21st century. The developmental effects and issues surrounding the changing tourism economy need to be more clearly understood. In this paper the focus is upon the consequences and development issues surrounding tourism and Spatial Development Initiatives. First, a context to South African tourism developments is provided by investigating key changes taking place in tourism-led economic development strategies, in particular the shift away from a mass tourism model towards the emergence of so-termed ‘alternative tourism’ which is a core focus in SDI projects. Second, attention turns to the changing South African policy environment towards tourism, focussing on new policy initiatives, particularly since 1994. Lastly, SDIs and tourism are discussed, analysing the developmental implications of tourism in the example of the Maputo Development Corridor. The case of the Maputo Development Corridor illustrates the challenges that are faced in terms of planning for tourism-led development within the SDI's.

Tourism as sustainable development? The Albanian experience of ‘transition’

Despite significant increases in international tourist arrivals and tourism receipts since the fall of communism in central and eastern europe as a whole, in the rural southeastern corner of the continent, a region well-endowed with a range of natural and cultural tourism resources, instability and uncertainty have constrained international tourism development in the 1990s. This regional context for tourism development and the specific issues which surround a tourism-led development model in a small developing country are addressed with particular reference to the recent experience of Albania. As part of a sustainable rural development programme, rural tourism's role as a counterbalance to rejuvenated mass coastal tourism is evaluated. Potentially an important vehicle for cultural expression and employment regeneration, the adoption of rural tourism as a development vehicle is faced with a number of obstacles, which national, and perhaps international, development programmes need to address. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.