Integrated Approach To Tourism Planning And Management Tourism Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Tourism is one of the world's biggest industries. For developing countries, it is also one of the biggest incomes generators. Early literature in tourism development emphasized the role of tourism in economic development, particularly for developing countries (Erbes, 1973). However, the negative social, cultural impacts of tourism has increased in the past two decades , calling for more aware of planning and management of tourism development(WTO, 1996; Mathieson & Wall,1982, Wahab, 1997). The benefit of tourism in the country's economy is a major incentive for developing countries due to three pro-tourism arguments. First, the evolution of the request for international travel is scheduled to continue at astonishing rate because of the economic stability and travel preferences of people in the developed regions such as Europe, Asia and North America. Secondly, income elasticity of demand for the tourism means that, as the family income for the developed world increased, the disposable income would be directed to travel. Thirdly, developing countries need the foreign exchange earnings to support its economic development initiatives, in order to meet the needs of their local residents. By pro-tourism arguments, many developing countries are choosing, or being encouraged to develop tourism over some of the more traditional industry alternatives such as agriculture and manufacturing (Mill & Morrison, 1999). The major problems with agriculture are that overly dependent upon a few specific crops or products. In the competitive world market, where externalities and price are uncontrollable and unpredictable, countries dependent on agriculture have an unreliable and inconsistent source of revenue. Under these circumstances, the tourism industry can play the role in diversifying economy and the supplement the income has brought in through the agriculture. For example, after introducing tourism into the Caribbean island economies, the $9 billion tourism sector brought in six times the revenue of all traditional agricultural exports (Simon, 1995).

Other developing countries have set up manufacturing as an economic development policy option. In order to manufacture, a country need to have easily accessible source of raw materials for production. The country which has rich in natural resources is more successful in manufacturing. Many developing countries has shortage of skilled labour which is one of the necessary inputs for manufacturing. even when these problems are non-existent export oriented industries still face full international competition in selling their products (Mill & Morrison, 1999). Tourism also need land , skilled labour, capital resources to access . Yet, tourism, in the way that the product is produced and delivered, may be a

more viable alternative for developing countries. Most developing have the basic raw materials resources for tourism industry. Using the country's heritage, architecture , the natural and cultural resources makes a destination unique and marketable to visitors.

Accessing tourism is a good choice for the development of economics and requires more than simply understand the projected growth. Tourism requires many other reasons to make a suitable fit for developing countries. Unlike agriculture and manufacturing industries, tourism produces an invisible export. Tourism also allows countries to manipulate exchange rates to influence visitor expenditures. For instance, the destination can lower the exchange rates in order to attract more number of visitors. Tourism affect directly or indirectly to other sectors of economy more than other industry.

The strategies to maximize the economic benefits from tourism for developing countries are to bring in more money from visitors and organize tourism to minimize leakage of money and jobs. The statement looks simple but it actually complex due to some reasons. Government and private sector play in establishing policy and encouraging development in developing countries. National policies on tourism in developing countries are usually the domain of the state, whereas in more developed countries, private entrepreneurs often dominate policy formation and enactment (Liu, 1998). In most developing countries, owing to the small size of the private sector and the shortage of funds, the government necessarily takes on the role of entrepreneur (Shurland, 1998). This is usually in response to proposed private foreign investment. Governments in the developing world generally have the responsibility of formulating and enforcing tourism policy, and for many, sustainable tourism goals are central to their tourism plan. This should include, as already stated, increasing the economic impact of tourism to the local economy by reducing the leakage of foreign exchange earnings.

As previously mentioned, one of the ways to increase the tourism development is to bring in tourist who spend money in the developing country. As the mass tourism markets is criticized for the negative environmental and social impacts they cause, there is growing attention to those with higher household income expecting that they will spend more money during their visit. Although this sounds logical, the strategy has its critics (Mill & Morrison, 1999). Although it is not clear, visitors with high incomes may spend more but they may also require substantial investment in infrastructure and facilities with high import content.