Recreational Tourism

Recreational Tourism

ASPECTS OF TOURISM
Series Editors: Professor Chris Cooper, University of Queensland, Australia
Dr Michael Hall, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Dr Dallen Timothy, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA
Aspects of Tourism is an innovative, multifaceted series which will comprise
authoritative reference handbooks on global tourism regions, research volumes, texts
and monographs. It is designed to provide readers with the latest thinking on tourism
world-wide and in so doing will push back the frontiers of tourism knowledge. The
series will also introduce a new generation of international tourism authors, writing
on leading edge topics.
The volumes will be readable and user-friendly, providing accessible sources for
further research. The list will be underpinned by an annual authoritative tourism
research volume. Books in the series will be commissioned that probe the relationship
between tourism and cognate subject areas such as strategy, development, retailing,
sport and environmental studies. The publisher and series editors welcome proposals
from writers with projects on these topics.
Other Books in the Series
Classic Reviews in Tourism
Chris Cooper (ed.)
Dynamic Tourism: Journeying with Change
Priscilla Boniface
Journeys into Otherness: The Representation of Differences and Identity in Tourism
Keith Hollinshead and Chuck Burlo (eds)
Managing Educational Tourism
Brent W. Ritchie
Marine Ecotourism: Issues and Experiences
Brian Garrod and Julie C. Wilson (eds)
Natural Area Tourism: Ecology, Impacts and Management
D. Newsome, S.A. Moore and R. Dowling
Progressing Tourism Research
Bill Faulkner, edited by Liz Fredline, Leo Jago and Chris Cooper
Tourism Collaboration and Partnerships
Bill Bramwell and Bernard Lane (eds)
Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues
Richard Sharpley and David Telfer (eds)
Tourism Employment: Analysis and Planning
Michael Riley, Adele Ladkin, and Edith Szivas
Tourism in Peripheral Areas: Case Studies
Frances Brown and Derek Hall (eds)
Other Books of Interest
Global Ecotoursim Policies and Case Studies
Michael Lck and Torsten Kirstges (eds)
Irish Tourism: Image, Culture and Identity
Michael Cronin and Barbara OConnor (eds)

Please contact us for the latest book information:

Channel View Publications, Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall,
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http://www.channelviewpublications.com
ASPECTS OF TOURISM 11
Series Editors: Chris Cooper (University of Queensland, Australia),
Michael Hall (University of Otago, New Zealand)
and Dallen Timothy (Arizona State University, USA)
Demand and Impacts
Chris Ryan
CHANNEL VIEW PUBLICATIONS

Clevedon Buffalo Toronto Sydney
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Ryan, Chris
Recreational Tourism: Demand and Impacts/Chris Ryan
Aspects of Tourism: 11
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Tourism. I. Title. II. Series.
G155.A1R925 2003
338.4'791dc21
2002155477
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1-873150-57-1 (hbk)
ISBN 1-873150-56-3 (pbk)
Channel View Publications
An imprint of Multilingual Matters Ltd.
UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon BS21 7SJ.
USA: 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA.
Canada: 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario, Canada M3H 5T8.
Australia: Footprint Books, PO Box 418, Church Point, NSW 2103, Australia.
Copyright 2003 Chris Ryan.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without permission in writing from the publisher.
Typeset by Wordworks Ltd.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the Cromwell Press.
Color profile: Disabled

Composite Default screen
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
1 A History of Tourism in the English-Speaking World . . . . . . . . . 1
2 The Economic Determinants of Demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3 The Social Determinants of Demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4 The Psychological Determinants of Demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5 The Tourist Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6 The Tourist Resort Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
7 The Economic Impacts of Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
8 Tourism Impacts on the Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
9 The Social Impacts of Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
10 Concluding Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
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Preface
It is over a decade since Recreational Tourism: A Social Science Perspective first
appeared. During the intervening years, tourism research has become
better established and the volume of published research has continued to
grow almost exponentially with, or so it seems, each passing year bringing
forth more journals in the field. Nonetheless, throughout this intervening
period I have continued to receive enquiries as to whether a new edition of
Recreational Tourism would appear.
Finally, it has happened! I would like first to thank all those people who
kept asking for a new edition. Second, I would wish to thank Mike Grover
and his team at Channel View Publications for their good will (the manuscript was a month late in arriving!) and technical support. Among others I
should thank Mike Robinson, Nigel Evans and Richard Sharpley for
hosting me at the Centre for Travel and Tourism at the University of
Northumbria. This edition was commenced while I stayed there in
November 2001. I must also thank my colleagues at the University of
Waikato in New Zealand for letting me stay at home more days than
perhaps I ought in order to complete the text. And, of course, a big thank
you to my immediate family, Anca and Mark, who left me alone in our
garage while I typed away at the laptop. (They might have actually thought
this was an improvement over normal home life!)
It has been interesting reviewing and further conceptualising tourism in
the sense of assessing to what degree work undertaken in the 1980s still had
validity in the early years of the twenty-first century. The first flush of
enthusiasm about ecotourism has come and gone, with its advocates
stating that that it has, in its form of sustainable tourism, impacted on the
mainstream to the benefit of many forms of tourism. I tend to more cynical
perspectives myself most tourists remain holidaymakers, not lay biologists. If they are educated, it is through the emotions, not the intellect, and
edutainment seems to have gained sway! I tend to agree with that school
who might see ecotourism as part of the problem. In a review of the earlier
version of the book, Eric Cohen picked up my espousal of purpose-built
tourism destinations as being more environmentally friendly than permitting tourists to enter previously unspoilt places. If anything, I tend more to
that view today. It seems to me that for tourism to be the saviour of fragile
places, species and environments, then that implies a failure of better
vii
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viii
methods. It is perhaps a weak argument for tourism when (eco-) tourism

can be advanced only as the least worst form of development.
In other spheres, the quest for authenticity that dominated an important
part of the literature in the 1980s has, or so it seems to me, dissolved into two
concepts. First there is existential authenticity which implies that the feelings of the tourist and the performer are the measure of reality. It is the
epitome of consumerism segmentations are dead; the individual consumer
is king! Second, the argument has, to my mind properly, been replaced by
authorisation who authorises any display or interpretation? In short, the
reality of power structures finally begins to be revealed.
As for the conceptual survivors then surely Dick Butlers theory of the
destination lifecycle still retains significant usefulness as a measure against
which to measure resort development, even though today it is more than
uniformly recognised that it does not apply in all cases, and is certainly not
inevitable? It is also evident to me that the techniques of analysis have
become more sophisticated, and that positivism no longer rules supreme.
In writing this book, I have tended to eschew the approach that reduces
knowledge to checklists of key points or to draw boxes around case
studies as seems to have become the fashion. Knowledge is not a matter
of lists to be remembered rather it is an issue of understanding and
questioning inter-relationships between dynamic factors and this is
certainly true of tourism. I strongly suspect students know this, and that
better students are actually dismissive of attempts to remove complexity
from reality. Their own realities are difficult enough as it is, and thus they
readily appreciate that the management of tourism is far from being
certain or wholly scientific and is certainly more than just a checklist of
items. This has meant that, within the structure of the book, there are
elements of repetition in some instances. It is not expected that everyone
will read the book from start to finish; some will want to simply dip into
individual chapters, and thus such chapters had to be relatively free
standing. However, while some repetition exists, hopefully it is comparatively minimal.
This then raises the issue of what is the purpose of this text? The original
text was motivated by a wish to structure the determinants of tourism
demand, and to subsequently examine the implications of that demand at
the destination. Consequently demand is examined from within a framework of the economic, social and psychological determinants. In one sense
economic factors enable holiday choice to be exercised, while social and
psychological variables help to shape the nature of the choice being made.
In practice, though, it is not necessarily that simple, and the factors are
inter-dependent. For example, ones economic conditions might well play a
role in shaping ones life expectations, and thus economics possess psychological implications.
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Preface
ix
As a preamble to the consideration of these factors, a history of tourism is

described as a means of indicating how the economic, social and indeed
technological conditions of an age determine holiday patterns. History is,
however, not simply a case study that illustrates how socially-determined
factors shape behaviours, but is in itself both a precursor and a determinant
to that which is currently taken for granted. Consequently it is not
surprising that many of the holiday-taking patterns that are discernible
today are shown to have long and well-established antecedents, in spite of
the new technologies that might be employed in a contemporary age.
The final purpose of the text is to examine the effects of tourism, and to
illustrate the nature of the challenge posed for destination planners. Any
identification of problems is, however, but a first stage towards attempted
solutions but such solutions are often drawn from an arsenal of comparatively well-established techniques at an operational level. On the other
hand, the extent to which these techniques are applicable is often
dependent on a debate about that which is valued, and the resource that
will be allocated to the achievement of desired ends. Consequently operational methods open to destination planning are not divorced from wider
social considerations of desired ends, politics and the power to achieve
goals.
Whether it will be another decade before another edition appears is, thus
far, not even a question that has been formulated; but if this edition is as
helpful as the first appears to be, then the book will have served its purpose.
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Chapter 1
A History of Tourism in the EnglishSpeaking World

Introduction
In order to better understand the nature of tourism at the commencement of the twenty-first century, a brief history may be of use. While the
following description and interpretation is Eurocentric (if not indeed
primarily British), it can be argued that Western thought and the modes of
capitalism that emerged from Europes past, when combined with the
industrial strength of North America, have been the main drivers of
contemporary globalisation. In its turn, tourism has been both a consequence of, and a contributor to, the global nature of business and travel
networks that exist today. Indeed, it has become a clich to argue that the
current nature of these networks specifically owes much to the period that
followed the Industrial Revolution. Naturally travel preceded the second
half of the nineteenth century, and indeed had an importance because it
provided a model of forms of travel that had been the norm until that
period. Like all models, it was modified and adapted by later generations in
the light of new technologies and needs. Thus the antecedents of contemporary tourism reflected prior histories, just as todays tourism industry
reflects its immediate past. Consequently this chapter examines the history
of tourism from the perspective that the past explains, in part, the present.
The purpose of this chapter is to develop a context within which contemporary aspects of tourism can be viewed as being first, an evolutionary
process and, second, significantly different from the past in terms of a
compression of space and time made possible by new technologies. The
chapter will end with a brief discussion of some themes that can be identified within this history.
The Classical World

The history of travel as a leisure activity is often traced to the classical
civilisations of Greece and Rome, if only because of the presence of written
and archaeological evidence. The historian Herodotus, living in about 465
BC, is known for his travels as described in The Histories. His Histories are
full of asides relating to travel. For example he notes of Solon, the Athenian
lawgiver, that no doubt for the pleasure of foreign travel Solon left
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home and, after a visit to the court of Amasis in Egypt, went to Sardis to see
Croesus (465/1954, 23).There is reason to believe that the higher-income
groups of Rome maintained residences by the sea in order to escape the
heat, and probably the smells, of Rome during the summer season. Indeed,
Ovid in his ode to the arts of love writes: No lust of place or riches weighs
us down, We love our shady couch and spurn the town practical advice
during the height of the Roman summer (6/1965: 112). Moreover, they travelled further afield. Towner (1996: 96) comments that Wealthy Romans, for
example, travelled to Greece in search of the culture to which they ultimately aspired and which reaffirmed and validated their own beliefs and
practices.
The Medieval Period

In spite of a re-appraisal of the period from the fall of Rome to the emergence of Renaissance Europe, it is still probably true to describe the travel of
the Middle Ages as being dominated by motives of warfare and pilgrimage. Yet, as Chaucer describes, pilgrimage was not without its merry side as
attested by the enduring images of his Canterbury Tales with their paradox
of the profane amid the declared intention of pilgrimage to holy sites. Thus
it is notable that the worthy woman from Bath had been three times to
Jerusalem, to Rome and to St James of Compostella. In short, pilgrimage
routes were well established and frequented, and the wife from Bath was
far from being alone in her travels.
Yet, for most people of this period, life was hard and bound to the
seasons, although the influence of the Christian Church generated holy
days of rest from work. Indeed, the various Christian churches were to have
an influence within Europe for much of the period until the early twentieth
century. In the Renaissance travel for purposes of curiosity about a wider
world became entwined with motives of commerce, religion and politics.
The discovery of the Americas and the journeys around Africa by explorers
like Columbus, Cabot and Da Gama opened up a new network of voyages
where, from the early fifteenth century into the nineteenth century,
explorers were followed in ever-increasing numbers by soldiers, missionaries, settlers and administrators. It is tempting to see the unbroken but
increasing stream of humanity leaving the shores of Europe to conquer
South America, settle North America and explore darkest Africa as part of
the same exodus. While simplistic, there is some truth in the perception that
this period maintained a sense of expansion, of new places to be discovered, and of growing economic wealth. Of course this was not a continuous,
homogeneous stream of movement. Different people moved to different
places in response to different dominant imperatives. For example, some
moved to escape religious persecution, others moved to administer new
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A History of Tourism in the English-Speaking World
colonial empires, while yet others were taken in slave and convict ships.
Nonetheless, given these many and diverse movements of people, the
period from the fifteenth century onwards becomes increasingly dominated by a new leisure class for whom travel was motivated by enquiry,
sightseeing, hedonism, simple curiosity and a sense of self seeking. Parks
(1951: 264) cites Justus Lipsius as writing in 1578, Humble and plebeian
souls stay at home, bound to their own piece of earth, that soul is nearer the
divine which rejoices in movement, as do the heavens themselves. Indeed
Towner (1996: 101) cites an early seventeenth century theory of travel
derived from the work of Robert Dallington, A Method for Travill published
in 1605. This had two main categories of travel motive, namely preservation
of self and observation. But the preservation of self is dominated not by
what Maslow (1943,1970) later was to term safety and physiological needs,
but by keeping his religion and bettering his knowledge. Likewise
observation was not only of cosmological and geographic features, but
also of how people lived and the nature of their governance.
The Period of the Grand Tour

An early example of travel for educational and leisure motives that is
often much quoted is that of the Grand Tour. In his history of the Grand
Tour, Hibbert (1987) traces its antecedents to the earlier pilgrims and movement of students and young aristocracy of the Elizabethan era, but
commences his main history from the 1750s onward. Certainly, while the
Grand Tour may have involved at most about 0.20.7% of the mideighteenth century British population, the 15,000 to 20,000 who travelled
overseas each year represented a significant part of the estimated 200,000 or
so of the landed classes who lived at that period (Towner, 1985). As the elite
within eighteenth century Europe, the landed and aristocratic gentry were
to set both a fashion and a desire to which an emergent middle class
aspired.
The significance of the Grand Tour is not to be underestimated. First, the
need for information began to create a market for the new guidebooks that
began to emerge. An early example was William ThomassThe History of
Italy, which was published in 1549 . De Beer (1975: 1) notes that between
1660 and 1730 books of travel provided the principal secular reading of a
growing readership. By the early eighteenth century, travel literature took
on the form of a bestseller with prominent titles such as Thomas Taylors
Gentlemans Pocket Companion for Travelling into Foreign Parts (1722) and
Nugents Grand Tour Containing an Exact Description of Most of the Cities,
Towns and Remarkable Places of Europe (1749) being numbered among them.
Nor was this solely an English phenomenon, as is evidenced by Duclos
Voyage en Italie (1766). Indeed, these early guidebooks (cited in Inglis, 2000)
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offered detailed information about conditions of travel and things to see,

and avoid. Missons guides published from the late 1680s into the 1720s
provided, for example, details as to the conditions of roads and the
aesthetic qualities of landscapes. Towner (1996) cites Addison, Brown,
Smollet, Burnet and Howell as some of the authors and guidebook writers
who provided information about cities, landscapes and churches in the late
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In addition to books, the papers and
magazines of the time often carried travel articles that were read not simply
as travelogues but as potential sources of useful information. The links
between newspapers and guidebooks are easily explained when one
considers the journalistic careers of people like Addison.
While these early tourists were generally male and taking advantage of
the extended family networks of aristocratic dynasties, there were some
women of note who also journeyed abroad. Notable among these was Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu. Indeed, the very fact that she travelled added to
her notoriety amongst her contemporaries, although few then or since went
to the lengths that she did to travel in modes not always thought fitting. For
example, Hibbert (1987) notes her writing of taking the veil and djubbah at
one stage, and subsequently dressing as a man in order to visit a mosque.
And, like many a young aristocrat of her time, she was drawn to Venice,
then known for its masque balls and easy women, where she for a time
engaged in an affair with Count Francesco Algarotti who was half her age.
Yet Lady Montagu was not the only woman who travelled in Europe. After
all, society at Bath and the other eighteenth century spa towns of Europe
was often frequented by ladies who had travelled there unaccompanied by
husbands, who may have been detained by political, commercial or agricultural business concerns. However, it would appear that female travel
from Britain to Europe became better established after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. For example, in 1820 Mariana Starke noted a growing popularity of walking tours in Switzerland. In 1821 Lady Morgan wrote of her
travels in Italy, and also described a growing trend to visit not only the sites
of classical antiquity but to also the countryside. No longer were mountains
dark, brooding presences to be avoided, but sites of romance and freedom.
Thus a second reason for the importance of the Grand Tour was that it
created a model of what it was that people did when travelling, and what
was to be observed as having value. The young aristocrat wondered at the
sites of classical times, collected works of art, created networks of friends
and society, required travel arrangements and then regaled colleagues back
home with stories of foreign travel. Indeed the routes described by Nugent
in his 1749 Grand Tour books (Nugent, 1749) could still be described today
as being major routes for tourists. But while travel in the early eighteenth
century was strongly motivated by the maintenance of social networks, a
curiosity in history of the classical period and an interest in art and architec-
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ture, from the 1770s onwards Towner (1984) discerns the emergence of a
new, separate interest in scenery as a specific objective for travel. Thus, by
the early nineteenth century patterns of travel were clearly beginning to
change. The previous century had marked the Grand Tour as being part of
an Englishmans education, in all its various forms. For example, for much
of the eighteenth century, Venice, described by Hibbert (1987: 136) as the
brothel of Venice, was a recognised destination within the Grand Tour for
all young bucks, and often was the culmination of their travels. Indeed,
such was the state of affairs that Hibbert (1987:134) comments that Nuns
were considered to make delightful lovers and, from the evidence he
provides, seemingly quite willing ones. An example of the Englishmans
education is provided by the diarist James Boswell (the son of Alexander,
Lord Auchinleck) who in 1766 wrote:
At Rome, I ran about prostitutes till I was interrupted by that distemper
which scourges vice in this world. When I got to Venice I had some
small remains of disease, but strange, gay ideas which I had framed of
the Venetian courtesans turned my head, and away I went to an opera
dancer and took Lord Mountstuart with me. We both had her and we
both found ourselves taken in for the punishment I had met with, at
Rome. (Boswell, 1766/1955: 109)
Indeed, one obtains the impression that such behaviour, if not supported, was expected; but what was definitely not condoned was the
thought that one of the young British gentry should seek to marry a European lady. Black (1992: 202) notes that Problems were created when
impressionable young men fell in love. Venereal disease was bad, but so
was msalliance. Careful plans of dynastic considerations were rarely put at
risk. But, in spite of the, at times, quite sexually explicit outpourings of
young British aristocracy as is illustrated by Black (1992) in his chapter entitled Love, Sex, Gambling and Drinking, most young men returned home
perhaps wiser, but unmarried.
The Nineteenth Century: From Middle to Working Class

Tourism
By the beginning of the Victorian period such behaviour, while it no
doubt continued in different settings, was no longer publicly approved of
in polite society. Over time, the society of courtesans in the United
Kingdom gave way to the bon mots of fashionable society that was to be later
described by Oscar Wilde, although in France courtesans still continued to
host the younger sons of the aristocracy and to contribute in part to their
education, as evidenced by the novels of Zola. For the English traveller, and
for many of his or her continental counterparts, the late eighteenth and
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early nineteenth centuries were a period of rediscovery of the natural as a

source of inspiration, as already noted above. This emergence of emphasis
on the picturesque is often associated with the Romantic movement and
poets such as Wordsworth. Yet its antecedents are clearly found before the
establishment of the large conurbations brought into being by the Industrial Revolution and the establishment of factories surrounded by terraced,
high-density housing occupied by the workforce within walking distance
of the mills, mines and factories. For example, in 1768 William Gilpin
published An Essay upon Prints: Containing Remarks upon the Principle of
Picturesque Beauty. By the 1780s a number of guides had been published on
the Lake District of England, and a long heritage links Carkes Survey of the
Lakes (1787), Wordsworths A Guide through the District of the Lakes (which
had its fifth edition in 1835) to the contemporary guides of Wainwright. In
fact Inglis (2000) attributes the popularity of the watercolour to a combination of tourism and the discovery of landscape:
The charm of the watercolour is not only its readiness painting in the
open air is swift and easy; it is also that the watercolour so gracefully
encompasses a quick glimpse of things or the sort of slight but pretty
scene for which the grander effects of classical oils would simply be too
much. In other words, it is the tourists best medium. Its mobility, its
modesty, its pastel colours and its quick effects made it into the tourists own art form and especially the tourist who simply didnt have the
money to commission the big names, as Boswell did Hamilton, for 200
guineas a time. (Inglis, 2000: 27)
In a sense, the watercolour was the camera of the early eighteenth
century and, like photographs, watercolours came to be hung on the walls
of the new houses of the middle classes that were being built in the new
suburbs of English and Continental European towns. Indeed, the very size
of cartridge paper, being usually 20 by 15 inches, was a size to fit happily on
the walls of middle-class drawing rooms in the tall terraces of Bath,
Brighton and Scarborough (Inglis, 2000: 27). This emphasis on natural
beauty might be interpreted as in part a response to the growing grime of
the new industrial cities, but it was first adopted by classes not usually resident in the over-crowded slums of places such as Manchester, Sheffield or
the other new industrial cities of northern Europe. Hence Wordsworth was
to write of Tintern Abbey in 1798:
These beauteous forms
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind mans eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
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In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart:
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration
(Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey,
Wordsworth, 1888/1999)
The countryside was a balm to ordinary life. Trips to the countryside
were to be remembered as sources of recompense and strength in future
days; an emotional souvenir was being articulated that has become part of
the importance of modern-day tourism. The modern tourist travels not for
curiosity alone, but to enrich him or herself so as to develop psychological
strengths that inform and reinforce for future life. Travel has become the
creation of memory of past better times, and a promise of future good times.
The sanctity of the medieval holy day became the holiday the sanctuary
of the modern man.
Crawshaw and Urry (1997) have written about the importance of the
Lake District in formulating a new way of looking, of creating new sets of
relationships between that gazed upon and those that gaze. In their thesis
the landscape became imbued with new meanings that served, and serves
still, a positive purpose for the onlooker. In this very manner the guidebook
writers like Wordsworth became gatekeepers, pointing out that which is to
be observed, and by their silence condemning other aspects to the status of
the non-observed. While as Inglis (2000: 31) notes, there came to exist a
correspondence between the attributes of landscape (wildness, tranquillity) and the inarticulate but expectant feelings we bring to it, such an
observation raises the question, how did these expectations arise and
through what means were they being fostered? However, while Wordsworth was, no doubt, pleased to receive monies from those who purchased
his guidebooks, he nonetheless opposed the extension of the railway line to
Windermere, fearing that it would bring large numbers of people more
intent on simple pleasures than admiring the sublime beauty of the region
(Sharpley, 1994: 68). Indeed, as will be seen in Chapter 3, Ruskin anticipated
the arguments of Boorstin a century later by noting that the train transmutes a man from a traveller into a living parcel (cited by Buzard, 1993: 33).
There is little doubt that growing literacy, an emergent middle class and
increased income all played a role in developing a demand, and that that
demand was based on the model established by the aristocratic Grand Tour.
The Industrial Revolution not only generated the horrific conditions
described by various Committees of Enquiry that are so carefully encapsulated by Thomas Carlyle in Past and Present (1843/1981), but also created a
managerial, administrative class that had not really existed before at least,
not in the numbers being required by the new modes of production.
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Equally, associated with this was a growing civil service that offered new,
administrative middle-class occupations at both national and municipal
level as the reforming zeal of town planners and a meritocracy based on
success in public examinations began to replace the networks of social
connections based on birth. In short, combined with the new transport technology of rail by the latter half of the nineteenth century, ease of travel
(which addressed the issue of constrained time for the emergent middle
classes), higher incomes, and the growing numbers of people with the
income and urge to travel overseas, the conditions were right for the emergence of new forms of travel. And entrepreneurs like Thomas Cook in the
United Kingdom and Reisen in Germany responded to the changing
market conditions to lay the foundations of the package holiday companies
and mass tourism that exist today. The story of Thomas Cook and his rail
excursion for signatories of the Temperance Pledge between Leicester and
Loughborough on 5 July 1841 is oft told, but it was four years before he
commenced on his real operations of note. In 1845 he started arranging trips
to the seaside, the first being an outing from Leicester to New Brighton near
Liverpool. In 1846 he was packaging tours to Scotland that included not
only travel by rail but also by the new steamers. In 1851 he arranged tours
for 165,000 to the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace. Four years later he took
visitors to the Great Paris Exhibition, and by 1863 he had established tours
to Switzerland and Italy using the new tunnels driven under the Alps. By
the end of that decade he was taking visitors to Cairo and in 1872 by
booking space on the SS Oceanic he inaugurated trans-Atlantic package
travel. Very soon after he opened offices in Broadway and in 1894 introduced the concept of travellers cheques. By then his companys expertise
had been enlisted by the British Government and his son, John Cook, was
making arrangements for the transportation of troops to the Middle East
and India. By the 1880s not only were the British travelling across the
Atlantic, but so too a growing number of higher income Americans were
travelling to England and Europe to repeat the travel paths of the aristocratic Grand Tour. Such travels were not unknown to those who became
readers of novels by authors such as Henry James, who in Portrait of a Lady
(1908/1988) describes how Isabel Archer travels through Europe with her
companions, Mrs Touchett and Madame Merle. Similarly E.M. Forsters
novel Room with a View (1908/1088) tells its story within the context of an
Edwardian familys trip to Italy and specifically Florence.
The American visitors to Europe brought with them not only their thirst
for the sites of classical civilisation and a desire to visit the historic places of
the home country, but also their expectations of first class hotel accommodation. To the interest of place was to be added the desire for luxury. Not
that Europe was without its luxurious hotels. The railway age brought not
only ease of transport but also a growing number of people requiring
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accommodation at the same time in the same place, and thus the great
railway hotels were built by many of the railway companies. All over the
United States and Europe, almost simultaneously in the mid-nineteenth
century, large numbers of mock Gothic or Italianate hotel buildings with
several hundred bedrooms were being built. On November 6, 1872 Thomas
Cook, when accompanying a group on the steamer, Colorado, wrote:
In American hotels, great attention is paid to the privacy and comfort of
ladies, for whom large and elegant drawing rooms are provided, with
separate entrance and staircase, available also for gentlemen with
ladies. The first floor is generally appropriated to dining and breakfast
saloons and drawing rooms, for which no extra charge is made. (Cook,
1872/1998: 21)
Thus Thomas Cook unerringly noted a combination that has stood the
holiday industry well over the intervening years, namely that of affordable
luxury. Equally, 22 days later, in Yokohama, he highlighted another
promise of the industry, that of being able to see that which was previously
not available to visitors, and thereby offered a promise of the authentic. So
he wrote:
Until very recently it was not permitted for foreigners to enter the
precincts of the Temple of Shiba and the surrounding and gorgeous
tombs of Tycoons and their wives of the past 250 years. Yesterday my
party walked freely through and round these indescribable buildings
at Yedo, which for richness in carving, gilding, and decoration surpass
all that I have seen in any land. Only a year ago an escort would have
been required to conduct a party like mine through Yedo. (Cook, 1872/
1998: 28)
It would appear that Thomas Cook was also aware of the role of promising exoticism in the development of his tours to the Far East.
For the middle classes Cook offered an identification of those sights said
to be worth seeing. Unlike the aristocracy of the eighteenth century who
could spend years on their travels, the new management and administrative classes were more time constrained. In addition they did not often
possess the family connections that the aristocracy possessed, and thus
required accommodation that was both affordable and at the least imposed
no hardship, and preferably offered comfort not available in the suburbs of
Bolton, Preston or London. Moreover, Thomas Cook offered the security of
travelling with experienced, English-speaking guides in foreign countries,
and the company of like-minded English people with whom to share experiences. As already noted, the novel, Room with a View by E.M. Forster with,
as a focus, a trip to Florence, captures many of the nuances of the trips
organised by Cook and similar companies of this era.
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10
But just as the railways and hotels were catering for the upper and
middle classes, so too the same assets began, over time, to meet the needs of
a working class who too sought escape from the towns. Additionally, while
elements of this market sought to duplicate the travel patterns and
demands of the more affluent markets, others sought more immediate pleasures in song, dance and having a good time. With reference to this market
it might be said that an older theme within recreation was rediscovered,
and that was a sense of carnival. Just as Chaucers tales contained husbands
who farted into the faces of their wives lovers at the top of ladders (as in the
Wife of Bath), and Fools Days of the Medieval Courts represented a temporary reversal of authority, so too at seaside resorts the working classes were
to create an escape. This escape was not only from the physical crowding of
the city, but also from the rules and regulations imposed by the Victorian
bourgeoisie albeit at times it was an escape within which one set of rules
was substituted by the rules of the tyrannical English seaside landlady.
At first this development was not immediately apparent. Just as the
Romantic movement discovered value in the lakes and mountains, so too
the coastal landscape came to be valued for its own contrasts. Additionally,
the Prince Regent had popularised Brighton as a resort in the latter part of
the eighteenth century and it might be said that this action on his part was
an extension of the spa as an inherent part of the milieu of the then fashionable society. Towner, however, is at pains to point out that sea bathing was
already an accepted practice, not only in the warmer climates of the Mediterranean where it would have been seen by various visitors to that part of
the world, but also in northern England. Towner (1996: 171) cites Walton
(1983: 11) when he writes: Further north, in Britain, a popular sea-bathing
culture existed on the Lancashire coast, not emulating the rich but having a
prior and independent existence. Thus, Towner (1996: 171) observes, the
usual attribution of the growing popularity of the seaside to the initial
actions of fashionable society may yet again be a case where those who
dominate the historical record are assumed to have been the innovators of
the custom.
Perhaps one of the more detailed histories of the seaside resort is that of
Walton (1983). What is shown clearly by Waltons study is that working
class demand for seaside holidays was constrained by regional working
practices and wage rates, not to mention prevailing patterns of leisure and
recreation. Thus differences occurred in regional practice and adoption of
the seaside holiday. The Lancashire textile towns tended to be the early
adopters, partly due to quicker access by the rail network to the coastal
resorts of Blackpool, Morecambe and, as already noted, New Brighton. The
Yorkshire woollen industry tended to lag some 10 years behind, and of
course tended to be based on areas such as Whitby and Scarborough.
Walton also notes that seaside holidaying by those working in Birmingham
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11
did not really commence until as late as the 1880s, when a few extra days
were added to the August Bank Holiday.
The advent of the railways had similar impacts in other countries. When,
in 1860, Nice was annexed by France from Savoy, the extension of the
railway meant a rapid increase in population from 48,000 in 1861 to 143,000
forty years later. Visitor numbers increased from 5,000 to 150,000 in the
same period (Rudney, 1980). Soane (1993), however, indicates another
important reason for the development of seaside resorts such as Nice,
namely the willingness of outside financial sources to act as suppliers of
capital investment. Indeed, the availability of that capital and the desire to
engage in property development created very different types of seaside
resorts around the world. Some like Nice, became and remained embedded
in a tourism of the higher-income groups, others like Blackpool became
associated with short stays and low-cost accommodation and developed a
culture based on working-class hedonism. Other areas were discovered by
artists, writers and travellers: locations like Brittany or specific villages like
St Ives in Cornwall provide examples of this. In these cases development
tended to be slow, and often it was not until the twentieth century and the
greater geographical freedom permitted by the motor car that these locations entered the domain of tourism more fully.
Tourists were also helping to create new product. Perhaps one of the
better examples of this was the development of Alpine tourism. By 1857,
there was sufficient interest for the Alpine Club to be established, with 300
charter members. While the club was dominated by middle-class professionals from Oxford and Cambridge universities, it was not unique to the
United Kingdom. In 1862 the Austrian Alpine Club was formed, followed
by those of Switzerland (1863), Germany (1869) and France (1874). While
these clubs were male dominated, female mountaineers were present
almost from the early days. Withey (1998) mentions the names of Marguerite Breevort (an American), Lucy Walker and Mrs Stephen Winkworth
among others, and comments that what to wear was a problem for the
female mountaineers (Withey, 1998: 209).
Faulkner and his colleagues have suggested that the development of
seaside resorts cannot always be logically explained by the broad economic
forces of capital, population movements or technical forces such as the
building of railways. Advocating the use of chaos theory to help explain
broad changes in tourism, Russell and Faulkner (1999) specifically draw
attention to the movers and shakers who, while at times motivated by
profit, nonetheless were often eclectic in their choice of location and nature
of attraction, or had histories of business failure or eccentricity prior to
making their contribution to the development of tourism resorts. For their
part, Russell and Faulkner select the development of Australias Gold
Coast in the 1960s as an example. Thus they note:
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12
The menresponsible for the emergence of Surfers Paradise as the

focus of tourist activity were in varying degrees colourful, flamboyant,
innovative, driven and often reflecting in their personal relationships
the attributes of Chaos and Complexity. (Russell and Faulkner, 1999:
419)
One example they provide is that of Bernard Elsey. An English
immigrant with little formal education who worked as a plumber in
Toowoomba, he arrived on the Gold Coast in 1949. He earned money by
simultaneously selling cruises to Tipplers Passage on Stradtbrooke Island
during the day and selling Singer Sewing Machines on a door-to-door basis
in the evening. Eventually he was to build three hotels, including the
Surfers Paradise Beachcomber, and with pyjama parties and Hawaiian
nights pushed the edges of law, filling national newspapers with copy and
his establishments with patrons (Russell & Faulkner, 1999: 421).
Indeed the very title of Gold Coast seems to have come about by accident. Initially the area held the unglamorous name of Town of the South
Coast, and then in 1958 it became Gold Coast Town. Richardson (1999)
recounts the story that it became the Gold Coast in the 1950s after a pictorial editor on the Brisbane Courier Mail changed a reporters story and then
continued to use the term. The developing seaside resort deliberately built
on its image when, in 1965 (a period when bikinis were still frowned upon
at Sydney and Melbourne beaches), the meter maids of Surfers Paradise,
clad in little more than gold bikinis made what could only be described as
an appearance in a blaze of national publicity. Their function was ostensibly
to feed coins into expired parking meters, but their real value lay in the
publicity that the Gold Coast acquired.
Similar parallels might be drawn with the development of Coney Island
in New York State. Initially consisting of mud flats, in the 1870s the area was
infamous not for its scenic features but for the zone known as The Gut a
ramshackle area of places of ill-repute, brothels and drinking dens. As
hotels like the Manhattan Beach became established, the juxtaposition
between these and The Gut led to entrepreneurs taking various actions.
Foremost among these entrepreneurs was John McKane, an interesting
gentleman whose personal history included being Chief of Police for
Coney Island, but without formal salary as licences were paid by
gambling and other shady businesses. Power based on land deals made
McKane an establishment figure with both Democrats and Republicans,
yet he was to finally end his career by serving four years in Sing Sing prison.
By the 1920s Coney Island had become a melting pot where immigrant
groups met with earlier immigrants, and all cavorted in the sea or stood
amazed at the lights of Luna Park. Blackpool too had its own Luna Park, as
did other places in the world such as Sydney, and in all cases they became
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locations of difference. Surrounded by funfair delights, they represented

places of escape, where the achievements of modern science were put to use
as play things or items of wonderment, where boys met girls, and normal
restrictions did not apply. At Coney Island, for a long time one of the most
popular attractions was one where draughts of air were blown up females
skirts to expose ankles and legs and where a clown prodded gentlemens
behinds with an electric stick. Underwear was revealed and shocks administered. The very presence of the clown maintained a tradition back to the
jester of medieval courts, and the role of holidays as a time of reversal and
denial of normal strictures continued to be confirmed.
Equally, the seaside, as indicated above, was associated with new freedoms that set aside a prurience that existed side by side with Victorian
sexual interest, and brought the unspoken into the open. The bathing hut
was invented to hide the modesty of females, but was at best, of limited
success in achieving its objective. Sprawson (1992: 29) remarks that the
women were encased in waisted, bloomered, skirted swimsuits, but they
were made of woven cotton, which, when wet, tended to become transparent and cling to the body, revealing more than they concealed. He
continues:
But whatever the restrictions, they (bathing huts) failed to prevent
women from becoming objects of the greatest curiosity. In the Victorian
coastal resorts, when the sea was normally black with bathers, the
females did not venture beyond the surf but lay on their backs, waiting
for the approaching waves, with their bathing dresses in a most
degage style. When the waves came, commented one onlooker, they
not only covered the bathers, but literally carried their dresses up to
their necks, so that, as far as decency was concerned, they might as well
have been without any dresses at all. (Sprawson, 1992: 29)
But while the carnivalesque was present, not all working-class recreation could be characterised as being unrestrained extensions of the bawdy
music hall. In the 1890s the bicycle became the first means of mass transport
and there was, as Rubenstein (1989) came to call it, a cycling boom. Not
only did the bicycle bring a personal spatial freedom, but it was also indicative of the new freedoms slowly being accorded to, and gained by, women.
The new woman was often personified as being some one riding a cycle.
Alderson (1972: 85) illustrates this by citing the Complete Cyclist of 1897
now women, even young girls, ride alone or attended only by some casual
man friend, for miles together through deserted country roads. In Britain
the Cyclists Touring Club was founded in 1878, and between 1894 and1899
its membership rose from 14,000 to 60,000 (Rubinstein, 1977). The foundations of the Raleigh company in Nottingham were being laid at this time as
many took to the country roads, either singularly or in groups. Associated
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with this movement was a new attitude towards the countryside, as fresh
air, exercise and good companionship became part of the English psyche.
The Youth Hotels Association, Rambling Clubs and the Boy Scouts all
emanated from common roots of an enjoyment of the countryside not for so
much its aesthetic beauties (as had informed early nineteenth century
thinking), but as a backdrop to healthy exercise. Later, in the twentieth
century the same motives came to be present in the novels of Arthur
Ransome (albeit with small boats) or in the adventures of Enid Blytons
Famous Five (with wooded copses to be explored and rabbits to be chased
by family pets).
This new enthusiasm for the great outdoors as a place to be explored
was not confined to the United Kingdom. Tobin (1974) notes the rapid
growth of the cycle industry in the United States, and its similarities with
Britain in a number of respects. First, it was popular with women. Second,
its popularity was greatest in the major urban areas of the east and midwest as populations sought an escape from urban areas into the countryside. Additionally Tobin notes a precursor to the motor car age, as
published routes led to higher usage of these routes, and in turn to the
establishment of shops, hotels and inns that were attracted to these cycle
ways. In short, an infrastructure came into being, thereby creating the
paradox that the escape from the city brought the resources of the city to
support the new activities. It might be said that the commodification and
industrialisation of leisure have long antecedents.
The Twentieth Century

In the period prior to the First World War there was, on the whole, a
continuation of trends that had commenced thirty years earlier. The tours
of Thomas Cook and its competitors continued to spread ever further and
in greater numbers, but still primarily using steamers and trains. The
seaside resorts on the whole continued to flourish, whilst clubs and outings
of various sorts remained a feature of leisure and holidaying. Much of the
holiday industry was thus dominated, if not by mass movements of people
using the same resources, certainly by group movement. However, in the
period after the Great War this was to begin to change. In short, a movement
towards greater individualisation of holiday taking commenced, albeit at
first slowly, but with increasing rapidity as the twentieth century grew to a
close. A number of factors accounted for this. First was the advent of the
motor car and its increasing availability to growing numbers of the population as prices fell. Second, the emergence of air transport became increasingly important. Third, at least for a time, there was a reduction in the
working week and, although for many at the end of the century the promise
of more leisure time began to sound like a hollow promise, the changing
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15
nature of work and the blurring of boundaries between work and leisure
for many people meant more travel and less-structured ways of working.
As always, though, these broad social movements and changes can be
found to have precursors. But, as is often the case, the initial instances of any
given form of activity tend to be individual, and often associated with
wealth. Nonetheless it would be a mistake to believe that non-mass recreational and holiday taking did not exist prior to the 1920s. Inglis (2000), for
example, highlights the role of the holiday home. But he comments:
The past of these places is surpassed and mythologised. Such
simplicity comes damned expensive. But it matches a taste in which
Emerson and Thoreau over there are compounded over here with
Wordsworth, William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, to
say nothing of the noble Lord Armstrong who made millions out of
machine guns and built the wildly Romantic, lavishly simple Craigside
in Northumberland. (Inglis, 2000: 63)
But around the coast of Britain summer homes began to emerge, more
modest affairs perhaps than Craigside, but comfortable, middle-class
summer cottages began to intermingle with the fishermens homes in
places like Southwold and elsewhere in coastal Britain. Similar but even
more modest summer homes were established elsewhere in the world,
albeit perhaps a little later. For example, in Canada lakesides came to be
dotted with wooden and tin shacks that offered children the great summer
delights of messing in boats, getting wet and other simple, playful pleasures while fathers fished at the end of jetties and mother fussed over insect
bites. Thus, for example, at Lake Waskesiu in the Prince Albert National
Park, Saskatechewan, by the 1940s such shacks were already an established
part of the summer holiday lifestyle and over 200 existed (Waiser, 1989).
However, it is perhaps in New Zealand most of all that the informal,
wooden and tin holiday home achieved its greatest heights. The summer
bach has entered into the sensibility of idyllic, and perhaps past, summers
of long, warm, sunny days spent by the beach or lakeside. Indeed in New
Zealand the bach has become an established architectural form of varying
degrees of optimism, professionalism and skill, and access to different
types of building materials redolent of self sufficiency and eccentricities, as
is amply demonstrated by Wood and Treadwell (1999) and by Male (2001).
The motor car opened up the countryside and the potential for independent travel in a manner previously unknown. In the United Kingdom,
in 1920, there were 200,000 private cars, in 1939, 2 million, while in 2001
there were 24.5 million licensed vehicles. The train, as Inglis (2000: 100)
observes powerful, vastly over-capitalised, gradually turned into a stalwart icon of the industrial family: it became Thomas the Tank Engine and
Gordon the Express Train. With, in the 1960s, the commencement of
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motorway building in the United Kingdom, holidaymakers could travel

from places like Birmingham to South or North Wales, or to Cornwall and
Devon within the day. Yet, just as these places began to develop new infrastructures to cope with increasing demand, the growing number of
domestic holidaymakers turned their attention to the warmer climates of
the Mediterranean. The impact of mass air transport was soon to make itself
felt in a way that came to dominate the holiday industry in Europe.
The same pressures were felt also in North America. While Hollywood
has romanticised the road even late into the twentieth century with road
movies such as Easy Rider and Thelma and Louise, the golden age of interstate
highways like that of Route 66 was comparatively short-lived. Route 66
was the designation awarded to the Chicago to Los Angeles highway in
1926. In his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck proclaimed US Highway
66 the Mother Road, and Route 66 came to represent the road to opportunity as those affected by the dust bowls of the mid-west travelled to California in the 1930s. Route 66 spawned the architecture of modern highways
like motels and auto camps, and the evolution of the filling station, and
finally entered US folklore. In the 1950s Route 66 increasingly became
superseded by a new interstate highway, and by the 1970s this and air
traffic meant that it was falling into disrepair. Today, however, the love of
the open road, and a growing interest in Americas history has meant a
renewed interest in the stories and architecture of the Route, and the International Route 66 Mother Road festival attracts thousands in a mix of
nostalgia, history, car enthusiasts and lovers of John Steinbecks work.
Together different groups of enthusiasts are seeking to retain the edifice of
the Route and many different tourism products are being constructed
around it.
In its turn air transport was to advance significantly as a result of the two
World Wars. While attracting newspaper headlines, flight remained an
interest of only the few in terms of actual participation. Rae (1968) noted
that in 1914 only 49 aircraft were manufactured in the United States,
although this figure increased significantly after Americas entry into the
First World War. In the UK, after 1919 the Northcliffe Committee developed
a plan for civil aviation. However, in those early days it might be said that
flying as a passenger was a form of adventure tourism! An important
marker of developments were the achievements of Amy Johnson. With her
flights to Australia she proved the reliability of aircraft, and gave flying a
romance and newspaper headlines that induced others to follow. Incidentally, the name of her aircraft, Jason is still echoed in the very successful
Jasons Guides with which most visitors to New Zealand will be familiar. In
1925 airlines flew about 21,000 people to and from Britain (Dyos & Aldcroft,
1969), and even by 1935 Imperial Airways still carried only 66,000 to all
parts of the globe, albeit in somewhat extravagant luxury but at no or little
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profit (Higham, 1960). Nonetheless, in the United States events with significant implications for the future began to unfold. The Douglas Aircraft
Corporation began to move from the production of fighter planes to the
development of passenger aircraft, and in 1933 the vice-president of the
newly formed TWA (Transcontinental and Western) flew the first production DC2 from Los Angeles to Newark in 13 hours a new record. Within
two years, the DC3 was introduced with a cruising speed of 190 mph and a
load of 21 passengers. At the same time William Boeing had commenced
aircraft production, although at that time it was generally thought that the
Boeing 247 was outclassed by the products from Douglas.
For countries like the United States, Australia and New Zealand, the
development of air transport was of vital importance because of their size
and, in the case of Australasia, its distance from the main centres of population in the northern hemisphere. In 1922, the Queensland and Northern
Territory Aerial Services Limited (QANTAS), was founded by two former
Air Force pilots, W. Hudson Fysh and Paul McGinness. In 1936 Ansett
Airways started in Australia. In 1939 the forerunner of Air New Zealand
was established, namely the Tasman Empire Airways Limited (T.E.A.L.), of
which QANTAS had a 30% shareholding.
Just as the First World War gave an important impetus to the development of aircraft and the formation of airlines as currently understood, so
the period after the Second World War was to usher in the age of cheap air
transport. In 1946 there were many discharged airmen who still liked the
fun and pleasure of flying, and sought a means of combining pleasure with
earning a living. Many tried to live off mail-run contracts, and many were
on the verge of failing in places like the United Kingdom. Salvation came
from an unlikely source, namely the Russian blockade of West Berlin. That
city was sustained by the continuous airlift. Nor was it simply Berlin that
was sustained so too were a number of embryonic airlines including that
of one Freddie Laker. In 1947 Laker was working for London Aero Motor
Services, and buying and selling war-surplus trucks, aircraft radio and electrical surplus at government sales. Additionally, to raise extra money he
and his wife were selling seedlings from the back of one of these trucks. In
October 1947 he set up his own company, Aviation Traders, and within
three weeks had exhausted his capital. The Russian blockade of Berlin
changed all of that within a matter of months. As Eglin and Ritchie (1981:
16) were later to record in the book Fly Me, Im Freddie! there was considerable cash flow and they were all drawing regular wages. Indeed:
The generous charter rate and the huge number of hours flown
produced enough cash flow for the independents to set up complete
organisations with flying crews, ground staff, UK bases, plant and
equipment. And the unrelenting tempo of the airlift, with month after
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18
month of round-the-clock flights, taught the independents a lot about

how to run continuous air operations. (Eglin & Ritchie, 1981: 1617)
Equally important was the political situation of Francos Spain. Left
alone in 1946 as the last of the Fascist regimes, Spain was marginalised from
the mainstream of European economic recovery. There was no Marshall
Aid to Spain, nor an external impetus for a regeneration of investment and
capital. Yet Spain had something to offer to the northern European countries (other than perhaps France), and that was sunshine and a Mediterranean coastline. Using a mixture of grants and tax breaks, the Franco regime
encouraged the development of hotels and hotel chains which, in turn,
were to enter into an alliance with the new entrepreneurial airline companies of the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and Germany. Whereas but a few
years earlier British pilots had flown to bomb cities under Fascist regimes,
they now flew holidaymakers into Francos Spain. Given the later reputation of some British holidaymakers, the cynical might make wry comments
about this comparison. Yet nonetheless the political implications of
bringing Spain out of isolation were significant, and it can be argued that
tourism played a major role in the eventual democratisation of Spain.
By the end of the twentieth century, tourism had significantly grown
throughout the world. The World Tourism Organisation (WTO, 1998)
recorded that, in 1950, arrivals of tourists from abroad, excluding same-day
visits, numbered about 25.2 million. By 1997 the figure was 612.8 million. In
1950 receipts from international movements were $US2,100 million, in 1997
they were US443,770 million. While at the end of the twentieth century
Europe still dominated international tourism movements with over 58% of
those movements (WTO, 1998), the East Asia/Pacific region had the fastest
annual growth rates and was accounting for about 15% of all travel movements. In short, the twentieth century had witnessed a democratisation of
travel and the duplication of a wish for mass travel and tourism by nonEuropean nations on a scale that had not been previously achieved.
Lessons from History?

Thus far this has been a description of history indeed a generally
uncritical and selective history that has traced growth and the democratisation of tourism. With tourism no longer a preserve of the aristocratic few,
Uncle Norman, Auntie Edith and all their children, nephews, nieces and
siblings can now seek the sun. So what can be learnt from this review?
Several implications can be drawn from this summary of tourism
history, and they follow in no particular order of priority. First, Coney
Island, the seaside holidays, the use of railways, theme parks, and air transport all show a very close connection between tourism and advancements
of technology. Travel, technology and tourism create a close triumvirate
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19
that fed off each other and reinforced the development of each. The travel of
Victorians to new resorts for tourism created the demand that furthered the
technical advance of the railways so that within a short period of time the
tracks and trains became capable of higher speeds. Today, travel needs have
been an important impetus in the development of the Internet and, by 2003,
while difficult to ascertain, it has become a clich that tourism and travel
needs have displaced pornography as the single major use to which the
Internet is put. eDestination marketing has become a commonplace. Some
airline businesses in the no-frills sector have totally bypassed the travel
agent, while full service airlines have been catching up with their online
provision. Many other types of tourism organisations have been tracing
increases in online bookings, and it is common for visitor surveys to include
questions about the usage of the Internet.
Indeed, it is not perhaps too much of an extension to argue that tourism
has played an important role in the development of many technologies.
Today the camera-toting tourist is being replaced by the digital camcorder
tourist, who therefore requires the video editing software incorporated into
an operating system like that of Windows XP in order to edit his or her
holiday film. There is evidence that the relationship between image and
tourism goes back a long way. As already noted, the popularity of the
watercolour was associated with a growth of travel. Miller and Robbins
(2001: 20) note that, included among the 200 calotype prints of the Edinburgh Calotype Club taken in the early 1840s, were holiday snaps from
trips to the Continent. Crang (1999) has noted the almost instinctive desire
of people to make a permanent record of the places that they have visited,
and hence it is not too far fetched to argue that tourism demand may have
helped to further the technological advances seen in the photographic and
image-capture industries.
Second, a key feature related to technology is the importance of the role
of access in the development of tourist destinations. With each successive
improvement in transport technologies, travellers have ranged further
away from home. Today that process continues, and indeed limitations
imposed on access have become one way of protecting natural areas. The
denial of a runway restricts access. The development and extension of a
runway permits wider-bodied jets to access airports, thereby disgorging
more passengers per flight. The provision of accommodation is often associated with any easing of access. Space tourism is just becoming a reality
and not simply a dream, and as such is helping to financially sustain further
space exploration. The tourism periphery, it might be observed, now
extends into space (Smith, 2000).
A third lesson to be learnt from history is that technological change and
improvements to access are not perhaps sole determinants of demand
motive and an ability to fulfil desire are also prerequisites for tourism
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development. The theory of the moving periphery that is, of destinations

over time meeting the needs of different social classes (in a European
context, usually from upper to middle to lower social groupings) has
implicit within it changes in the distribution of disposable income and
available leisure time. Simply put, over time more people have had both the
time and income to travel. Of interest is that divisions between work and
leisure were eroding at the end of the twentieth century. The social certainties of the mid-century were breaking down to create less homogeneity in
motives and travel patterns, with the subsequent development of individualistic marketing strategies on the part of product and service providers.
These issues will be explored in later chapters.
Implications and New Directions

What are the implications of these lessons? It is possible to claim that if,
in past centuries, changing technologies created outward-directed touristic
developments in terms of creating new destinations and new places to visit,
then current changes in technology are more inner directed. Today the
creation of new product and the duplication of old product are becoming
more independent of geography, history and culture. The Eiffel Tower and
King Tutankhamuns tomb are both to be found in Las Vegas, while Mickey
Mouse cavorts in both Paris and Tokyo. The past is daily re-enacted at
places that are some times divorced from their original locations, so that, for
example, medieval banquets with knightly jousting are popular with
visitors to Los Angeles. The timespace compression of modern tourism is
motivated by a wish to profit from the entertainment of the tourist, and the
satisfaction of curiosity about place and culture at places that are convenient to the tourist. In many senses this is little different from London being
thrilled by the exploits of Buffalo Bills Wild West show in part celebration
of Queen Victorias Golden Jubilee in 1887. But the difference today is that
the simulacra are more frequent, more pervasive and more convenient to
the point where the discovery of new places is almost being conveniently
delivered to the consumers living room through the Internet and digital
television set.
If therefore the simulacra of travel itself are present at home, then does
not the nature of travel itself pose an alternative the experience of the real
as distinct from the experience of the fake? Certainly within the academic
literature there has long been a juxtaposition of the authentic with the
inauthentic. Implicit within such comparisons has been the legitimacy of
the former over the latter, with earlier writers such as Boorstin (1961) being
particularly critical of the new forms of tourism as emasculated forms of
travel devoid of the sense of going. Thus Boorstin (1961: 102) wrote of air
travel My passage through space was unnoticeable and effortless. The
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21
airplane robbed me of the landscape. For him the air stewardess was the
Madonna of the Airways, a pretty symbol of the new homogenenised
blandness of the tourists world (Boorstin, 1961: 103).
Boorstin identified six characteristics of the image. These were:
(1) It is synthetic it is planned, created for a specific purpose.
(2) It is believable it serves no purpose unless it has this appeal.
(3) It is passive by which Boorstin meant that the consumer of the image
was expected to accept, and fit, the image but such fitting is a
change of face, not heart.
(4) An image is vivid and concrete it therefore abstracts from complexity
to present only a few specific qualities.
(5) An image is thus simplified and therefore contains within itself its
own decay, as it inevitably loses meaning.
(6) An image is ambiguous it floats between expectation and reality.
For Boorstin the image replaces the ideal in contemporary society. Yet
there remains the ideal, always present ready to expose the fallacy of the
image. His book ends with a call to awake from illusion, to rediscover the
real from the self-deceptive dream. The issue for many at the commencement of the twenty-first century is whether the image has become the
reality, has attained its own legitimacy wherein the need for continuous
reinvention is the norm and constancy is the sign of failing systems.
However, modernity (or post-modernity) is made more complex by the
consumers realisation that it is an image that is sought. The image, while
fuzzily separate from the ideal, by reason of its existence adds richness,
playfulness and new meanings to the original at the bequest of the tourist as
consumer of place, culture, event and history. The implication for tourism is
that there exists a challenge both to tourism and to our means of conceptualising it. The arguments of the authentic versus the inauthentic were a
discussion of more than forty years past today there exists a new generation of the mass-media age whose realities are those of the ephemeral, the
fad and the short-lived fashion. If there is a consistency it is that of the satisfaction of whim. The continuous display of imagery designed to satisfy and
the changing roles that the tourist can adopt are all inter-related. The
current reality is that tourism mirrors the desire for a world of adventure,
heterogeneity of experience, new sensations and a rejection of sameness,
conformity and received knowledge. From one perspective this can be
interpreted as akin to the situation described by Michael Moorcocks characters in his trilogy The Dancers at the End of Time (Moorcock, 2000); namely,
it is boredom that is to be avoided and, if boredom can be negated through
whimsy, reinventions of the past and desired roles, then tourism successfully meets the needs of its participants. If this sounds like nothing more
than self-indulgence, then it needs be admitted that self-indulgence may be
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22
an outcome of such processes. But equally it can be seen as part of a process

of life enrichment wherein new technologies, opportunities for travel and
differing products at destinations combine to present current generations
with ranges of choice previously unknown.
What roles can be discerned? Gibson and Yiannakis (2002) in a reprise of
earlier work, list a number of identified roles that tourists adopt. These
include sun lover, action seeker, anthropologist, drifter and educational tourist among others. However, in this study they contend that their
research provides statistical support for the contention that tourist roles
serve as vehicles through which vacationers may satisfy or enhance deficit
or growth needs (sic) (Gibson & Yiannakis, 2002: 378). They further provide
evidence that these roles are far from consistent, possess varying importance for different life stages and genders, and assume different meanings
over time. The current situation is possibly both a culmination of past
trends, and the start of something that is qualitatively different from the
past. To perceive history as no more than an antecedent of the present is to
imply a progress from simpler to more complex times, and that is probably
just as much of a trap as were the earlier interpretations of history as a
process from the less to the more civilised. Nonetheless, the current volume
of tourism is new and the infrastructure to which it has given birth is truly
global in a manner not previously seen. Equally, the world of the twentyfirst century as it is known by those with access to computer-driven
technologies is one of more complex stimuli and choice. Some, in previous
generations, expressed the view that the fast speed of rail transport would
induce nausea to such an extent that rail-based travel was doomed. Today
space tourism beckons. The only certainty is that the future will find antecedents in its past, but equally will generate its own expression and product
in ways that it is not possible to predict with any degree of accuracy.
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Chapter 2
The Economic Determinants of

Demand
Introduction and Definitions
To paraphrase the great English playwright, William Shakespeare, if
indeed all the world is a stage, and men and women have their exits and their
entrances, then perhaps in the early twenty-first century the tourist is a
participative audience. Perhaps tourists do not always comprehend what it
is that they see, perhaps at times the tourist enters upon the stage as either the
figure of fun or the catalyst of change, but increasingly the tourist cannot be
ignored. Certainly, in a period of increasing customisation of product to meet
the particular needs of consumers, tourists are increasingly used to exercising individual choice, preference and interaction with the suppliers of
purchased products and services. As already noted in Chapter 1, the
numbers of tourists continue to swell, as if in response to some pressing need
to see the world, to view it as if it contains some truth that would otherwise be
denied to them. As in Chapter 1, appropriate questions to be asked include
what is the nature of this phenomenon, and what is it then that leads to this
need? In Chapter 1 a historical, descriptive approach was adopted and, while
such an approach is of help, it can be argued that description is but a first
stage towards analysis. In analysing the nature of tourism, a number of
approaches may be taken. One approach is to view tourism as an economic
activity, and thus recognise that tourism may be defined as possessing the
characteristics of an industry. Those characteristics include the production of
a service and the establishment of a structure of business relationships with
the prime motive of satisfying wants associated with travel and the resulting
accommodation needs for the purpose of achieving profit. Such an approach
is inherent in a definition that refers to tourism as:
The demand for, and supply of, accommodation and supportive
services for those staying away from home, and the resultant patterns
of expenditure, income creation and employment.
If this type of approach is adopted, it in turn creates a need for specific
definitions that permit measurement. The history of technical definitions of
tourism is very much a post Second World War phenomenon as governments in the 1950s accepted a range of economic and social responsibilities
23
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24
not previously adopted. With the growth of international tourism, it was

not surprising that standards of measurement common to all countries
were sought. In 1963 a United Nations Conference on International Travel
and Tourism recommended to national governments that the following
definitions be used:
... for statistical purposes, the term visitor describes any person
visiting a country other than that in which he/she has his usual place of
residence, for any reason other than following an occupation remunerated from within the country visited. (United Nations, 1963)
As well as proposing a definition of visitor, the Rome Conference in
1963 also proposed that the term visitor should cover two distinctive
classes of traveller: tourists and excursionists. Tourists were defined as
temporary visitors staying more than 24 hours in a country visited and the
purpose of whose journey can be classified as (1) leisure, i.e. recreation,
holiday, health, study, religion or sports, (2) business, (3) family, (4) mission
or (5) meeting. Over time, additional meetings were held, for example the
meeting of the United Nations Statistical Commission in Rome in 1976, and
that of the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) in 1991. Distinctions have
been drawn to ensure, for example, that tourists are counted separately
from other groups such as migrants, members of armed services, refugees
or embassy personnel. At the conclusion of the 1991 WTO conference the
accepted definitions were those shown in Table 2.1.
For some countries the definitional components of domestic tourism
might still differ from those given in Table 2.1 in that a spatial component is
added. For example a domestic tourist might be expected to travel at least
40 kilometres away from his or her home and stay overnight in order to
qualify for the status of tourist.
While such definitions as these are important (they are definitions based
on observed travel behaviours), they say little about the nature of, or
reasons for, those behaviours. They begin to quantify without explanation.
Therefore alternative definitions of behaviour might be conceived. For
example, the psychological impacts of recreational tourism may be recognised. Given that the prime motivations for such travel are ones of rest,
discovery and pleasure, holiday tourism may be defined as:
The means by which people seek psychological benefits that arise from
experiencing new places and new situations that are of a temporary
duration, whilst free from the constraints of work, or normal patterns
of daily life at home.
Ryan (1991a) also argued for a fourth approach to be adopted in any definition of tourism, one that was more holistic and incorporated what he saw
as being important, namely the fun component of the holiday experience.
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The Economic Determinants of Demand
25
Table 2.1 World Tourism Organisation definitions of tourism

International tourism
Domestic tourism
Visitor
A person who travels to a

country other than that in
which he/she has his/her
usual residence, and which is
outside his/her usual
environment, for a period not
exceeding one year, and
whose main purpose of visit
is other than the exercise of
an activity remunerated from
within the country visited.
A person residing in a
country, who travels to a
place within the country, but
environment, for a period not
exceeding six months, and
whose main purpose of the
visit is other than the exercise
of an activity remunerated
from within the place visited.
Tourist
A visitor who travels to a

country other than that in
which he/she has his/her
usual residence for at least
one night but not more than
one year, and whose main
purpose of visit is other than
the exercise of an activity
remunerated from within the
country visited.
A visitor residing in a
country, who travels to a
place within the country, but
environment, for at least one
night but no more than six
months, and whose purpose
of the visit is other than the
exercise of an activity
remunerated from with the
place visited.
Excursionist
A visitor residing in a
country who travels the same
day to a country other than
that in which he/she has his/
her usual environment for
less than 24 hours without
spending the night in the
country visited, and whose
purpose of visit is other than
the exercise of an activity
remunerated from with the
country visited.
A visitor who travels to a

place within the country but
environment, for less than 24
hours without spending the
night in the place visited, and
whose main purpose of visit
is other than the exercise of
an activity remunerated from
within the place visited.
Source: WTO (1991)
However, it is here maintained that the definition then proposed failed to

be holistic in the important sense that it was demand-derived and made no
inclusion of the hosts, their culture, heritage or place that was a home and
not simply a location to be visited. Holistic definitions thus become
difficult, but the economic definition previously postulated can, it is suggested, be extended and thus tourism is:
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26
The demand for, and supply of, accommodation and supportive

services for those staying away from home, and the resultant patterns
of (1) expenditure, income creation and employment that are created,
(2) the social, cultural and environmental consequences that flow from
visitation and (3) the psychological changes that result for both visitor
and host.
Whilst this definition might lack the fun that was thought important
(and indeed it is recognised that fun and pleasure associated with tourism
are important), it must be recognised that the psychological consequences
of tourism cannot all be categorised as being pleasurable. At some times
tourism might pose cathartic experiences that are life changing, or indeed,
on fortunately rare occasions, travel may induce death or injury. It thus
becomes possible to define tourism from at least four viewpoints:
economic, technical, psychological and holistic. In turn these considerations can be used to analyse the nature of tourism. For the remainder of
this, and the next two chapters, the demand for tourism will be considered
and for this three separate, albeit related, approaches can be undertaken.
The first approach is to view tourism as a service or a product like any
other, its demand determined by economic variables, and hence subject to
the economic laws of demand. Any economic study can be undertaken at
both a micro- and a macro-level of analysis.
A second approach might be to view tourism and the nature of its
demand as a reflection of social change. Indeed, this approach has become
very popular with some commentators. For example, Urry (1990) considered tourism to both reflect and contribute to changes in the ways in which
people gazed upon society. In their analysis of tourism associated with
issues sexual, Ryan and Hall (2001) argued that attempting to isolate what
is called sex tourism not only from mainstream tourism but also from the
socio-economic structures of society implies a failure to understand what
sex tourism is about, or what motivates its current structures. The same
comment can be made about tourism more generally.
A third approach is to attempt to understand what motivates visitors. In
short a socio-psychological framework might also help to understand the
demand for tourism, what it is that tourists seek, and to offer a context and
explanation for the patterns of demand that emerge.
Thus this chapter is concerned with the economic determinants of
demand for tourism, and will identify the variables thought important by
economists, and the nature of the relationships between these variables.
One important purpose of analysis is to enable prediction to occur, and so
reference will also be made to the econometric literature that has sought to
forecast tourism flows. Chapter 3 will subsequently examine how social
trends interact with income distribution to help create new market
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27
segments, and Chapter 4 will examine how psychological motives also help
to define patterns of demand.
The Economic Determinants of Demand for Tourism

While in themselves economic factors such as higher levels of income,
levels of prices and exchange rates are not motivating factors for undertaking leisure travel, they are nonetheless important enabling variables.
Additionally, there is a link between income and motivation because any
higher income removes some of the uncertainties of life, thereby freeing
people from the need to continually concern themselves with the need for
shelter, warmth and food. Instead, people can then seek to enrich their lives
not solely with the material but also with the experiential, and travel
becomes an important means of experiencing and engaging with the new.
From an economists perspective, it is the enabling function of variables
such as prices and income that are important as being both measurable and
of predictive use. If a correlation can be shown between income and the
amount of travel that will be undertaken, this permits a prediction that if
income increases by x% then travel will increase by y%. From the pragmatic
stance of those wishing to build roads, hotels, attractions and infrastructure, the potential use of such information is of obvious importance.
In conventional micro-economic theory, the demand for any product or
service can be defined in terms of:
(1)
Dt = f(Pt , P1 ... Pn , Y, T)
where Dt = the demand for tourism

Pt = the price of tourism
P1 ... Pn are the prices of other goods
Y = income
T = taste.
These variables will be considered in turn, beginning with the role of
income.
The role of income
It can be hypothesised that, as incomes increase, so the demand for
tourism is also likely to increase. However, studies show that, for the developed world and for most of the second half of the twentieth century, the
demand for tourism increased faster than the growth of National Income
(Cooper et al., 1993). For example, expenditure on tourism proved remarkably resistant to the recession in the early 1970s that followed the oil crisis,
and it would seem that the demand for tourism is income-elastic and, to a
degree, price-inelastic. In other words, for any given percentage increase in
income, tourism demand grows proportionately faster. On the other hand,
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28
if income moves in a downward direction, tourism demand appears to be

relatively income-inelastic; in other words, if there is a reduction in income
(or, more likely in a practical sense, incomes rise less quickly than
expected), the demand for tourism does not diminish to the same degree.
Equally, it can be claimed that the demand for tourism continues to grow,
even if prices increase. This is not to say that there has been an unbroken
pattern of ever-increasing demand for travel overseas; but in many
instances the causes of a reduction in demand for travel to and from any
group of countries has been due to non-economic, exogenous factors.
Examples that come readily to mind include the reduction in American
travel overseas during the Gulf War of 1991 and in the aftermath of the
hijacking of aircraft on September 11 2001 by Al-Qaeda terrorists and their
use to destroy the World Trade Centre in New York and to damage the
Pentagon. Other examples of terrorist action include the 1997 attacks on
tourists at Luxor, which resulted in the killing of 71 people and adversely
affected subsequent tourism flows to Egypt. Equally the foot-and-mouth
epidemic in the United Kingdom led to a 30% reduction in overseas visitors
to the United Kingdom in the summer of 2001 because of perceptions that
travel through Britain was severely restricted and many attractions were
closed (Sharpley & Craven, 2002).
In October 2001, the British Tourist Authority (BTA, 2001) sought to
examine the relationships between these types of exogenous impacts and
general economic factors. It noted that, with reference to Middle East
conflicts, it is extremely difficult to disentangle broad economic factors
from the nature of the exogenous event indeed, one can comment that in
the immediate short-term the exogenous event itself impacts on those
economic variables that influence travel. For example, currencies may
change value, fuel prices usually react upwards, and of course confidence
can be affected, which may be demonstrated by economic variables such as
changes in share prices that impact on holdings of wealth. The BTA noted
significant geographical and travel-segment sensitivities to such external
shocks, noting for example that holiday-independent travel and holidayinclusive travel tend to bounce back quickly, but geographical factors are
also important. The USA outbound holiday market is very sensitive in the
short term; but possibly one of the surprising results from the September 11
2001 attacks was not that the USA outbound travel market dipped very
sharply, but that by February 2002 it had bounced back for overseas travel,
especially to safe destinations like those of New Zealand. This bounce
back was generally quicker than many commentators had predicted only
five months earlier.
In a study of the impacts of the 1997 earthquakes on central Italy,
Mazzocchi and Montini (2001) concluded that it was domestic flows of
tourism that were the slowest to resume, and that international tourism
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29
was adversely affected only for quite a short period of time. On the other
hand, tourism flows to Egypt were significantly affected when the 71 tourists were shot at Luxor; an event that received significant worldwide
reporting in the media (see www.cnn.com). The speed of bounce back can
be determined by many apparently different things, including the type of
media reporting, the degrees of knowledge about (and familiarity with) a
destination that major markets in tourist-generating countries have, the
type of marketing campaign and pricing adopted by tourism organisations,
the attitude adopted by insurers both of individual tourists and of airlines,
the ability of channels of tourism distribution to quickly access information
about destination conditions, and the types of tourists that are being
attracted to the destination.
However, as with all generalisations, care needs to be taken when
considering such events and variables. It can be concluded that attempts to
forecast the future growth of tourism by using economic models prove that,
in practice, income alone explains little of the variance in changes in
tourism flows. Partly this may arise for technical reasons. From a macroeconomic viewpoint, in the use of national income data, average wage rates
and their movements, the analyst will often use what is in effect a long-term
tourist demand function. For example if the growth in total tourism expenditure (or some other measure of tourism activity such as the number of
trips or the number of tourist nights) was plotted against income over a
number of years, the Figure 2.1 might result. What this shows is that as
income rises, so too does the level of spending on tourism so line AB
represents a tourist consumption function.
Total expenditure
(or number of trips)
B
Tourist
consumption
function
A
Income
Figure 2.1 The tourist consumption function
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30
However, within each of these different years, a cross-sectional analysis

would show that of course not everyone earns the average income figure,
and people with different levels of income might have different propensities to spend any increase in income on travel and tourism. Therefore, there
is a need to impose on the original diagram the annual cross-sectional
distribution of incomes within a society as is illustrated in Figure 2.2.
Thus the long-term tourist consumption function AB consists of the
points where the midpoints of the annual consumption functions (CF1, CF2,
CF3 ) form the long-run consumption function, AB. A number of questions
arise about such consumption functions. For example, as lower-income
groups attain higher income levels, how does this influence their spending
patterns? Do they spend all their additional income, and at what time do
they begin to increase their savings? Other similar questions might relate to
the use of credit. This distinction between longitudinal income patterns
and cross-sectional distribution of income may in part help to explain why
studies that concentrate on annual movements of income and tourist
expenditure do not always show the expected high correlation, or may
even prove disappointing in their predictive capabilities. Indeed, Witt
(1992) has argued that nave models of demand forecasting, where either
(1) the previous years level of demand is the forecast for the current year or
(2) where last years demand plus a trend growth line is used, can provide
viable usable forecasts, especially perhaps where generally non-dynamic
situations exist. On the other hand, when Davies and Mangan (1992) specifically studied data derived from the British Family Expenditure survey
they considered a simple model where expenditure was a function of
income, but undertook some of the cross-sectional analysis discussed
above by considering whether or not a family had children. They found that
B
Tourist expenditure
CF3 (2005)
CF2 (2004)
CF1 (2003)
A
Income
Figure 2.2 The long-run consumption function and cross-sectional analysis
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31
income elasticity had values greater than one, but there were differences
between income groups. For example, for lower-income groups a 1%
increase in expenditure led to a 4% increase in spending on hotel and
holiday expenditure, whereas for higher-income groups a 1% increase in
expenditure resulted in only a 1.5% percent increase in hotel and holiday
spending. Davies and Mangan conclude that increases in income for lowincome groups would result in greater holiday expenditure, but the presence of young children certainly restricts the market in the short term.
From the viewpoint of tourism analysis, a further question relates to the
definition of income. It might be that the relationship between tourism
expenditure and gross personal income is indirect, and the links between
discretionary income and tourism spending are more pertinent. The relationship may be defined in the following manner:
(2)
Et = f(Ydis ) = f[(Yd) (Eb), S]
where Et
Ydis
Yd
Eb
S
= expenditure on tourism
= discretionary income
= disposable income
= expenditure on non-leisure activities
= savings
and
Yd = f(Y T)
and
Eb = f(P1 ... n, i)
where Y = gross income

T = taxation
P1...n = prices of non-leisure items
i
= interest rates.
From this viewpoint disposable income is equal to gross income minus
taxation. However, every householder has to meet certain bills and expenditures. For example, there is the need to pay for food, heating, lighting,
travel to and from work, and mortgages on household properties or rents.
Only then is there sufficient money left for either saving or spending on
leisure pursuits. These costs have to be deducted from disposable income to
arrive at the income that remains for spending on leisure items and activities. This can be called discretionary spending. It can therefore be seen that
such discretionary income can be affected by variables such as increases in
the cost of food and travel to work, and other inflationary pressures.
Interest rates may also have an important role to play. For example, in the
late 1980s and early 1990s many economies faced high inflationary pressures. On the proposition that this was caused by excessive levels of
demand, governments sought to reduce consumer spending by increasing
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32
interest rates. This has two effects. First it increases the cost of debt and, in
societies with high levels of home ownership being purchased with mortgages, this can mean significant increases in mortgage repayments, thereby
reducing discretionary income. Second, higher interest rates might make
savings more attractive by increasing the rate of return on savings, thereby
again dampening consumer spending. If inflation is also raising house
prices (which may hold out a promise of capital gain on property and so
feed the inflationary spiral) the increased mortgages will be on higher
house prices for recent borrowers. The consequence is significant reductions in discretionary income. Such, for example, was the situation in the
United Kingdom in 1989. Therefore, when looking at the level of demand
for overseas travel in that period, one finds that there was a reduction in
demand for foreign package holidays from approximately 14 million in
1988 to 12 million in 1989. However, other variables intrude in such an analysis, for 1989 also saw a significant increase in holiday bookings by the
British within Britain holidays that were not necessarily cheaper than the
holidays offered by the British Tour Operators. Hence this may have also
had elements not of a reduction in demand per se, but of demand switching
as a result of disillusionment with the overseas package holiday. For many
Britons, 1988 had been an experience of long delays in airports on both
outward and return flights a feature that had been reported widely by
both press and TV media. Ten years later, with a period of economic
growth, low inflation and generally low interest rates on mortgages, overseas travel had continued to grow in volume and expenditure. The WTO
(2001a) report that, in the period from 1995 to 1999, outbound travel from
the UK increased from over 41 million to 50.8 million departures.
The degree to which such an analysis can continue to be applicable will
also vary over time. Much, as has been noted, may depend on the patterns
of home ownership. Therefore if mortgage interest rates are to be an effective determinant of holiday demand, then it must be assumed that large
numbers of people are fairly recent home buyers (so mortgage repayments
represent a high proportion of disposable income), or are primarily
financing such purchases by mortgages rather than by past savings, by realising family assets (such as selling homes of equal value) or by using inherited wealth. With an ageing population that increasingly has access to
inherited wealth, as is symptomatic of many Western developed nations of
North America and Northern Europe, such assumptions may become less
valid, and mortgage interest rates will have a weaker effect on determining
the demand for tourist expenditure. That there are significant demographic
changes with serious implications for both wealth and income distribution
and future patterns of holiday demand is evident, and will be discussed in
more detail in Chapter 3.
From the above it can be argued that any attempt to relate tourism flows
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33
to income movements must therefore take into account not only gross
income changes, but also changes in taxation, general inflation and interest
rates. In addition, it might also be noted that increasing interest rates may
not only affect leisure expenditure by increasing the price of necessities
either directly or indirectly, but may also encourage a shift in the savings
ratio (savings/income), which in turn impinges on possible expenditure on
leisure. It must also be noted that expenditure on tourism also competes
with expenditure on other leisure pursuits, a factor that is further examined
below.
The cost of travel
Expression (1) also indicates that a possible economic determinant of
demand for tourism is the price of the holiday. The price that the tourist
pays for the holiday might be said to cover three components:
cost of travel;
cost of accommodation;
cost of the activities undertaken by the tourist at the destination area.
Each of these three components will now be examined in turn. With
reference to an ITC (inclusive tour charter), or independent travel requiring
a flight, the main components of the cost of travel could be hypothesised as
being:
(3)
Ct = f(F,O) + f(R)
where Ct
F
O
R
= cost of travel
= cost of fuel
= other travel costs, including administration
= profitability of airlines.
In the case of holiday costs, approximately 37% of the price of a package

holiday offered by British tour operators arises from the flight, with a
further 37% being accounted for by hotel costs (Flook, 2001). Of the flight
costs, an important variable is the price of fuel. Fuel costs are subjected to
significant causes of uncertainty because of two factors. The first is that past
history has shown that petroleum product prices are far from stable in spite
of efforts by the OPEC countries to control oil prices, and fluctuations can
occur not only from year to year but also from month to month. Attempts to
use a futures market in aviation fuel to overcome the risks involved for
airlines and tour operators do smooth out some of these fluctuations, but
still leave airlines subject to the risks of either buying at the wrong time or of
buying insufficient fuels at the right time. For example, it was generally
understood that in 19992000 part of the differential profit performance
between Air New Zealand and Qantas in the Australasian/South East
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34
Asia/Pacific markets had been due to Qantass better (or more fortunate)
fuel purchases. A second uncertain variable is that aviation fuel is priced in
US dollars, and thus prices are affected by exchange price movements. In
practice, this may in fact be a simplifying and stabilising element, as any
alternative position could pose major problems for airlines. The thought of
having to pay for aviation fuel in the currency of the country of embarkation would create a highly complex movement of prices, and could affect
the willingness of airlines to fly to any given destination. Nonetheless, even
the current situation can mean that, as currencies move against the United
States dollar, costs for fuel may fall or rise for any given airline.
Under these circumstances, it may very much be a matter of swings and
roundabouts. In some cases favourable movements in exchange rates may
be offset by increases in prices of fuel, in other cases both variables may
move together, either favourably or unfavourably. In some situations they
may be less influential than might otherwise be the case. For example, in the
period 19821984, neither currency nor fuel price movements were particularly favourable for British tour operators, yet the costs of holidays and
flights were highly competitive. This was a reflection of the market place,
where an expansion of supply dictated a need to fill aircraft, and the utilisation of marginal pricing techniques, where discounted seats meant that the
sale of a seat obtained at least some revenue, whereas empty seats of course
meant no revenue. Thus in formula (3) above, profit (as reflecting organisational difficulties) is the variable that may reflect this situation. Certainly
the structural state of the airline industry and the marketing exigencies it
gives rise to are very important determinants of the prices being charged by
airlines. In the de-regulated markets of North America and Europe, a
number of factors outside of cost structures become very important. Arguably, in the United States over the period 1999 to 2001, increasing losses
were being sustained by airlines because of a reluctance to give up take-off
and landing rights on routes with significant volumes of traffic. For
example, one might have found four airlines all wishing to depart from
New York to Washington DC in the morning at the same time, all
competing to obtain the same business traffic. All four might be making
losses on the flights, but none would wish to give up that potentially profitable slot potentially profitable if one airline withdrew its service. It was
almost a case of knowing that, even if the one airline was making a loss, so
too were the others. That was seen as more acceptable than cutting losses by
rejecting that route, if, by that rejection, it meant the remaining three airlines
moved into profit. The consequences of such actions included:
(1) Increasing problems of air traffic control in the USA because of the
sheer numbers of flights.
(2) An increasingly poor record of time keeping because while, in this
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35
example, all four airlines might advertise an 8.30 am departure time, it

is evident that not all four aircraft could depart simultaneously. As
flights early in the morning were delayed, the knock-on effect meant
further delays later in the day and more headaches for air traffic
control. The end result was poorer service for clients.
(3) Increasing losses for the airlines meant costcutting exercises, which
again meant poorer service for clients as, for example, the quality of inflight catering and other services was reduced.
(4) Reduced service meant less brand loyalty and more switching by
customers, who would then become more price sensitive.
(5) Price-sensitive clientele resigned themselves to lower levels of service
and therefore became more likely to patronise no frills airlines when
they became available (which of course further increased the problems
being faced by air traffic control).
Therefore, even prior to the attack on the World Trade Centre, US
airlines were plunging deeper into loss. The post-September-2001 decline
in numbers flying was the final catalyst that led to the abandonment of
routes, and in some cases to the demise of respected airlines. This situation was not confined to North America, although there the position was
arguably made worse by the lack of any central authority in the allocation
of take-off slots and landing rights at airports. Europe saw similar problems, with massive losses being announced by airlines like Sabena, major
reductions in profits by companies like British Airways, and even significant restructuring in the package holiday market as companies like
Airtours attempted to revitalise themselves by creating closer links with
internet-based operations and reinventing themselves (in Airtours case,
as MyTravel). Interestingly enough, Airtours had announced an increase
of 57% in operating profits prior to September 2001. But, in the aftermath
of the September 11 attack and the disruption it caused to airline services,
Airtours had had to spend 11.4 million on the repatriation of stranded
passengers (BBC News, 2001). In other parts of the world, both long-established airlines like Ansett Australia and newer airlines like Impulse
ceased trading. Indeed, in 20012002 many governments had to decide
whether or not to offer financial support to national carriers and other
airlines as profits plunged into losses. On the other hand, RyanAir,
EasyJet, Virgin Blue, Freedom Air and other no-frills, basic services
airlines seemed to continue successfully trading, and indeed placed
orders for more jets. Aided by high levels of price sensitivity by the
holiday market, low fares attracted high loadings, with cost savings being
achieved by a combination of little pre-paid in-flight service and direct
internet bookings that saved the travel agents commission. Profitability
was then aided by customers willingness to purchase extra food and
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36
drink on flight. In November 2001 British-based companies like EasyJet

began new marketing campaigns aimed at further eroding the market
share of the long-established high service carriers like British Airways.
EasyJet commenced an advertising campaign seeking to extend beyond
its traditional market with advertisements asking What do you want
from a business airline? It cited frequent flights between UK airports and
major business cities, flexible fares, no rip-off day returns, good punctuality and a long-term relationship with its customers. This last point was
supported by reference to EasyJet being a FTSE250 public company with a
capacity growth of 25% per annum; and the numbers of passengers
carried having increased by 40% in 2001.
In short, structural and competitive paradigms in the worlds market
places had significant impacts on patterns of flying, and the words volatile
and dynamic became almost over-used in describing the airline industry
in the early twenty-first century.
The cost of accommodation
An important consideration in any holiday is the accommodation, its
standard and price. With reference to the cost of accommodation,
exchange rates can yet again play an important role. The possible
extremes of price/exchange movements can be demonstrated both historically over the long-term and in the immediate short-term. For example an
American tourist may have visited Britain in 1964, and paid 10 for a hotel
room. At that time the exchange rate was $2.79 to the 1, hence from the
Americans viewpoint the price was $27.90. If it is assumed that the American returned to Britain 20 years later and that hotel prices had increased
three-fold to 30 per room, the American was not in fact faced with a 300%
increase in costs. In 1984 the exchange rate was only $1.23 to the 1, and
the American tourist would therefore have seen the room as costing
$36.90, an increase of only 32%. Our American would then probably
conclude that Britain was a cheap location.
Consider the effects of the more short-term movements of the United
States dollar against the New Zealand dollar in the period 19992000. In
that case the New Zealand dollar fell by about 20%, thereby making New
Zealand a cheap destination for Americans, and the United States a more
expensive one for New Zealanders. Such was the fall of the New Zealand
dollar against the currencies of major tourism-generating countries like the
USA and the United Kingdom that these mature markets showed a consistent growth in tourist numbers going to New Zealand of over 7% per
annum for the three-year period ending in June, 2001. The importance of
exchange rates, especially in the case of package-holiday deals, is difficult
to overestimate. The accommodation relationship can be written as shown
in equation (4).
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(4)
37
Ca = f(H, X)
where Ca = costs of accommodation

H = hoteliers costs
X = exchange rate.
The hoteliers costs are potentially very dynamic, and profitability can
be affected by price movements that have nothing to do with actual
trading conditions or perhaps direct operating costs. For example, in 2000
the Australian hotel industry had to increase prices to its international
market to take into account the governments introduction of a Goods and
Services Tax. Again, interest rates have potentially serious implications
for those hoteliers for whom loan repayments are a high component of
their fixed costs, as a 0.5% increase in interest rates on, for example, a
500,000 loan means a need to sell perhaps as many as 250500 extra
rooms per annum depending on rack rates. Over the period 19982000,
many businesses in the United Kingdom faced quite significant increases
in costs of business because of government policies on business reporting;
and in the 2001 British election, an Election Manifesto for Tourism was
published with a request that the amount of red tape faced by the
industry be reduced.
Conventionally hotelierss operating costs are determined by variable
costs relating to labour, housekeeping, catering and refurbishment. However, the ratio of variable to fixed costs is important to the industry and to
individual hotels. In any period when the industry faces major investment
expenditure, increased property taxes and rates and increased business
reporting costs, then for many hotels the ratio of variable to fixed costs will
swing towards fixed costs. This requires, as noted before, more sales to
cover those costs, but additional sales are associated with additional variable costs. The hotel industry has thus faced difficult times, particularly in
Britain where the industry had to recover from a loss of international business due to the onslaught of foot-and-mouth disease and the decline in
trans-Atlantic traffic in 2001 after the destruction of the World Trade Center
on September 11 of that year.
Cost of activities
Once at the location, and having settled into his or her accommodation,
the tourist will, after a time, wish to travel around the area and see the
sights. This requires further expenditure on his or her part, and the number
of trips taken and activities enjoyed will again depend on a balance of
tourist income and the prices being charged. These prices, and the costs on
which they may be based, are shown in equation (5).
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38
(5)
C ac = f (X , Ph tP g )
(6)
P
C ac = f X , h
t
where
C
X
P g
= cost of tourists activity in the tourist destination

= exchange rate
Ph
P g
rate of inflation in the host country divided by the

rate of inflation in the tourist-generating country:
=
a measure of the differential inflation between host
and generating countries.
In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, many of the countries of the developed world have experienced comparatively low rates of
inflation and thus the differential rates of inflation have been of less importance than was the case in the early 1980s. In that period, there were quite
significant changes. For example, in the period 19821983, British tourists
would have received 10% more pesetas for their 1 sterling; but with, in the
same twelve months, a 15% rate of inflation in Spain, much of that gain was
wiped out by higher Spanish prices. By 1984 a reduced pound/peseta
exchange rate and continuing inflation in Spain made the Spanish Costas
even more expensive for UK citizens. Just how much less affordable this
made Spain to the UK market was determined, in part, by levels of wage
inflation in the UK. However, as stated, inflation has fallen significantly
since then, and exchange rate movements have come to dominate the
picture. In the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, some
destinations such as Bali and the rest of Indonesia became very attractive
financially to the Australian market, yet by 1998 some of this advantage
was then eroded by the political troubles that Indonesia experienced as the
Suharto regime declined into its final days.
Discussion
The previous paragraphs can be summarised as stating that the
economic determinants of demand for tourism are:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
total income;
levels of taxation that determines personal disposable income;
prices of other goods that determines discretionary income;
interest rates that affect mortgage and credit repayments and the
attractiveness of savings;
(5) economic structure of industries relevant to tourism and their profitability;
(6) inflation in the host and tourist generating countries;
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39
(7) rates of exchange;

(8) cost of travel;
(9) exogenous factors like an oil crisis, pilots strike, foot and mouth
disease or terrorist action.
Of course, such an approach says little if anything about the perceived
attractiveness of the destination, and it leaves unstated the supply side of
the equation other than through the indirect pressures on their costs that
destinations may experience. There is some evidence that the market structures have more influence than might otherwise be thought. For example,
in a study of Mallorca, Aguil, Alegre and Riera (2001) argued that, in the
case of German package holidays, the hotel category, type of board and
location were significant explanatory determinants of price. They went on
to comment that the inclusion of the identity of the tour operators as an
explanatory variable is also statistically significant (Aguil et al., 2001: 72).
To some extent they were confirming the earlier and similar findings of
Sinclair, Clewer and Pack (1990) in their study of Malaga. However, a
demand-side economist would object that the success of any operation is
still determined by the acceptability of the price to sufficient market
segments that are large enough to generate the required volume necessary
for profitability. In short, demand is the important component.
A Review of Evidence
This contention raises the question, what is the evidence? It has been
shown that a series of potentially testable economic relationships can be
hypothesised, and indeed the literature contains many examples of attempts
to explain tourist flows by the use of econometric modelling. While there is a
consensus that income, exchange rates and travel costs are important, there is
a lack of consensus about the contribution that each makes to determining
demand, and under what conditions one might be more important than the
other. For example Witt and Martin (1987) conclude that income is an explanatory variable in 38 out of 39 cases, but note differences between nationalities.
For example lagged income was important in explaining British holidaytaking behaviour, which contained a degree of destination loyalty that was
missing from the German market; i.e. the British continued to undertake
holidays at the same destinations in spite of adverse income movements.
However, in his original doctoral thesis, Witt (1978) warns of the enormous
difficulty of undertaking such work because of the significant inputs of data
that are required. Thus, in examining British visitor numbers to Italy, he
found that the statistics from the Italian Centro per la Statistica Aziendale
were incomplete. Witt (1978) also concluded that a 1% increase in real
personal disposable income per capita resulted in a 0.518% increase in the
number of foreign holiday trips per capita.
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40
This compares with later findings that show that tourism is income elastic
(Witt & Martin 1987; Martin & Witt 1988). More recently Sinclair and Stabler
(1997) reviewed the evidence and found considerable variation in income
elasticities (some as high as 7.01) but most were in excess of 1. They conclude
that such a wide range is not surprising, given the different time periods,
countries and tourism flows being studied. But they go on to remark that a
number of the estimated values may be inaccurate, owing to inappropriate
specifications of the demand equations on which they are based (Sinclair &
Stabler, 1997: 38). One factor that they feel contributes to this is the lack of
modelling of consumer behaviour. Ryan (1991a) seemed to agree with this
when he argued that people are reluctant to forgo their annual holiday and,
in periods of recession or when economic growth has slowed down, the
holiday will be financed either from changes in spending patterns or, more
probably, from a reduction in savings. Consequently, during such periods,
tourism will appear to be income-inelastic as falls, or reductions in economic
growth, do not cause any diminution in tourism demand (the lagged-income
effect remarked upon by Witt and Martin in 1987). However, in periods of
economic growth characterised by feelings of confidence, tourism demand
may be income elastic in that, for any given increase in growth of income,
there may be a faster percentage growth in tourism demand. To add to these
findings, Sinclair and Stabler (1997) also record a range of relative price and
exchange rate elasticities, and conclude from this that there needs to be more
discussion as to whether these should be regarded as separate or as linked
variables. Witt and Witt (1994) also noted that, in the case of UK outwardbound travel to France and Austria, airborne holidays were more price sensitive than holidays by surface transport. This raises not only the question of
degrees of substitutability of one form of transport for another within modelling, but the issue that different forms of transport actually create different
travel experiences. It is also evident that significant cross-elasticities of
pricing exist with reference to the package-holiday industry. Flook (2001), the
Secretary General of the International Federation of Tour Operators (IFTO)
noted that, if prices to one destination increase in relation to its competitors
by 1%, then bookings to that destination will fall by 35%. He went on to
observe that This price sensitivity means that the entire industry has to take
great care not to upset this very delicate balance. We all ignore the basic
economic laws of supply and demand at our peril. Tourism to a country is
relatively fragile (Flook, 2001: 2).
Certainly that debate has long existed in the literature, aided now by a
greater use of the technique of cointegration. Economists and statisticians
have for long been aware of the problems associated with multicollinearity
that arise when seemingly independent variables are in fact or in theory
linked. For example during a period of wage-induced inflation, prices,
expenditure and income are arguably not entirely separate variables.
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41
Equally, however, there may be strong reasons to disaggregate the variables

as some sections of society (pensioners, for example) may not be wage
earners. These issues are discussed below in a little more detail.
For his part, Morley (2000) has argued that, if any better understanding
is to be gained, it is necessary to look at approaches other than conventional econometric ones. He suggests means of measuring and incorporating diffusion effects into the economic modelling of demand. The
diffusion model is based on the concept that visitors to any area include
repeat visitors and also those who are attracted to an area owing to the
recommendation of friends who have visited the region in the past.
Consequently the numbers visiting an area are a function of the numbers
of past visitors as well as new adopters. The percentage of the total that
each category accounts for is itself an indicator of future tourism flows.
On the other hand, this approach implies that other than economic variables may be of importance. Indeed Huybers and Bennett (2000) propose
choice modeling based on UK visitors perceptions of North Queenslands
environment as one method of forecasting flows of visitors to that part of
the world. This approach creates a synthesis between demand and supply
models. On the one hand the economic variables determine the ability to
make a visit. On the other, the physical properties of the place and their
evaluation by the tourist on the basis of past experience creates a predisposition to visit one location in preference to another within the existing
economic parameters.
The problems of econometric forecasting are compounded further when
tourist demand functions for smaller areas are attempted. For example,
Quayson and Var (1982) consider demand functions for tourists visiting the
Okanagan in British Columbia, and suggest that a 1% increase in income
will generally be associated with a less-than-proportionate increase (0.623)
in tourism receipts in the Okanagan. However, for visitors from California,
tourist trips to British Columbia were in fact income-elastic, implying that
tourist trips to destinations that are further from home, and hence by implication more expensive, are more readily determined by income. For their
part, in a study of an even smaller area, Cheddar Gorge, Downward and
Lumsden (2000) found that visitor spending was not fundamentally related
to various attractions. Rather, it was related to the duration of a group
stay on the day of travel, and the size and composition of the group (Downward & Lumsden, 2000: 259). Consumer behaviour may also be swayed by
ethical or environmental issues. For example Huybers and Bennett (2000:
37) found, using questionnaires based on a willingness-to-pay technique,
that green tourists were willing to pay an extra premium for a holiday at a
destination if authorities protect the current unspoilt state of the environment. For a trip from the UK to Queensland, this premium was calculated
as being 738.
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42
In the past a possible confounding factor in modeling demand was that

in many cases the price paid comprised different components of travel,
accommodation and activities. As noted, it might be claimed that different
currencies acted as a veil through which costs might be disguised or not
fully understood. For example, a tourist might feel that the price paid at the
travel agent represented good value but, on arrival at the destination,
found it to be expensive owing to currency exchange rates. Mazanec (2002)
points out that, at least within the European Union, that veil became more
transparent with the introduction of the common currency (the Euro)
across much of Western Europe. He concluded that, during the period of
transition, travel consumers react to Euro versus local-currency pricing
receptively enough to adapt their preferences for trip packages (Mazanec,
2002: 252). In the longer term, the easier comparison of inter-destination
pricing would, according to classical economic laws of demand, further
increase demand for lower-priced zones, everything else remaining the
same.
Technical Difficulties in Econometric Tourism Forecasting

A number of the issues discussed above relate partly to technical problems involved in forecasting. These may be classified as being three-fold:
namely, issues about the data, statistical techniques and how the model is
defined. First, data concerns are ones of both quality and volume of data.
For example, while the cost of travel is thought to be important, actual
airfares paid by passengers on any one flight may vary from nothing for
employees using travel passes to maximum rate for first-class passengers.
Again, within Europe the geographical proximity and range of alternative
airports and the resultant complex flight patterns and airfare structures
mean that considerable volumes of data are required (Witt, 1978). Another
difficulty identified by Witt is the derivation of data about promotional
effort by National Tourism Offices. Witt argued that:
... promotional expenditure is expected to play a role in determining
the level of international tourism demand and thus should feature as
an explanatory variable in the demand function. (Witt & Witt, 1994:
517)
but noted that it was often difficult to obtain data that specified levels of
promotional spending in different countries. There is some evidence to
suggest that this may be a factor, for example, in the increase of tourism
arrivals in South Africa following the dismantling of apartheid. In this case
overseas arrivals increased from 2,703,191 in 1992 to 4,944,430 in 1996
(WTO, 1998). This was considerably in excess of the 18% growth rate in
world tourism (as measured by arrivals) that took place in the same period.
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43
No doubt much of this was due to special factors, but equally it is true that
the South African tourism authorities took every opportunity to promote
themselves, particularly in the markets of Northern Europe and North
America. Subsequently tourism inflows into South Africa have increased at
significantly much slower rates, and by 2002 the growth was not much
more than 2% owing, it is suggested, to an image of urban violence.
The second group of difficulties is those related to statistical techniques.
For example, regression techniques assume the independence of variables.
In practice, particularly perhaps in inflationary periods characterised by
high cost-push inflation that is associated with increasing labour costs, the
relationship between incomes and prices is obviously one of action and
reaction. Equally, when considering travel costs in areas of major landmasses, then there may be substitutability between air and surface transport. Accordingly, under these conditions multicollinearity (the existence of
high degrees of correlation between variables) will exist, and may invalidate the forecasting model. A second common issue is that of heteroscedasticity, namely the violation of the assumption that all residuals
maintain a constant variance over time. This violation is common if the data
cover long periods of time, and this is particularly the case with tourism,
which in many instances has experienced fast rates of growth. Patterns of
variance are easily identified by charting the residuals. Frechtling (1996)
suggests the use of data transformation to overcome this problem, for
example the use of logarithmic scales or the use of squared roots. The
former is often related to the use of the Cobb-Douglas production function
(Wynn & Holden, 1974). A third problem that may be encountered is that of
autocorrelation (where a variable correlates strongly with its own past
values). One reason for its existence may be the continuing effects of
specific events. Thus, for example, the Asian crisis might have created a
high correlation between tourist expenditure in periods t and t+1 even
though income in period t+1 has increased. This might be because a change
has taken place in the income/tourist activity relationship. This change
could theoretically occur because behaviour is being affected more by
recent past experience than by expectation about future increases in
income, with the result that tourism expenditure remains a constant
between periods t and t+1, thereby generating the observed correlation
between expenditure in both periods. Kane (1974) observes that, because
regression models will often evidence some degree of stochastic dependence between successive values of the error term, it is important to test
patterns of residuals to determine if the relationship is too large to attribute
to chance, or whether an omitted variable accounts for the observed
autocorrelation.
The above discussion highlights another problem, and that is how the
relationships are modeled. It could be argued that the introduction of
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44
lagged variables relating to expenditure variables would overcome some of

the potential problems, and that really the problem is not autocorrelation
but one of defining relationships. Therefore the nature of the regression is
based on the modeling process. This requires first a selection of the variables thought to determine tourist demand, and second, a determination of
the relationship between them. As just noted, one common question is
whether a lagged relationship might apply where demand in period t is
partially dependent on the existence of a variable in the period t1. It might
also be thought that the relationships are not linear (Y = a + bT) but, say,
quadratic (Y = a + bT + cT2 ).
A further problem faced by forecasters is that a forecast of tourism flows
in the future may itself be dependent on the accuracy of forecasts relating to
the economic variables of exchange rate movements, fuel prices and so on.
One response to this is to develop alternative forecasts based on different
scenarios. In Australia in 2001 the Tourism Forecasting Council developed
a model, ISMIDOT (Integrated System Model of Inbound, Domestic and
Outbound Tourism), that incorporated assumptions relating to GDP (Gross
Domestic Product), income and exchange rates for source markets. The
forecasts were then adjusted for qualitative factors that included airline
capacity, oil shocks, the marketing effort made by Australia, and an
Olympic effect. The forecasts were then developed for three scenarios: one
where the real exchange rate for the Australian dollar was 55 US cents, a
second where it was 58 US cents, and the third for a rate of 60 US cents, with
appreciation to 65 US cents over the remainder of the forecast period to
2009. The consequence was that the forecast level of inbound arrivals
varied between about 9.8 million and almost 12 million by 2009 (Tourism
Forecasting Council, 2001).
The Use of Time Series and Other Developments in

Forecasting
Acommon method of forecasting that ignores issues of determination by
economic variables is the use of time series. This, essentially, is the extrapolation of past trends into the future, and thus to a large degree its validity
rests on the assumption that the underlying relationships between determining variables remain constant over the period being tested. As Lim and
McAleer comment:
Predicting future movements of tourism demand based solely on the
past behaviour of (proxy) variables such as arrivals or tourist expenditures, rather than relating them to other variables in a causal framework, is simple but straightforward. (Lim & McAleer, 2001: 966)
Raw time series data may, however, consist of four constituent parts:
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45
trend, cycle, seasonal and irregular component parts. In tourism applications seasonality of data is, of course, common, and economists and statisticians have developed widely-known smoothing techniques to cope with
these problems. The simplest of these is the single moving average (SMA),
while other techniques include single exponential smoothing, double exponential smoothing, autoregression, Box-Jenkins, ARMA (autoregression/
moving average combined) and ARIMA (autoregression/integrated/
moving average). One of the comments often made about these approaches
is that they are essentially atheoretical in that they extrapolate from a
known set of data (such as visitor numbers) without examining the underlying determinants of the data. On the other hand they work from easilyaccessible data, which (as described above) is not always the case for
regression-based methods.
Both regression and time series approaches need to consider the nonsmooth patterns of tourism flows. A tourism arrival series is said to be
stationary if the mean and variance values of the series remain constant
over time. This is uncommon, and statistically means that the mean of the
series does not converge to some constant as the number of observations
increases. However, exponential smoothing methods based on recursive
techniques have been developed whereby smoothed estimates become the
weighted average of actual arrivals between period t and t+1, and are
continued into estimates of future flows. Hence, in a study of tourism flows
to Australia from Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, Lim and McAleer
(2001) were able to use computer software based on five different methods
to conclude that the Holt-Winters exponential smoothing method produced the best fit between forecasts and final outcomes.
One of the issues that has continually exercised the mind of econometricians is the accuracy of the resulting forecasts. It has already been noted that
nave models are not without value. However, to conclude that forecasting
is simply a statistical process of little value is to miss one of the points of
forecasting. If forecasting has, as its strategic aim, the development of
desired outcomes and the avoidance of undesirable ones, then acting on the
results of the forecast may change the relationship of the variables on which
the forecast was based. For example, if a downturn in tourist arrivals is
expected, and a government then increases the promotional budget and
provides tax incentives to companies, a subsequent increase in tourism
arrivals is not the proof of poor forecasting.
Nonetheless, statisticians continue to seek new ways of improving forecasts. One comparatively recent introduction is the use of cointegration analysis in tourism forecasting. This arises in part from the observation of the
relationship of variables, for it has been found that, although many economic
time-series may trend up or down together in a non-stationary way, groups of
variables may drift together. Underlying this is the assumption that theoreti-
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46
cally there may be good reasons for believing that such groups may adhere
over time in a linear fashion. A growing number of studies is emerging based
on this approach. For example Seddighi and Shearing (1997) used co-integration to assess the relationship between price and demand for tourism in the
North-East of England. They concluded that, in the long run, for every 1%
increase in relative prices, a 9% fall in demand would result; but a 1% increase
in real incomes would create a 19% increase in demand. Subsequently
Seddighi and Shearing generated an error-correction model that produced
good predictions for the period 19721992. Their results again point to high
levels of price and income elasticity, arguably affected by the existence of
highly substitutable destinations. While today it might be thought that these
sensitivities are very high, the period covered included some periods of very
high inflation with, at the beginning of the 1990s, the beginning of a period of
quite stable prices. Consequently a further issue is identified, and that is the
degree to which stability exists within any given economic system over any
period of time. Any lack of stability in a system makes forecasting that much
more difficult.
For their part Kulendran and Witt (2001) review data relating to forecast
flows of visitors to eight countries, and discuss the comparative strengths
of moving averages, least-squares regression models, error-correction
modeling and those that use cointegration techniques. They question the
degree to which poor forecasting might have been due to poor model
formation, or whether it has been due to ignoring the advances made in
methodologies. The results are those of a series of contradictions within the
literature, but conclude that an approach combining error correction and
model/cointegration appears superior to the time-series methods. Interestingly the no change model that is used for comparison still fares relatively
well, and it is suggested that this might be because the other models fail to
capture changing demand elasticities. For his part Crouch (1992) reviews 44
studies of price and income elasticities and notes the difficulties in determining a tourist price index, and that the expedient use of consumer price
indices tends to dominate. What becomes very evident from the studies is
the high level of variability in estimates, and Crouch (1992: 660) observes
that the price definition used was found to be one of the few factors that
seemed to be at all significant in accounting for any variation in the estimated elasticities. It can be suggested that this observation poses a major
issue for forecasting and restores to a place of primacy a need for consistency of definitions and usages in statistical series as they relate to tourism.
As will be discussed with reference to satellite tourism accounts in Chapter
7, this is something that international bodies such as the World Tourism
Organisation have started to tackle; but currently it is an issue that particularly bedevils forecasting.
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Conclusions
This brief review of the issues and evidence as they relate to econometric
forecasts might lead to a number of potential conclusions. The first is that
economic forecasting may be able to indicate, within constraints, potential
demand for tourism activities, but may be poorer at predicting actual flows
in terms of where people go within countries or destination zones.
Secondly it might be contended that economics is based on a concept of the
rational economic man, and tourism is concerned with motivations other
than rationality. Guitart (1982: 37) comments that:
The Briton is essentially, a great traveller; he retains his old habits even
in an unfavourable domestic economic climate... It might have been
expected that ... relating numbers of passengers using ITC flights to per
capita private direct consumption in constant terms would provide a
high correlation coefficient. But this was not the case in the UKs case.
One might equally have expected a certain amount of economic rationality by UK tourists, changing or modifying their decisions in the
election of their destination as the prices changed in the Mediterranean
areas. But this was not always true. (Guitart, 1982: 37)
Thirdly it might be concluded that econometric techniques are not
perhaps appropriate in analysing tourism patterns of expenditure. Rebecca
Summary in discussing a demand function for Kenyas sun-lust tourists
concludes that:
... typical multivariant demand functions estimated by the ordinary
least squares regression may not represent the optimal technique to use
in all tourism studies ... perhaps the best solution as Uysal and
Compton suggest is to use qualitative and quantitative models to
provide the best possible tourism-demand analysis. (Summary, 1987:
322)
It should be noted that a number of alternative forecasting techniques
exist. The use of time series is one such technique and, while it has been traditionally argued that such techniques assume a continuation of current
trends, it has become increasingly possible to model both for broad social
change and for the exceptional event. Morley (2000) discusses a number of
these issues. Indeed, the literature comprises many examples of researchers
using increasingly sophisticated methods to model flows of visitors. For
example, Turner and Witt (2001) have argued that linear structural equation
modeling represents one approach, while, more from a consumer behaviour
approach, new modeling techniques that incorporate neural network
modeling are beginning to appear in the literature. For a discussion of this
and its applications see, for example, Law (2000) and Ryan (2000a).
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It must be admitted that, amongst policy makers and entrepreneurs,

there is sometimes a sense of exasperation that forecasts are not more accurate, and a perception that econometrics is an arcane art form little better
than attempting to read the future in the tea leaves left in a cup. While this is
understandable, it should be said that at times one would wish to avoid that
which is being forecast. As already stated, if it is thought that there will be a
decline in tourism demand to a certain location, then corrective actions may
be sought through more promotion or destination upgrading. Consequently if numbers of visitors are retained or perhaps increased, does that
invalidate the original forecast? Often there seems to be little discrepancy
analysis undertaken; that is, there is little examination of the reasons for the
difference between forecast and actual outcomes. Much of what is done
seems to be attempted by econometricians or statisticians seeking to
achieve a better fit between their models, and so the literature tends to be
dominated by discussions of a technical nature. Rarely does there seem to
be a discussion that analyses such discrepancies from a policy perspective,
and a number of reasons can be advanced for this. First, in terms of the
structures of the public sector, there may be changes of personnel over time
that inhibit any sense of policy continuation. For example, elections often
bring, if not changes of government, then changes of ministerial direction.
Second, there may not be a wish to re-examine what may have been overlyoptimistic forecasts from the past because of a perceived association with
policy failure (thereby implying that there is nothing to be learnt from
failure a possibly expensive notion). Thirdly, over time social conditions
might change, and it is this last possibility that is discussed in Chapter 3.
Finally, given the complexities of forecasting, there appears to be a need
for a rigorous procedure of peer review and continuous monitoring, especially for those forecasts being released into the public domain by formal
forecasting bodies. Here practices seem to vary. For example, in Australia
the Tourism Forecasting Council (TFC) has conducted a review of its work
and, as noted, in 2001 it introduced its model ISMIDOT mainly to overcome
problems revealed by the review. These latter usually assume a single direction of determination from the determining economic variable to the determined observable response of tourist flows. ISMIDOT recognises feedback
mechanisms within any tourism system. For example, the determination of
new tourist flows by, for example, the introduction of new airline schedules,
will involve the creation of new patterns of demand because the supply of
new routes will often create further demand, especially if accompanied by a
strong promotional effort. Such demand changes may subsequently cause
either an increase or decrease in fares, which in turn will further impact on
patterns of flow. The TFC has sustained a continuous dialogue with consultants and academics active in econometric forecasting.
On the other hand, in New Zealand the first forecasts used single-
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equation models because of their simplicity, and there was a limited process
of peer review that included no academics among the four reviewers
(Fairgray, 2001). To a large extent, this reflects a process of maturation. In
2002 the TFC celebrated its twelfth year of existence, while in 2001 the New
Zealand Tourism Research Council was still an embryonic organisation.
What can be concluded is that there exists a rich literature of both
tourism forecasting and comment on techniques. Indeed there is now a
specialist journal, Tourism Economics, that carries many of the articles within
which this debate is progressed. For the moment, perhaps the final words in
this chapter can be those of Lim and McAleer, who comment:
Data analysis has become increasingly more straightforward as a result
of the proliferation of computer software packagesConsequently, the
analyst and the forecaster are now in a position to evaluate and
improve upon the quality of forecasts. (Lim & McAleer, 2001: 976)
This author would add the caveat that, like statistical packages, the
increased ease with which calculations can be carried out does not remove
the requirement for an understanding of the processes engaged upon,
otherwise such packages simply become black boxes where inputs
produce outputs without any understanding of the assumptions that
underlie the modeling.
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Chapter 3
The Social Determinants of Demand

Introduction
It has been noted that discrepancies often exist between forecasts and
realities, particularly over longer periods of time. Equally it often appears
that history is a succession of changes, and that the pace of change has
increased throughout the last hundred years. In 1900, cars had just made an
appearance and flight, literally, was only just taking off. In the 1950s
computers were physically large, and limited in capabilities. By 2000 the
world was spanned by the Internet, Sony was producing robot pets, and a
wired global village was being created even while ethnic killings had
occurred not only in Africa (Rwanda) but in Europe in the former
Yugoslavia. Our world is changing, and some of the broad trends as they
affect the major tourist generating and receiving countries of the western
world can now be discussed. Consequently, the social consistency required
by economic forecasting over the longer time period may no longer be
assumed, especially when forecasting is over a period of decades. There is a
need, therefore, to examine more closely some of the changing patterns of
work and leisure in order to better understand the demand for tourism.
An Overall Framework for Analysis

In the early 1980s it was suggested by Guitart (1982), Pearce (1982b) and
Mayo and Jarvis (1981), amongst others, that attempts to explain determinants of tourism demand without reference to motivations or social change
can at best yield only incomplete forecasts of tourism movements. This
observation remains true at the commencement of the twenty-first century.
The implications of social change can be discussed with reference to the
tourism/work and tourism/leisure ratios. These can be defined as being:
Tourism/work ratio =
Tourism/leisure ratio =
Percentage change in hours spent on tourism

Percentage change in hours spent on work
Percentage change in hours spent on tourism
Percentage change in hours spent on other forms of leisure
50
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As already discussed above, the growth of tourism demand has been

fuelled by an increase in income, but another important factor is the
increase in leisure time permitted by, in the earlier part of the twentieth
century, increments in paid holiday time and free weekends. In addition,
the introduction of flexible working patterns permits people to plan and to
take extended weekend breaks more easily than in the past. Thus the
tourism/work ratio swung towards tourism as the number of hours of
taken holidays increased, and the number of hours worked decreased.
However, as the number of hours of leisure available to people increased,
so too, arguably, the tourism/leisure ratio also changed, as other forms of
leisure began to compete with tourism. There are also linkages with
economic factors in a micro-economic sense. People may obtain increases in
leisure time but, if those increases in leisure time are not accompanied by
proportionate increases in income, then the available discretionary income
per unit of available leisure time will fall, thus restricting a greater use of
leisure time for holiday purposes. To take a clear example: the worker made
redundant has obvious increases in leisure time, but not necessarily the
income that permits expenditure on increased travel. Equally, the person
who receives additional holiday entitlement from work without an
increase in pay also has less available income per unit of leisure time, and
thus the additional holiday time might be spent on leisure pursuits within
or around the home. The factor of discretionary income and available time
might therefore indicate potential inhibiting factors on the growth of
tourism. In 1979 the Economist Intelligence Unit sought to assess growth in
tourism to 1990 by assessing the changes in leisure time and in population
to estimate the total weeks available for tourist activity. The study
concluded that, whereas for a country such as the UK, 87% of the potential
market was already being penetrated, different habits in other countries
such as Canada meant that only 39% of the possible tourist market had been
capitalised on there. The tourism/leisure ratio can also be determined by
other factors:
(1) There might be a growth in the popularity of other leisure activities
that rival tourism in competing for the valuable hours of leisure time.
It is true that the holiday always offers one thing that other forms of
activity based at home do not possess, and that is the chance to experience a new environment; and the motive to experience novelty is
strong in us all to a greater or lesser extent. However, if people are
finding significant degrees of fulfilment in their hobbies and interests
practiced in their home area, then the escape motivations that prompt
travel are weakened.
(2) There may be diminishing satisfaction per additional unit of tourism
experience consumed. This is an application of the economists
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concept of diminishing marginal utility. Can it be argued that

continued increases in personal travel produces yet further wants or
needs to travel, or does there occur at some point a form of worldweariness that makes the traveler appreciate if not actually yearn for
the peace and luxuries of home? If holiday travel becomes synonymous with experiences of delays at airports, traffic jams, queues for
entrance, being subjected to abuse from drunken fellow travelers, and
the transfer of the ills of the city into the countryside, then indeed the
tourist may feel that home is best.
(3) The motives of our forbears in seeking holidays may be less valid in
the last part of the twentieth century. Amongst the factors that
induced a growth in travel was the wish of working people to escape
from the everyday noise and bustle of work and large cities. The countryside not only offered peace and tranquillity, or scenic beauty, but
also a chance to recover from daily toil. But if the nature of the daily
task changes, perhaps our requirements of the holiday also change.
In examining this relationship between work and leisure four hypotheses can be examined (Zuzanek & Mannell, 1983). These are:
(1) The trade-off hypothesis, where people choose between work and
leisure time.
(2) The compensation hypothesis, where holidays and leisure compensate for the boredom or troubles of everyday life.
(3) The spin-off hypothesis, where the nature of work produces not
contrary but similar patterns of leisure activity.
(4) The neutralist hypothesis, where there is no relationship between
work and leisure.
Each of these will be commented on in turn.
The trade-off hypothesis
From this viewpoint there is an inverse relationship between work and
leisure time. Consequently there is a choice between working longer hours
and generating more income, or working fewer hours and having less
income. This situation is demonstrated in Figure 3.1.
Here it could be argued that a choice has to be made somewhere between
the points OA (maximum income) and OC (maximum available hours of
leisure). However, the concept can be refined further. Curve I1 represents a
series of options that might be available to an individual, and in which all
yield the same level of satisfaction. The curve is known as an indifference
curve. The choice made would be the point where the coefficients are Oa of
income and Oc of leisure time, because this combination represents the
highest indifference curve that the individual can reach. Other indifference
curves can be hypothesised to lie to the right of I1, but they lie beyond the
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constraint imposed by the line AC. Any indifference curve to the left of I1
would represent a lower level of satisfactory alternatives. However, economies have tended not to stand still, but to progress, and with increases in
productivity made possible by increased investment, for any given amount
of hours worked, over time the income per hour worked will increase.
Therefore the constraint line, AC, will pivot about the point C, for at point
C, if no hours are worked, income will remain at zero. This now produces a
new combination of hours worked and hours taken in leisure. This enables
us to derive a demand curve for leisure as is shown in Figure 3.2. In the first
instance, if the combination selected is Oa of income, and Oc of leisure, then
the price of that leisure is the income lost whilst taking that leisure, i.e. Aa.
Hence the price of the leisure is Aa/Oc per leisure time unit (hour). As the
constraint line changes, so too does the price of the leisure time taken. What
happens now is that a new, higher indifference curve is engaged by the
pivoted budget line, XC. Now the choice made is to retain Oz of income
(which is higher than before) and Ox of leisure time (which in this example
is slightly less than before). Economists would refer to the income lost as the
opportunity cost, that is in this instance, it is the income forgone in order to
spend time on leisure. The original point of Aa/Oc can be joined to the
subsequent point of Xz/Ox, and by joining these points a demand curve for
leisure time can be derived.
The above analysis has a number of technical problems associated with
it. One major one is that the pivoting of the time-constraint curve around
point C may not be as smooth as it is drawn. As drawn, it implies that the
Income
A
a
I1
C
Leisure time
Figure 3.1 The work/leisure trade off
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increase in productivity leads to increases in income whereby those

selecting a higher income receive larger increases than those selecting an
option of lower income and more leisure time. This might appear plausible,
but such factors may actually change the shape of the initial indifference
curves. This particular example illustrates a not-too-uncommon relation-
Income
I2
a
I1
x c
C
Leisure time
Xz
Ox
Aa
Oc
D'
O
Figure 3.2 The derivation of a demand curve for leisure
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ship where those earning more income may end up with less leisure time
and pay more for it. Indeed, a whole series of curves and diagrams may be
drawn that show different sets of relationships, and a number of issues
arise. For example, to what extent are there movements along the curves
taking place as distinct from moves of the curves and budget lines themselves? What in effect is occurring may be degrees of substitutability of
income for leisure time and vice versa; and a key determinant is the actual
price of the leisure or holiday product. In a sense Figure 3.2 illustrates indirect relationships between income and leisure and shows the cost of
leisure in terms of income forgone; but in practice the monetary value of the
leisure or tourism product will have a significant influence on the leisure/
work time ratio.
It is quite possible that the demand curve, DD' in Figure 3.2 may be
upward sloping (i.e. sloping upwards left to right) implying a hypothesis
that the demand for tourism/leisure actually increases the greater the cost
of that leisure in terms of forgone income. A few comments may be made
about this hypothesis. The first is that there is some evidence to suggest that
this may indeed be the case, in that, as has already been argued, there is
evidence that the demand for tourism is income-elastic. In other words, as
incomes increase, the demand for tourism increases at a faster rate. Even
when incomes grow less slowly, the demand for tourism may increase
faster than disposable incomes. Thus, for example, in 1990 the Conference
Board of Canada predicted that, for 1991, even whilst Canadians disposable income would increase by 1%, tourist expenditure on foreign travel
would increase by 3.2% (Conference Board of Canada, 1990). Therefore, the
real cost (or opportunity cost) of the holiday increases in that, to finance a
3.2% increase in expenditure when disposable income increases by 1%
means that other items are not being consumed, or interest earned from
savings is being forgone. Hypothetically, as society moves into a postindustrialised world characterised by the flexible working patterns that
may be enjoyed by high-income groups, as described by writers like Toffler
(1970), the decision to take time off from work is financially costly. But,
because high pay is earned during time spent at work, the cost can be borne.
It is important to remember that the upward-sloping demand curve results
from the constraint line pivoting because of increased productivity. Hence
the professional person who in effect contracts out his or her skill to an
employer or client during the time spent working is able, because of that
experience, to charge a higher fee on subsequent periods of work. The decision not to work thus implies a higher opportunity cost for leisure/tourism.
It can be postulated that this scenario becomes more common in the
emerging post-industrial world, and is not restricted to young urban
professionals.Finally, it should be noted that within economics it has long
been recognised that any movement along a demand curve derived from
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indifference-curve analysis comprises two components: an income effect

and a substitution effect. Any reduction in price of a product, service,
holiday package, destination, etc. will possess a substitution effect in that
more of a given product is purchased than before. But equally any reduction in price, assuming that income remains static, implies an increase in
income (the income effect). This is demonstrated by most introductory textbooks in economics. Within tourism there always exists the possibility that
the income effect may be such as to reduce purchases of the lower-priced
item in favour of the more expensive, given the fact that the determinant is
discretionary income and duration of stay is flexible. As Ryan (1991a)
demonstrated, it is possible to generate upward-sloping demand curves.
While economists (e.g. Koutsoyiannis, 1975) have long held to the view that
Giffen Goods (goods where increases in demand are associated with
increases in price) are uncommon, this may not necessarily be true of
tourism, although empirical evidence is required to support this contention. However, for the purposes of the current argument, it can be noted
that changes in price generate not only changes in purchases, but also
changes in income.
The compensation hypothesis
The compensation hypothesis argues that leisure is the means by which
people compensate for the deficiencies in their work. If work is boring,
repetitive, dictated by the speed of the machine or subdivided into smaller
tasks so that the worker never sees the whole, then leisure is the means by
which the worker recreates the sense of being human. This theme of the
worker as an appendage of the machine is common both in films and in
literature. One example is Charlie Chaplins Modern Times (which he filmed
between 1932 and 1936) and in one scene Chaplins tramp character is
almost literally fed into the cogs of the machine. The historical social
evidence for such a thesis is provided by examples derived from the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the mining communities of
South Wales and Yorkshire developed their traditions of choral singing and
brass bands, and the textile workers of Lancashire and Yorkshire were
founder members of hiking and cycling clubs. The implication for holidays
is that the desired holiday is determined by the motive to escape. The
holiday becomes a means of escaping the daily routine of toil not only of
work but also of the home. In consequence, the holiday offers fulfilment of a
fantasy, perhaps based on a concept of the life of the idle rich. The holiday
is where the daily chores of cooking and washing need not be done. The
hotel offers a standard of accommodation higher than that experienced at
home, and is a place where waiters come to serve drinks as the tourist takes
his or her place in a sun lounger by the side of the pool. Also, in a work environment where communication with fellow workers becomes well nigh
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impossible over the din, cacophony and noise of machinery, the holiday
offers communication with like-minded people. The resulting holiday
becomes hotel based, and actual destination is of secondary importance.
However, if the hypothesis is consistent, it must also work in the opposite direction. In other words, those with interesting work will seek peace
and monotony at home and at leisure. Whilst there is some truth in the caricature of managers who return home to converse with their spouses only in
grunts as they collapse in front of the television set, it would appear from
the evidence (Parker, 1971; Pennings, 1976; Zuzanek & Mannell, 1983) that
this is generally not the case.
The spill-over hypothesis
The spill-over hypothesis shares with the compensation hypothesis a
recognition of the importance of work, and an assumption that it affects the
way in which we spend our non-work time. However, unlike the compensation theory, it argues that there is not a contrast between work and leisure,
but rather a complementary relationship. For the worker who fills a role
subservient to machine-dictated routine, leisure becomes a passive affair.
Thus a major leisure pursuit might be watching television, and the role
normally adopted is that of spectator rather than participant. It might be
argued that the traditional package holiday, as designed in the 1960s, represents a continuation of this process. The holidaymaker is taken from aircraft
to hotel, from hotel to day trip and back again. Decisions about where and
when, and indeed what, to eat are removed from the holidaymaker. The
holiday itself becomes as much a production-line process as the industrial
work left behind. Holidays become industrialised in form and format. On
the other hand, for those involved in interesting work, leisure also is characterised by participation in doing things. People are generators of action, be
it do-it-yourself, amateur dramatics or playing sports.
The above situation descriptions are caricatures, but for a purpose. By
the late 1960s futurologists were identifying a number of emergent trends
that they thought would be self-sustaining. For example, Alvin Toffler
(Future Shock, 1970; The Third Wave, 1981) argued that, as developed societies move into a post-industrial period, the nature of work and consumption changes. In his original work, Future Shock, Tofler argues against the
concept that technology creates standardisation and indeed calls one of his
chapters, The Origins of Over Choice. One aspect of this is the growth of a
service sector characterised not by human/machine relationships, but by
personal relationships supported by the machine (computer). Such work
patterns, it was argued, have a potential to create more self-fulfilment.
Emery (1981) added to this argument. Not only does the work/leisure relationship change, but so too does the home/travel relationship.
As people adopt more fulfilling work patterns, then owing to increasing
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incomes, their home patterns of life offer more opportunities for leisure.
People have their windsurfers and boats; they have accessibility from home
to their golf, leisure and sports clubs. Pursuits previously undertaken
perhaps only whilst on holiday become a normal part of home life. In addition, increasingly hotels no longer offer a style of accommodation that is
more comfortable than home. When a hotel advertises it has satellite or
cable television it is not a boast that it is offering more than the
holidaymaker is used to, but rather a reassurance that normal home television viewing will not be interrupted due to a loss of facilities. In short,
increases in participation levels in various leisure and recreation pursuits
might be expected. However, various constraints have emerged (Jackson &
Dunn, 1987, 1988) and it has also been noted that one characteristic of
modern society is an apparent lack of time. Shaw (1990) used the expression
time famine to describe this phenomenon. However, it was noted that
those with the highest participation rates tended to note the constraint of
time most (Kay & Jackson, 1990), whilst Shaws findings in part depend on
the definitions of leisure that are used. For example, is engaging in a threemile jog a leisure activity, or part of a keep-fit programme that the respondent sees as an essential? Equally, as Toffler (1970) observes, transience
becomes a feature of social life, and a feeling of impermanence infiltrates
with differing levels of appeal. For some, the fast pace of life is an excitement they seek, while for others it represents an anathema.
There is emergent evidence of reduced leisure hours and perceived
constraints on time. The Henley Centre in the UK has been tracking this
issue through its Leisure Tracking Surveys. In 1992 the number of nonworking hours in a week were estimated as being 67.3; in 1996 they were
65.2, and more recent estimates would indicate a further reduction to about
64 hours (Edwards, 1998/1999). Edwards also notes the erosion of the
weekend, with about 57% of employees in the UK and Italy stating that they
worked either sometimes or always on a Saturday, while in France, the
Netherlands, Spain and Germany the figure was about one-third. Of course
one reason for this is the very extension of the leisure and tourism industries themselves which, in order to provide their facilities, require
employees to work on weekends. The Henley Centre also tracks levels of
agreement with statements such as I never seem to have enough time to get
things done. Those agreeing with this statement in the early 1990s were
about 50% of respondents, by the end of the decade the figure was over
60%. Edwards (1998/1999) also suggests from the Henley surveys that 25%
of respondents fail to take their full holiday entitlement. Additionally it can
be observed that as more people feel time famine then they also, if
married, attach more importance to family relationships, especially if
children are present. In consequence, the pressures on holiday time to be
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perfect become substantial, and equally the industry has to be aware that
this has a tendency to generate even more demanding clientele.
Further examples of these are to be easily found in the press. For
example, in an article on the relaxation business, Pamment (2001: 47)
quotes a life coach at The Energy Bank in London as saying Due to the
pace at which we live, it is hard for us to relax on our own. Our clients see
the value of having someone to coach them into relaxing and who can guarantee that, in the time theyve set aside, thats exactly what they are doing.
In major cities around the world central business districts are increasingly
not only offering gymnasia, but a whole range of relaxation centres offering
massage, meditation, autogenic training, acupuncture and other techniques designed to bring instant relaxation upon payment of a fee.
It can be said that the early optimism of the 1980s in respect of holiday
entitlements and leave gave way to significant alternative working practices, particularly from the early 1990s. For example, the World Tourism
Organisation (WTO, 1999: 30) notes that, even though between 1986 and
1994 the working week in Canada declined to 37 hours, this was
misleading. It is noted that this apparent decline was due to the growth of
part-time employment, while between 1990 and 1995, average real incomes
declined by 6%. The same report noted that, even in the instance of the
United States, which in the 1990s enjoyed almost a decade of economic
growth, working weeks tended to remain long, holiday entitlements still
remained poor compared with many other countries, and economic
success was being purchased at a high cost. Equally though, for many the
demarcation between work and leisure became blurred. For example,
household tasks such as shopping were being increasingly established as a
partial leisure experience with eating out, combining shopping with
cinema visits and/or combining daily household shopping requirements
with leisure-interest shopping. In other instances the World Tourism
Organisation (WTO, 1999) points to specific increases in weekly and annual
working hours, as was the case of Australia in the review period.
While this trend seems to be common across many of the Englishspeaking countries and Europe, do the same issues apply to the emergent
tourism-generating countries of Asia and South America? It is generally
well known that the Japanese Government has introduced legislation at
different times to reduce the working week, and by 1995 the 40-hour
working week had been achieved at 95% of establishments employing 300
or more (WTO, 1999). However, many Japanese work in much smaller
companies, and in practice it appears that about 40% of paid leave in Japan
is not taken. However, while the Japanese economy has languished in the
1990s, that of China has progressed to the point that both domestic and
overseas travel have become significant economic drivers (Zhang &
Heung, 2001; Cai et al., 2001). In other Asian countries, the same trends
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towards shorter working weeks of 40 hours are occurring. Moreover,

while the Asian economic crisis toward the end of the 1990s adversely
affected travel patterns, the signs are that, at the commencement of the
twenty-first century, the economies of countries such as Hong Kong,
Korea, Taiwan and Singapore will achieve some economic growth, albeit
less than in the 1980s. Some uncertainty exists as to the possibility of, and
length of, a world recession, but the various forecasts still indicate that
South East Asia will continue to be a growing source and recipient of
tourism flows (WTTC, 2001).
The consequence of these changing work patterns, and changing leisure
opportunities around and within the home environment, is a change in
what is sought from the holiday. The holidaymaker becomes more selective
in his or her choice. Escape motives are undermined, and pull factors
become more important. The pull factors include not only the nature of the
destination and accommodation, but also the activities undertaken whilst
on holiday. Some evidence for this is represented by the growth of demand
for self-catering holidays. This is not motivated by a wish for cheaper
accommodation, but for the freedom that it represents. Indeed, selfcatering accommodation may be more expensive than all-in packages
because there is a tendency to eat out rather than spend time cooking. But
the eating out, the choosing of restaurants and the tasting of different
cuisines become an appreciated part of the holiday experience. Similarly
the 1980s and 1990s provided evidence of the growing popularity of seatonly flight sales. Indeed this opened the opportunity for a whole range of
no-frills airlines (from EasyJet operating from the UK to Freedom Air in
New Zealand) all repeating a formula of low fares and internet sales with
people increasingly make their own independent arrangements. Arguably
the concept has matured beyond the point initiated by Peoples Express (in
the USA) in the 1970s to become an accepted part of airline services. Tour
operators also picked up on the new trends, offering smaller, more personal
hotels, and holidays based on an extension of hobbies. Many now require of
their holiday that it extends the mind, and hence holistic holidays such as
the Skyros Experience can attract holidaymakers. Ryan and Groves (1987)
found, for example, that high-income holidaymakers valued flexibility and
independence within their holiday arrangements. In countries like New
Zealand, bookshops sell guides to holidays based on retreats founded on
concepts such as self healing or Zen. For a commentator like Boniface (2001)
a spirit of Zen informs new modes of tourism. Emery (1981) argues that in
the future the relationship between the home setting and that of the holiday
destination will change, with the result that tourists will be more selective
about their choice of destination. However Emery warns against laying too
much stress on the concept of self-actualisation as a holiday motivator,
writing:
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Self-actualisation and self-expression are too limited to the era of selfliberation in the sixties and seventies. In the longer haul, and over the
broad reaches of human society, I do not think that self-actualisation
will be found adaptive if it is not also an active concern to nurture the
self-actualisation of others. (Emery, 1981: 66).
Thus, for many seeking time out from the angst of modern lifestyles,
travel associated with holidays is becoming to resemble the old concept of a
pilgrimage, except that today the pilgrims may not holiday on their way to
Canterbury or Rome, but to places like the Hoffman Institute on the Sussex
Coast. There participants engage in processes of seeking personal harmony
of their own psyche, and as Jenkins described the process:
I found it very therapeutic to just let go and give myself over to the ride ...
I found the process more of a holiday than any beach. I loved the fact
that I never knew what was going to happen next, and even though we
were at it 11 hours a day, I was almost never bored. (Jenkins, 2001: 38)
This type of comment raises interesting questions about the nature of
holidaying. If holidaying is about time out, but the therapeutic processes
being offered by a retreat of this nature are found to be more relaxing, does
the commodified, commercial holiday give way to the old concept of the
retreat, albeit perhaps in various secular forms, in order to achieve the
purpose of the holiday?
There is an argument that, if the nature of work changes and there is
indeed a growing freedom from the self-denying labour of the past, then
one possible outcome of this nurturance of others is the possibility that
tourists may become more concerned about the impact that their tourism
has on host societies and cultures. This may, in turn, change the nature of
tourist activity. Boniface (2001: ix) strongly argues that a new dynamic
tourism is emerging that means doing tourism differently. The characteristics of this new form of dynamic tourism include:
prevailing spirituality, a taste for more intangibility to products, individual inclination, imagination and responsibility pertaining, though
in a matrix of world-wide awareness, global consciousness, and efforts
directed toward sustainability ... (Boniface, 2001: 156)
For his part, Ryan (in press, a) criticises Bonifaces thesis as being far too
selective and thereby ignoring many other forms of tourism that, while
perhaps being less spiritual, are nonetheless an important component of
modern tourism. He points to the continued popularity of theme parks,
package holidays in the sun, disco dance parties in Ibiza and the like as
being far more representative of the majority of holiday-taking activities
than those of quiet contemplation or litter collection in the name of
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ecotourism.It can be said that tourism increasingly faces increased competition from other uses of leisure time.
Some of these uses simply erode time that might otherwise have been
spent on tourism. It has been suggested that some future leisure patterns
based on virtual reality will prove to be substitutes for tourism. Thus far the
reality of this technology has lagged behind the perceived potential (see
Cheong et al., 1995; Hobson & Williams, 1997). However, it is expected that
the first of the new 64-bit chips will soon be appearing in personal
computers that increasingly are just parts of the home-entertainment
system of television, DVD and the Internet, while by 2025 it is possible that
chips based on quantum theory will be available, creating as-yet-unthoughtof modes of entertainment and experience. If, as Ryan (2001a) argued,
tourism is part of the entertainment business, then one implication is that
degrees of substitutability exist between the entertainment that occurs
within or near ones place of residence, and the entertainment that takes
place away from home. If, as one thesis suggests, globalisation generates
homogeneity between places, then the individual control permitted by new
entertainment technologies may become, by comparison, more attractive.
The neutralist hypothesis
Both the compensation and spill-over hypotheses have a common viewpoint in that human behaviour has an underlying entity. The work experience either drives people to seek compensatory action, or drives us to adopt
leisure patterns similar to our work experience. It assumes an ascendancy
of work, and implies a causal relationship with work being the determining
factor. It is true that the arguments of Emery (1981) and Toffler (1970, 1981)
can be re-interpreted to imply a reversal of this last contention. If, in postindustrial societies, not only does work become interesting, but it also
becomes possible to opt into and out of work in flexible working patterns as
dictated by the wish to adopt different positions on the leisure time/income
indifference curve postulated by the trade-off hypothesis, then it can be
argued that the leisure component of the desired lifestyle will begin to
determine the work pattern to be adopted. Some signs of this are demonstrated in software development companies where young programmers
and games developers have their skateboard zones, just as in more conventional companies the gymnasium and coffee shop are part of the expected
facilities. Nonetheless, even these examples still maintain a work/leisure
relationship either of comparison and contrast, or of deliberate complementarity. The neutralist hypothesis rejects such linkages, arguing that
there is no relationship between work and leisure both are separate
components of our lives, and people can distinguish between the two, and
act differently in each. Ironically, this separation is made possible by the
very same processes that Toffler and Emery describe. As Bacon (1975: 180)
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recorded, Work has lost its former hegemony and centrality in most
peoples lives and has become a much more marginal experience.
If this is the case, then the emergent holiday trends referred to above are
not so much a product of work changing and becoming more fulfilling.
Rather, with work becoming less demanding, individual choice over the
use of non-work time becomes increasingly more a reflection of individual
needs and inherent psychological drives. Hence there is a need to assess the
psychological motivations for tourism.
However, before leaving the general social framework that may dictate
the demand for particular types of holidays, and indeed the overall
demand for holidays, it can be noted that to some extent all four hypotheses
are not mutually exclusive in the sense that only one must explain all
behaviour at any one time. Just as when discussing the role of income it was
suggested that both a longitudinal and a cross-sectional analysis needs to
be conducted to assess the role of income, so too, the same may be true of the
social forces. It is tempting, albeit dangerous, to see a temporal progression
in society from the compensation to spill-over hypothesis, and hence to
possibly the neutralist stance. Rather it can be stated that within society
different social segments or groups might adopt different patterns of
work/leisure/holiday relationships, and that these need not be consistent
over time. Zuzanek and Mannell (1983) discuss the evidence for each of the
theories and in approaching this topic comment that, whilst there are methodological and operational deficiencies, it can only be concluded that the
work/leisure relationship is multi-faceted and multidimensional. What
certainly must not be forgotten is that work in itself can be a source of satisfaction, and the workplace is an important source of social interaction for
many people. A survey of 3,600 men and women conducted by the University of Michigan found that work rated as the fourth most preferred activity
out of a list of 25 (Rodale 1989). From the viewpoint of tourism, what is of
interest is that there appears to be some ceiling to continued growth of
demand that is operated by social factors. For example, examination of the
data for holiday-taking activities of British tourists, as published in the
English Tourism Board/British Tourist Authoritys Tourism Intelligence
Reports, indicates that consistently about 1520% of AB social group do not
appear to take a holiday of four or more nights away from home. For such a
group it is not a lack of income that affects this decision. Part of the result
may be accounted for by ill-health, and for some members of the group
intensive work schedules may also account for not taking such holidays,
but it can be contended that for some there is a deliberate choice not to take a
holiday. Equally, for others within the AB social grouping, whilst they tend
to take more holidays than their C1/C2 counterparts, there has not been a
drastic growth in additional long-stay (more than four nights away from
home) holiday taking. In other European countries, there seems to be the
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same slow down in the growth of numbers of people taking holidays. For
example Mazanec (1981) examined the German holiday market and, using
factor analysis, postulated a number of lifestyles, some of which were
conducive to tourism, some of which were not. He concluded:
... the leisure type mapping endorses the view that leisure life style
barriers to continuous market penetration of travel and tourism are
real: some incompatibility exists with certain leisure life styles. It
becomes particularly pronounced if home-orientedness combines with
low cultural/educational aspiration level. (Mazanec, 1981a: np)
Another factor in assessing the changing relationship between leisure
and tourism is a growing desire for a quality of tourism experience that may
actually reduce the total amount of tourism travel below that which would
otherwise take place. Sarbin (1981) records a survey of American tourists
where:
... the proportion of respondents who stated they like to travel but were
engaging in other activities instead because of the hassle of travelling
had recently increased from 13% to 24%. Forty percent of respondents
to a national survey said they did not visit parks and recreation areas
because of crowding, and 25% said the areas were too polluted. (Sarbin,
1981: np)
Changing Demographics and Resultant Implications.

In the final resort the demand for tourism is determined by populations,
and not only by their size but also by their composition. In 2001 the UK
National Office of Statistics released a report on population trends. Table
3.1 is extracted from that report, and illustrates just how high is the dependence on migration for any sustaining of current population size. It can seen
that, for many of the European countries, the decline in population will be
more than 20% in the period 2000 to 2050, unless there is immigration. In a
country such as Britain, in 2000 the average number of children being born
to a woman was 1.74. Equally, while in many of the European and Englishspeaking nations the proportion of those of working age to those over the
age of 65 is about 4 to 1, by 2050 the ratio will be about 2.5 to 1. These trends
are also to be found in other OECD countries, and in places like Australia
and New Zealand a new debate is occurring as to what sizes of population
are required to sustain economic growth but retain the lifestyles associated
with their comparatively low population density.The long-term implications of this for tourism are many. First, it indicates a growth in the numbers
of older people who are likely to want to continue travelling, but a need for
the industry to have to compete for a declining number of potential
employees, thereby implying a need to pay higher wages and thus drive up
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Table 3.1 Trends in demographics in Western Europe (population size)

Country
2000 (000s)
2050 (000s)
without
immigration
Difference
(000s)
% Difference
Austria
8,080
6,113
-1,967
-24.3
Belgium
10,249
8,652
-597
-15.6
Denmark
5,320
4,623
-697
-13.1
Finland
5,172
4,511
-661
-12.8
France
59,238
59,870
632
1.1
Germany
82,017
59,504
-22,513
-27.4
Greece
10,610
8,130
-2,480
-23.4
Holland
15,864
13,802
-2,062
-13.0
Ireland
3,809
4,818
1,009
26.5
57,630
40,525
-17,005
-29.6
437
418
-19
-4.3
Portugal
10,016
8,555
-1,461
-14.6
Spain
39,910
30,029
-9,381
-24.8
8,842
7,328
-1,514
-17.1
59,415
54,479
-4,936
-8.3
Italy
Luxembourg
Sweden
UK
Source: National Office of Statistics (2001)
costs. If markets comprise older people on fixed incomes, how might this
affect their ability to pay for such holidays? To what extent would older
markets wish to explore new destinations and activities?
One of what may be described as the conventional wisdoms of
marketing in the 1960s and 1970s was that an older persons market represented a market with high levels of disposable income. More specifically,
older people in their 50s had significantly high levels of discretionary
income. This was an age group who had generally paid off its mortgages
and whose children had left home to start their own families. These empty
nesters as they were termed, were also probably at the height of their
earning in terms of wage levels. Such empty nesters continue to exist today
as a section of society, but it would be a mistake to assume that all of those in
the 50+ years age bracket enjoy high discretionary incomes. Families are
today far more mobile, and home ownership changes are much more
frequent. For those less than 50 years of age in the USA it appears that the
mean length of home ownership before moving is seven years. Conse-
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quently such people are likely to have mortgages to pay. Second, divorce
rates are significantly higher in the early twenty-first century than 40 years
ago, with, in many European countries, about a third of all marriages
ending in divorce. Consequently it is not uncommon for 50 year olds to
have children, sometimes quite young children, still living at home. Third,
the age at which women are bearing their first children has been delayed
over the past five decades. This is due to more people spending longer in
education and so delaying their entry into the work force, and then seeking
to develop their work careers. Additionally the mean age for first marriages
is moving from the early to later twenties. Also if, as has been noted, work is
more fulfilling, particularly for females, then motives for having children
are, if not weakened, then at least put aside for longer periods of time. The
end result again is that those aged 50 years of age or thereabouts are likely to
have children still at home. Equally, there is evidence that the longer
periods being spent in education (and especially as the costs of that education rise as university fees increase and governmental grants are eroded or
ceased) result in a tendency for children in their early twenties to still be
financially dependent on parents. Therefore, for couples having children in
a second marriage, this means that the demands on the family income may
well continue into the prime wage earners sixties. Additional financial
burdens might also exist if the income earners have a need to support
elderly parents. In the English-speaking world with a past tradition of
social welfare support, changing demographics are increasingly imposing
strains on the health services dedicated to the elderly. Public health services
are less able to cope, and so families are increasingly paying for private care.
The squeezed middle class middle-aged generation facing the need to
support both children and elderly parents are less able to take holidays. It
might be argued that self-interest dictates an increased willingness to pay
higher taxes to support better health care, as is being argued in Britain
following the Chancellors predictions on November 2001 for future
budgetary spending until 2003 and the actual increases in taxation
announced in the 2002 budget.
On the other hand, a growing market segment is that of the unmarried
and those choosing to enter relationships but not have children. These two
market segments are growing both in numbers and as a proportion of the
total population. But, unlike the elderly, late family starters or divorced
people, they will in all likelihood have high disposable and discretionary
incomes. From this perspective they are akin to the gay and lesbian markets
in terms of their ability to spend on leisure pursuits. Further evidence of the
changes in holidaying patterns and the demise of homogeneity in the
holiday market is provided by Ryan (Ryan, D., 2001). She cites the growing
trend towards women-only holidays, and quotes Charlie Hopkinson of
Dragoman holidays as saying that, compared with 1999, his company
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experienced a 77% increase in pairs of women booking, a 280% increase in

trios, and a 400% increase in groups of four. This phenomenon is not
restricted to that company. Scott Dunn is quoted by Ryan as observing
similar increases and suggests a three-fold category, the young, single
career woman travelling with a friend, the retired woman, and mothers
travelling with daughters. In her survey of companies it is evident that the
type of holidays being taken by such women correspond, not unnaturally,
with the type of products being offered. But what is evident is that the
phenomenon of women travelling with other women has become a
discernible trend since the mid-1990s. The novelist, Joanna Trollope (2001)
wrote that:
More and more women are choosing to holiday alone. It seems that as
the traditional stigma of the impropriety and pitifulness of it fades, so
more than two-thirds of women according to a recent survey, can say
openly that they would actually prefer to holiday without men and
without children. They use phrases such as revitalise and re-evaluate and self-define and, of course, rest. (Trollope, 2001: 1)
Given the demographic trends referred to above, and the growth of
career single women, this is not surprising. Arguably what has been more
surprising is the comparative tardiness with which the industry has recognised this trend, and the slow development of product that is specific to this
market.
This has not been the case with the gay and lesbian markets. For
example, in January 2000 the British Tourist Authority (BTA) published
brochures specifically aimed at the gay American market. The BTAs
research had found, for example, that while the national average for the
USA population holding a passport is 18%, for the US gay market in the
targeted areas and cities it was 82%. In 1991 Disney World hosted its first
Gay Day. In the period May 30 to June 1 2002 more than 100,000 gays and
lesbians attended Disney Gay Day. Events such as Sydneys Mardi Gras
have been assessed as contributing over $A12 million to the local economy
(Lyon, 1999). Nonetheless, while it is true that today the mainstream
industry is showing greater sensitivity towards the gay and lesbian
communities and creating commercial product that meets their needs, it
can be argued that initially it was homosexual people themselves that initiated their own products to meet their own requirements. The mainstream
industry reinforced, but did not initiate, this trend.
Given societal trends and working patterns, it might be observed that for
many the need for a holiday might be greater than before. However, if, for
many heterosexual families, there is a reduced real discretionary income,
then the implications for holiday demand in terms of destination and
accommodation switching becomes evident. First, it might be hypothesised
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that there will be a reduction in demand for holidaying, at least in terms of

expenditure, albeit perhaps with a lesser reduction in nights spent away
from home. However, this is thought unlikely at the aggregate level, as
generally incomes are expected to continue growing but the patterns of
growth of discretionary income will be very uneven. The result of this will
be a continued demand for value for money. Clients will continue to expect
improvements for the same price as before. As members of a technological
age that has seen computing power per dollar, euro, yen or pound paid,
consumers have grown accustomed to large-expenditure items continuing
to offer new, improved, better variants. Holidays could be said to fall into
this category. Second, as noted, the ageing of the population will create a
demand for holidays associated with a quieter pace of life. As a consequence, the growth of demand for activities like adventure tourism may be
threatened, while the demand for family-oriented holidays involving
children will also be less important. On the other hand, products more
oriented toward culture, or at least nostalgia, might become more important, at least within the markets dominated by Euro-North-American
patterns of demand.
However, it is possible that more significant trends than these might
arise. First, as just noted, the market will be even less homogenous than it is
with reference to discretionary income, thereby creating a greater number
of market segments and more product differentiation as entrepreneurs
determine which market they wish to target. There is the opportunity of
greater fragmentation in the market place. From one perspective this will
be akin to the fragmentation that has occurred in countries with comparatively low mean incomes that have developed a thriving tourism industry
that attracts large numbers of overseas tourists. While this would be quite
common in developing countries, it is not unknown in developed countries
too. For example, at rates of exchange prevailing in 2001, the mean household income in New Zealand was about 9,500. In 1999 the new Labour
Government increased income tax on the top 10% of income earners, which
was defined as those earning in excess of about 20,000 ($NZ60,000) at the
then-prevailing rates of exchange. Many middle- to higher-income groups
in New Zealand will tend to travel overseas for their holidays to Australia
or the South Pacific Islands, taking advantage of packages put together by
tour operators or airlines. Domestic tourism in New Zealand is thus dominated by beach holidays and low-cost accommodation such as camp and
caravan sites. The mainstream structure of New Zealand tourism, as
reflected by annual tourism award winners, is very much dominated by
businesses catering to the overseas market and charging prices accordingly.
Indeed, in 2002 at a road show in Wellington, George Hickton, Tourism
New Zealand CEO, made a call to the New Zealand industry to increase
prices to obtain better yield and take better advantage of the low exchange
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rate (Coventry, 2002). Hence it might be said that a two-tier market has
resulted in New Zealand, and increasingly that market geared to the overseas market is beginning to dominant not only total tourism earnings, but
also government tourism policies. Where that leaves a domestic, lowerincome market is unclear.
Another trend that will probably be confirmed by its continuance is the
movement toward shorter holiday periods. For example, the report
Tomorrows Tourism (Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 1999: 71)
noted that in 1997 75% of the British population took holidays of less than 4
days duration in the United Kingdom, and that the mean length of
domestic stays was 3.6 nights as compared to 4.1 nights in 1989. Equally it
was noted that the mean length of stay of overseas tourists had fallen from
10.9 to 8.7 nights over the same period a decline not wholly attributable to
tourists selecting to visit other destinations in addition to the United
Kingdom when on holiday. It is consistent with the thesis of income rich,
time poor that such declines in holiday duration should be observed,
although the corollary is towards there being more short holidays than in
the past.
Within this scenario of social change based around an older, smaller and
more differentiated population lies at least one significant assumption, and
that is an absence of immigration. Such an assumption cannot be left unexamined. The growing number of illegal migrants across Europe and South
East Asia or of Mexicans to the United States points to a demand for
entering the wealthy countries of the West. More relaxed policies could
certainly impact on both the age profiles of populations and subsequent
birth rates, given a historical tendency for migrant groups to have larger
families (at least initially), than the host population. However, considerable
problems arise from such policies. First, the recipient countries usually
prefer migrants with higher educational qualifications. Depriving societies
from which migrants come of their better-educated and highly-skilled
people does little to solve their problems. It can be additionally argued that,
unless something is done to aid such countries more directly, then the
world will see more instances of desperate boat people. This is evidenced
by the incidents surrounding Australian waters in 2001, when the Australian government reacted by effectively exporting, at least temporarily,
refugees who were seeking admission to Australia to places like Nauru.
From a tourism perspective, migration does have an impact on the visiting
friends and relatives (VFR) market, resulting in more international travel.
VFR travel often presents opportunities for specialist travel agencies and
tour operators. But over time such companies almost inevitably seek to
build on their expertise of arranging travel with what are generally less
developed countries to offer product to the non-immigrant market within
the tourism-generating host country.
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Other assumptions can be questioned. For example the scenarios

assume that people will continue to retire at about 60 or 65. Some countries,
such as New Zealand and Australia, have already introduced legislation so
that workers cannot be required to retire at 65 if they are still capable of
meeting an employers requirements. Many would wish to continue
working. For some, financial motives would dominate because of family
commitments; for others, as already noted, work provides a sense of identity and social networks. Another issue is that of government population
policies. Gove (2001) cites evidence to indicate that, within the UK,
increasing the fecundity of women from 1.74 to 2 children would be akin to
an annual inflow of 500,000 migrants in terms of changing the ratio
between those of working age and the elderly. Additionally, such an
increase in birth rate would not generate the same demand for additional
housing with, therefore, less damaging environmental consequences. If
governments resorted to family friendly policies and benefits, as the
French Government did in the inter-year wars, then this would subsequently have some impact on patterns of tourism demand.
Broad social trends are therefore very important in determining patterns
of demand. Additionally, what might be termed micro-social movements
can also be important. Fashions in interest can be observed, and this is
exemplified by the way in which locations can experience significant
increases in tourism following the release of a popular film. For example it
has been argued that Scotland received a boost to its tourism industry after
the success of the film Braveheart even though much of the action was
filmed in Ireland. Certainly the Tourism Intelligence Reports record a
significant increase in visitation to Scotland in the year following the
release of the film, when the number of visitors increased by 14% compared
to a 6% increase the previous year (BTA, 1996, 1997). Riley (1994) records the
impact the earlier films Deliverance and Field of Dreams had on American
locations, and of course tourism promotional bodies build upon these
themes. Ryan and Harvey (2000) note the continuing high recognition
factor of Crocodile Dundee among visitors to the Northern Territory,
although in this case the film creates a confirmation factor in the authenticity of the visitor experience rather than attracting visitors in the first place.
Popular television series have also produced new tourism products, from
tours of Inspector Morses Oxford to Granada Television Studio tours of
Coronation Street. Popular culture and tourism are thus closely entwined in
many ways. The importance given to films by tourism promotional bodies
is evidenced by the attempts made by Tourism New Zealand to build
visitor numbers after the release of the Lord of the Rings cycle of films. Not
only were images carried over into the boards website, but specific product
associated with the film such as Hobbiton was developed at places like
Matamata in the Waikato, North Island New Zealand.
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Image, Consuming and Social Process

To discuss the importance of film as a determinant of tourism flows is not
without a wider significance. Since the 1970s there has emerged an argument that a fundamental change in society has occurred. From the period of
the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, modes of production
generated higher levels of output based on standardisation of product.
Called by some a Fordist period because Henry Ford introduced conveyorbelt production methods to generate a standardised product (namely the
black Model T Ford), it represented the logical extension of scientific
management to working life. Comparisons could be made against a
measured standard, and found wanting or not. The breaking down of tasks
into smaller components removed not only judgement and the exercise of
individual skills, but inconsistencies in performance. Furthermore, by
removing the need for judgement, it allowed the use of lesser skilled (and
lower paid) labour to be used. However, the subsequent development of
computer-controlled production methods, wherein individual preferences
could be programmed without any increase in costs, permitted a considerably greater range of product to be produced. Moreover, for many products, larger markets came to exist because of economic growth and the
general increase in incomes. Thus purchases became increasingly dominated not by function and performance of products, but by aesthetics,
appearance and personal preference on the part of the consumer. This
process was reinforced by a growing advertising industry for whom
branding became exercises in establishing lifestyle and self-image reinforcement in order to distinguish between one product and another. With
the advent of television and the greater ease of presenting images,
consumers became, so it is argued, selectors of image that they felt were
congruent with their own. But consumers were not the simple, passive
consumers of image that was envisaged by commentators like Boorstin
(1962). Rather, according to Urry (1990), consumers, and in his thesis of The
Tourist Gaze, tourists, could engage in play and indeed be post-tourists. In
short, people are able to see through the advertising flummery and promises and choose either to play the consumer role as envisaged by the
advertising agency, or to subvert the role at whim or as part of a more
sustainable purpose.
These tendencies, which include sophistication and selective participation in the use of image, are allied to a fragmentation and reconstruction of
social stories. It has become almost a clich for tourism academics to point
out how peoples culture, history and folklore are subverted into commercial products, or packaged into 30-minute presentations for the tourists.
Through this process of re-interpretation, arguably different stories are
being authorised by those doing the packaging. As will be discussed in a
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later chapter, it is argued that the authenticities associated with history and
culture are being changed and, according to critics like Boorstin (1962),
becoming more superficial and shallow. Equally, in the telling of the stories,
the demarcation between myth and fact, between past and present, become
merged. For many commentators (e.g. Hollinshead, 1999; Jamal &
Hollinshead, 2001), Disney exemplifies many of these trends, but they can
be found in many other places. For example, do visitors to Alnwick Castle
in Northumbria visit it as the historic home of the Percy Family, or for its
role as Hogwarts School in the film of the popular fantasy novels, Harry
Potter?
Tourism is often seen as the epitome of the forms of consumer behaviour
that are associated with a post-modern world of individualism, fantasy,
time-space compression, de-differentiation, commodification and the
playing out of fragmented power constructs. Whether any reader fully
subscribes to the notion that a significantly different way of seeing the
world is required to better analyse contemporary society, what cannot be
denied is that the social forms created by new technologies pose challenges
that are different in quality if not in type from those faced by past generations. Information flows faster through satellites and the Internet, and a
sense of a global cosmopolitanism if not of the global village intrudes on
our thinking and frames of references (Urry, 2000). As such, these social
changes create an ambience within which we frame our reactions to the
demographic and other changes noted above, just as those changes
contribute to the environment within which we live.
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Chapter 4
The Psychological Determinants of

Demand
Brief mention has been made of the fact that tourism as a product represents either an escape from daily reality, or a means of self-fulfilment.
Whilst tourism can offer more than this, it does highlight one particular characteristic of the product that differentiates it from many other purchases.
Essentially tourism is not a purchase of the physical, but a means by which
the holidaymaker acquires experiences and fulfils dreams. It possesses the
very essence of intangibility, for at the end of the holiday the purchaser has
little in the way of physical possessions. And those that do exist, the souvenirs and the photographs, have as their main purpose the evocation of
memory. There are further odd aspects that distinguish the holiday from
other purchases. There is a substantial outlay without, in many cases, a
previous sight of the destination. Even if the tourist has previously visited
that destination, there is no guarantee that the second experience will replicate the first. The holiday is looked forward to it is seen as the culmination
of a years work. People make purchases for the holiday. New swimsuits
and beachwear are purchased. Indeed Ryan and Robertson (1997) found
that of their sample, 25% went so far as to include condoms within their
holiday baggage. Anticipation becomes part of the product. After the
holiday, it becomes part of experience that can be evoked to help the tourist
through the dark days of winter, and past memories are refreshed by the
anticipation of new holiday experiences. The holiday is often not a spontaneous decision. It is perhaps a joint decision between family and friends.
Part of the pleasure is the comparison of brochures and/or of places. It can
be seen that the holiday experience is not simply an experience of place; it
also has a temporal dimension that commences before the vacation and
may persist afterwards to the end of a persons life.
This chapter will not develop a model of tourist demand. Such models
tend to be located within specific domains of psychological theory, and as
might be imagined there are a number of these. Indeed, within the literature
of consumer marketing there exists a number of models, ranging from
simple attention attraction, intention creation, decision making and action
(AIDA) models to more sophisticated models of heuristic learning. Equally,
within the tourism and recreation literature, there is a recognition that the
nature of the tourism experience contains elements specific to itself. For
73
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example, within the service situation it is recognised that the tourist

possesses significant opportunities to be proactive and manipulate the
environment owing to the duration of stay and the destination learning that
takes place variables not always present in other services marketing situations (for an example of such a discussion see Ryan, 1999a). Ryan (2002a)
has also noted that much of the psychological literature pertaining to
tourism is based on a tradition of humanistic psychology. This is partly
because, unlike other psychiatric concerns, it is a study of normal people,
not a study of those who are psychologically dysfunctional. Given the
emphasis that humanistic psychology lays on self esteem, self respect and
self actualisation, and the potential that holidaying provides for people to
reflect, it is not surprising that many commentators have drawn on the
work of psychologists like Maslow and Rogers as a foundation for their
models (e.g. Pearce, 1982a, 1982b, 1988). Given the complexities of
modeling that exist, this chapter will primarily undertake a task of identifying variables that writers believe to be important in determining reasons
for holiday taking.
Motivation for Holidaying

Certainly it can be argued that holidaying meets a series of deep psychological needs. Cohen (1974), Crompton (1979), and Mathieson and Wall
(1982) identify a number of motivations.
The escape motivation
This has already been described in some detail, and is essentially a wish
to get away from a perceived mundane environment.
Relaxation
Partly related to the escape motivation, this is a wish for recuperation.
Play
This is a wish to indulge in activities associated with childhood. Play on
holiday is culturally sanctioned. Adults indulge in games not otherwise
permitted (except perhaps on TV gameshows!). There is a regression into
the carefree state of childhood.
Strengthening family bonds
In the common situation where both partners are working full time, the
holiday represents a time when they can renew their relationship.
However, there is a reverse side to this. Relate, the British Marriage Advisory Council, has reported that holidays are an occasion when both parties
realise that they have grown apart. Daily life has been led with each doing
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The Psychological Determinants of Demand
75
their own thing, and the enforced sharing of each others company for 24
hours a day puts too great a strain on the marriage. More happily, holidays
can provide a time when fathers in particular can spend time with their
young children, and so strengthen paternal bonding (Ryan, 2003).
Prestige
Status and social enhancement amongst ones peers can be temporarily
gained on the basis of the destination chosen for the holiday. Certain destinations are fashionable, whilst others are not. The selection of a fashionable,
or unusual (and hence perceived as exotic) destination will serve to confirm
an impression about the holidaymaker. Holiday destination choice becomes
yet another statement about lifestyle, a confirmation of self-identity and
role amongst ones peers. It is also not simply a question about destination,
but also about the form of accommodation and activity. To stay at a hotel on
the Costa del Sol says one thing about you, whilst to stay in your own villa
makes a different kind of statement.
The desire for status enhancement need not necessarily be confined to
ones peers back home. It can also be met by creating a role within a given
group of holidaymakers, or by the group creating a group identity whereby
they perceive themselves as being superior to other groups of tourists, or
the members of the host society.
Social interaction
The holiday represents an important social forum for individuals where
the normal conventions can be disregarded. For a fortnight group members
meet to share a common experience, and without past knowledge of each
others backgrounds. The dynamics of such groups can be a powerful
determinant of the success or failure of the holiday. Holiday companies
who specialise in holidays based on outdoor activity centres or on hobby or
leisure interests such as painting or sailing, recognise that one of the major
determinants of the success of their holidays is that it creates a group of likeminded people with a common interest all sharing the same experience.
Other holidays are designed for single people so that they can become part
of a group and not feel isolated on the traditional family-orientated
package holiday.
Sexual opportunity
One aspect of social interaction is the opportunity for sexual relationships. This can be overt or implied, physical or romantic. One of the traditional appeals of the trans-Atlantic ships of the 1930s was the possibility of a
romance. The popular characterisation of the 1830 holiday as sometimes
displayed by the tabloid press is that it represents an opportunity for bonking, or whatever is the current pseudonym. However, in certain cases the
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rationale of the holiday is simply an opportunity for sexual activity, as is

demonstrated in the sex tourism of the Far East in Thailand or the
Philippines. To some extent there is both in this case and in the opportunity
of play a common theme in that the holiday offers an opportunity to be free
from the normal constraints of home. The holiday may be a period of a
loosening of a sense of responsibility. The clerical workers on the 1830 holidays who drink too much, eat too much, create too much noise in rowdy
games and disco all night long, do actually return home to their 9-to-5 jobs
and their respectability. Behaviour that at home might threaten a loss of job,
on holiday, far from home, becomes, if not excusable, tolerated to a degree.
Indeed, it is in part anticipated by hosts, and perhaps even encouraged by
representatives of the holiday companies as part of ensuring that clients
have a good time. An example of such holidays are those provided by
Superclubs Hedonism II and Hedonism III in Jamaica where the website
states:
Not for the faint of heart, Hedonism II exists for one sole purpose: Pure,
unadulterated self-indulgence for the mind, body, spirit and soul.
Anything goes (almost). Shocking, stimulating, always sexy, never
stuffy Hedonism II has become legendary among pleasure-seekers
worldwide. With its relaxed attitude and endless activities the good
times just keep going. (Website for Hedonism clubs)
Educational opportunity
At the heart of tourism is the concept of travel; a chance to see new and
strange sights, to learn about the other places of the world, and to talk to
others with different cultures and viewpoints. No matter that the cynical
may agree with Ogden Nash that Travel does not broaden the mind, only
the bottom or that in the process of creating the global village the CocaCola sign is found everywhere or that one hotel complex looks like another,
there still remains an opportunity to discover differences. Equally there is a
chance to see the sites of history, or the original great works of art instead of
the reproduction. It would certainly seem from the evidence that an intellectual or cultural exchange is desired by some for at least a part if not the
whole of their holiday (see Craik, 2001 for an introductory description of
cultural tourism).
Self fulfilment
The voyage of discovery may not be simply a discovery of new places
and people, but also the opportunity or catalyst for self-discovery. In the
medieval world it may have been called the pilgrimage to the holy places. A
secular age permits individuals to create their own holy places, which may
be places of natural beauty, or areas where they challenge their own
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sporting skills or bodies. The search for self-discovery may be directed and
purposeful as the tourist specifically seeks a type of holiday experience, or
it might come unsuspecting as a thief in the night. It is not unknown for
people to return from holiday with either a changed life or a changed
perspective. It might be the knowledge, as indicated above, that the
marriage is now sterile, or indeed reborn. It might be that some respond to
the siren call of summer sun and return to give up their jobs and become
sailing instructors under Mediterranean skies. Others may return to their
previous existence, but with some experience that gives an inner strength.
For such people the full sense of the word, recreation, is indeed a reality. If
this is read as being poetic licence, then the promoters of holidays based on
events such as outdoor activities, sailing or hiking can generally cite examples of such conversions. This theme is certainly found in contemporary
literature and strikes a chord with readers, as can be seen by the success of
Willy Russells Shirley Valentine and David Lodges Paradise News. Both
novels are about processes of self-discovery, romance and sex while on
holiday.
Wish fulfilment
For some, the holiday is the answer to a dream a dream that has
perhaps sustained a long process of saving. The naturalist may feel a thrill
as he or she visits the Galapagos Islands and has prepared by reading about
Charles Darwins visit aboard the Beagle. Increasingly the experience may
be the translation of a pretence into a reality. How else can one explain the
popularity of theme parks, except that they are an escape into a fantasy? It
can be objected that the fantasy is commodified, encapsulated into carefully
engineered moments of time dictated, in part, by the need to ensure crowd
control whereby queues are minimised, but that does not mean that there is
no sense of enjoyment. The film, WestWorld, in which holidaymakers travelled into a themed existence where robots permitted them to act out their
fantasies, was but an extension of the common experience of the theme park
carried through to a logical conclusion. Indeed in the Western villages of
theme parks such as the American Adventure or Warner Brothers Movie
World it is possible to have your photograph taken in cowboy garb and
placed on a wanted notice. Some holiday on dude ranches in locations
across Montana and other parts of North America, while Japan has a
thriving Western Riding Association. Already one can journey on the
Shuttle Missions by attending the IMAX cinema, or use nature as the
themed experience by hunting with historical weapons in North American
parks, or replicate the pioneer experience by travelling by wagon train or
raft. History provides us with many themes that permit a realisation of the
dream of time travel as visitors mix with the costumed inhabitants of Colonial Williamsburg or the Beamish Museum. Some of the fantasies are
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turning into reality. The worlds first space tourist, Dennis Tito, paid $US20
million in 2001 to journey into Earth orbit, and a Space Tourism Promotion
Act was introduced into the House of Representatives in July 2001. A
cursory search for space tourism on the Internet revealed, in April 2002,
more than 610,000 references.
Shopping
Although this may seem a prosaic reason for holidaying, shopping is not
only one of the most common tourist activities, but it can also, at least under
certain circumstances, be a motivating factor for travel away from home,
and indeed for international travel. An example is provided by the aftermath of the signing of the free-trade agreement between Canada and the
USA, combined with, in 1987, the growing strength of the Canadian dollar.
The firm of accountants, Ernst and Young, recorded in 1988 a 31% increase
in automobile traffic over the year at 31 CanadaUS border points, and at
Pigeon River alone an increase of $CN19 million of goods were brought
into Canada in the year ending July 1988. The number of custom filings for
imported goods rose by 133% in the same period for Canadians buying
goods in the USA and bringing them back home. The same phenomena can
be observed at many other border communities, for example, between Eire
and Northern Ireland, or between Switzerland and Italy. As all these trips
are cross-border trips, they may be counted in the official statistics as tourist
trips.
Within some cultures, shopping is very important. Hobson and
Christensen (2001) provide a full description of, within Japanese culture,
the giving of senbetsu to the traveller upon departure from Japan, and the
reciprocal giving of omiyage. Omiyage has two components: first it must be a
culturally acceptable symbol of the place visited, and second it must equate
to about half the value of the senbetsu. While not providing any empirical
evidence, the authors argue that this explains the very high proportion of
total Japanese tourist spending that is accounted for by shopping. It has
also been maintained that, within other cultures, the cultural symbolism of
the souvenir is a factor that influences purchase. But Kim and Littrell (2001),
perhaps not surprisingly, found that the one consistently important variable in determining choice of souvenir shopping for the shoppers own use
was the aesthetic qualities of the item being considered. It should also be
noted that shopping can be used for the generation of profit through the
changing of tours whereby the tour operator, guide or driver obtains a
kick-back or commission from sales resulting from tourist spending. Ko
(1999) describes how Korean Inbound Operators in Australia would
change schedules, and that prices in Korean tourist shopping centres in
Sydney could be 20% more expensive than in other outlets. Therefore,
while shopping may at first sight appear to be a not-overly-important
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motive when compared with the others, and indeed may perhaps be more
properly described as a subset of the above motives, its practical implications are important.
These, then, are some of the psychological motivations that may initiate
the type of holiday chosen. Whatever type of holiday is selected may in fact
be a statement about a persons self-identity; or simply a statement about a
set of priorities felt at the time of decision taking. However, in the diversity
of both choice and needs, it would be dangerous to read too much into the
actual choice, for many people will undertake more than one type of
holiday over time, perhaps delaying the meeting of one particular need in
order to meet another.
Types of Tourist
Built on the concept that different motivations differentiate between
categories of tourists, a number of profiles of tourist types have been
created. One of the earliest, and still much quoted, was that of Cohen in
1972. Cohen described four types of tourist based on the degree of
institutionalisation of the tourist and the nature of the impact on the host
community. Briefly stated his four categories were:
Organised mass tourists
These are the least adventurous tourists. On buying their package
holiday, they remain encapsulated in an environmental bubble, divorced
from the host community as they remain primarily in the hotel complex.
They adhere to an itinerary fixed by the tour operators, and even their trips
out of the complex are organised tours. They make few decisions about
their holiday.
The individual mass tourist
These are similar to the organised mass tourists in that they utilise the
facilities made available by the tour operator, but they have some control
over their own itinerary. They may use the hotel as a base and hire a car for
their own trips. However, many will tend to visit the same places as the
mass organised tourist in that they will visit the sights.
The explorer
The explorer arranges his or her own trip alone, and attempts to get off
the beaten track. Yet such tourists will still have recourse to comfortable
tourist accommodation. However, much of their travel will be associated
with a motivation to associate with the local people, and they will often
speak the language of the host community. Nonetheless, the explorer
retains many of the basic routines of his or own lifestyle.
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The drifter
The drifter will shun contact with the tourist and tourist establishments,
and identify with the host community. Drifters will live with the locals and
adopt many of the practices of that community. Income is generated by
working within the community, but often through low-skilled work, which
creates a tendency to mix with the lower socio-economic groups.
One problem with this categorisation is that, while it creates easilyrecognised pictures, it may not reflect the complexities of tourist behaviour.
The categories are observations of behaviour without reference to the
reasons that cause that behaviour to be adopted. Many behaviour patterns
may be the result of constraints rather than specific preferences, as the
tourist indulges in a series of exercises to optimise the return on limited
time. Equally, as previously observed, with several sectors of our society
taking more than one holiday each year, holidaymakers may adopt
different styles of holidays. In short there is no consistency of behaviour.
Pearce (1982b) reviews many of the categories of tourists as described by
Chadwick (1981), Cohen (1974), and V.L Smith (1977b). Indeed he advances
his own categorisation based on factor analysis in which he distinguishes
between 15 types based on 5 role-related behaviour patterns. Witt and
Wright (1990) argue that multi-motivational models are necessary to
understand tourism motivation.
Allocentric vs. psychocentric
One way in which these tourist classifications have a value is to relate
them to the destinations that any given tourist type will prefer. Plog (1977)
was one of the first to do this. Essentially Plog argued that there was a
continuum between types of tourists from the allocentric to the psychocentric tourist. The allocentric tourists are akin to Cohens explorers in that
they seek new destinations, and are prepared to take risks in searching for
new cultures and places. On the other hand psychocentric tourists seek the
familiar, and are happier in an environment where there are many likeminded tourists. They are not risk takers and adhere to the proven product,
being conservative in choice. Plog hence identified that these types of
tourists would be drawn to a particular destination. This is illustrated in
Figure 4.1, which indicates the destinations as originally identified by Plog.
It thus represents an American perspective of tourist destinations as it
existed more than thirty years ago.
As will be discussed with regard to the social impact of tourism, this has
some important implications in terms of the types of tourists that destinations attract. An additional implication is that there is a time element associated with links between tourist type and destination. Destinations are
originally discovered by allocentrics, but subsequently they seek other
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Number of tourists
destinations as they are followed by the near-allocentrics, and so on

through the tourist types until a destination becomes a psychocentric destination. For example Palma de Mallorca is now a psychocentric destination
and is in danger of being perceived as a downmarket destination, whereas
in the 1950s it could have been typified as a near-allocentric or midcentric
destination as far as British tourists were concerned. This process has been
identified as the shifting periphery of tourism, and is closely related to
Butlers lifecycle theory, which is discussed in Chapters 6 and 9.
The classifications advanced by Cohen and Plog have both been debated
in the literature over the intervening years. For example in the early 1990s
Smith (1990) criticised Plogs model arguing that, in applying questions
designed to elicit responses on the allocentric psychocentric continuum,
no such categories emerged. For his part Plog responded that the questions
being used were invalid, and in 2002 he criticised many psychographic
descriptions as having no conceptual foundation, and suggested a concept
of venturers and dependables. However, Plog does not, in that article,
propose a psychological basis for this division of buyers, and equally
continues to contend that psychographics has received little attention
either in the world of business or among academic researchers (Plog,
2002: 249). To the mind of this author this appears to be an untenable position, given the great frequency of articles based on market segmentations
that appear in the journals. Indeed a search of CABIs leisuretourism.com
database quickly identified 140 such articles, without any sophistication
being used in the search terms. Segmentations based on motive are far from
infrequent in the tourism literature.
Cohens categorisation has also been adopted by some and modified by
others. For example, within the arena of ecotourism, drifters and explorers
Psychocentric
Coney
Island
Midcentric
Near
psychocentric
Miami
Beach
Europe
Hawaii
Near
allocentric
Allocentric
South
Mexico Orient Pacific
Africa
Destinations
Figure 4.1 Plogs categorisation of tourist types and destinations

Source: Plog (1977)
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82
have been identified with environmentally-aware tourists who wish at

least to maintain if not to enhance the natural environment. But as a destination becomes better known it begins to attract a wider range of tourists
and thus independent mass tourists arrive at the site. Finally, mass organised tourism occurs (e.g. Richins, 1996). A similar model is proposed by
Higham (1998), who adapted the concept suggested by Duffus and Dearden
(1990) of destinations initially being attractive to a small, specific group of
visitors based on a highly-focused area of interest, but over time developing to become attractive to a more general audience. Figure 4.2 illustrates
Highams argument with reference to the albatross colony at Taiaroa Head
in New Zealand.
According to Higham, at first a destination like that of Taiaroa Head
attracts only those specifically interested in the nature of the attraction.
Therefore, as shown in Figure 4.2, the numbers of tourists are comparatively few and are oriented toward the expert (E) in this particular
instance, the specialist ornithologist. Over time, though, the destination
begins to attract an equal number of experts and those having more of a
general or novices (N) level of knowledge, and of course the total numbers
of visitors grow. Subsequently, the number of novices (N) is greater than the
number of expert visitors. For each of these stages, Higham (1998) and
Duffus and Dearden (1990) argue that there are differing levels of accept-
Number of tourists
Time
Figure 4.2 The changing pattern of tourist demand
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83
able change in the design of the destination. The level of acceptable change
refers to impacts on natural environments that result from recreational or
touristic activities, and the concept is more fully explained in Chapter 8.
However, as each succeeding visitation stage is reached, it is accompanied
by increasing levels of visitor management. Each of these management
intrusions possesses greater implications for environmental change as
management seeks to preserve the original focus of the visit. For example,
at Taiaroa, increasing numbers of visitors negatively impacted on albatross
behaviour through a lack of controls. So there is now a visitor centre with
access to viewing areas. While this has been established to protect the
nesting areas, the physical existence of the buildings has also created a
change to which many might originally have been opposed on the grounds
that it is an intrusion on a natural landscape. Second, as it is promoted, the
centre in itself attracts more visitors with, as Higham (1998) notes, some
evidence that consequent noise from the centre negatively impacts on the
behaviour of albatross chicks. In short, some evidence exists that the albatross is now selecting suboptimal nesting sites further away from the
centre. Briefly, what this case study illustrates is that there is relationship
between motive and site design, and this relationship will be further
explored in Chapter 8.
It can be observed that the structure of the tourism industry has changed
significantly since the 1970s when Cohen was first developing his model.
First, Cohen seems at least in part, to have derived his model from research
undertaken among, for example, backpackers in locations such as Phuket;
and the late 1960s was also a time when hippie trails were being established to places such as Nepal. The drifter classification was therefore
based in part on a specific description of a tourism that arguably has
changed. While, no doubt there are still drifters in the Cohen mode, it can
be argued that backpacker tourism itself has definitely changed and has
split into various subgroups (Loker-Murphy, 1996). Thus, arguably many
backpackers follow a well-defined trail characterised by infrastructures
and support services for backpackers; this means, in effect, that they do
little but meet other backpackers. Echoes of history might be heard! Hibbert
(1987: 235) notes John Moore writing in 1792 that young men on the Grand
Tour ... go to France and Italy and there converse with none but English
people, and merely to say that you have been in these countries is certainly
absurd. The same criticism is heard of backpackers, and there is some truth
in the accusation that those constrained by time and using services like Kiwi
Experience do little but meet others of the same ilk. Equally, at the other end
of Cohens scale, the nature of mass tourism has changed. There are few
today who either directly, or through the Internet, do not use the services of
the organised tourism industry to book travel and accommodation, and
indeed create their own packages. Therefore, while the destinations being
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84
visited may be those of the package-holiday industry, people will hire cars
and make their own arrangements. There has, arguably, been a blurring of
the mass and the individually-organised package holiday, while even
today the adventure product has become commercialised, commodified
and packaged. Climbers book years ahead to climb Everest with professional
guides, office clerks become day-long white-water rafters adventure and
exploration abounds. And for those who still seek adventure by, for
example, crossing Antarctica by foot, there may still be the comfort of GPS,
television back-up crews and radio communications with base. In short, as
shown in Chapter 1 and as is further examined in Chapter 5, the nature of
tourism and the experiences it bestows have changed considerably over
time. Nonetheless, the Cohen model still evokes recognition and provides
the basis from which to develop more complex structures and understandings of the tourist experience.
Motivations
In many cases these descriptions of tourists are based on observed
behavioural patterns, and motives are subsequently attributed to them. It
might also be that in many cases the lists of motivations have perhaps two
essential drivers. These may be described crudely as a push motivation,
that is a wish to get away from a place, and a pull motivation, a desire to
see some other area. Iso-Ahola (1982) clarified this latter motivation as a
desire to obtain psychological (intrinsic) rewards through travel in a
contrasting world. The pull-push factors can also be held to operate on
humans in two dimensions, man as the social animal seeking interpersonal
relationships, and man as the solitary person seeking either refuge from
others or solitude. Accordingly a matrix of four segments is suggested by
Iso-Ahola (Figure 4.3), in which it becomes possible to locate the series of
different motivations that other writers have identified.
Figure 4.3 represents Iso-Aholas classifications wherein the push
factor is represented by the desire to leave behind the home environment,
and the pull variable is represented by the search for intrinsic reward.
Each motive can itself be divided into two: first, where the motives and
rewards gained are primarily personal, and second, where they have value
by being related to other people. Thus, the desire to leave home may be a
personal wish for a change of environment, but is directed towards another
person in terms of strengthening personal relationships and thus the pull
factor is interpersonal. To provide a second example, someone may wish to
go to an exotic location to achieve a sense of prestige so the desire to leave
home is to create the opportunity to achieve the personal goal of prestige
associated with the exotic pull of a place. The strength of the model is that it
recognises that pull and push possess an interactive dynamic. They
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85
simultaneously exist as opposites and as complementary forces; as being

both isolated and as conjoint. It is possible to separately identify both
motives, but the full meaning is derived only from the synthesis of the two.
On the other hand the model says little about the reasons for such motives;
they are almost taken as being given and nor is there any relationship
postulated as to behaviour, satisfaction and choice of place. The processes
of choice are not really considered.
While it can be argued that the primary motives for tourism are well
understood, as indicated in the above list, what is less well understood is
the timing of purchase decisions, and the constraints that exist on any
purchase of a holiday. Dellaert, Ettema and Lindh (1998: 314) present
evidence that travel-choice decisions take into account restrictions because
of time and money budgets and coupling constraints caused by work,
family and friendship relationships. Their study clearly showed that life
stage characterised by the presence of young children certainly imposed
restraints on choice of travel dates and travel duration because of schooling
needs. Equally, income was a differentiator in terms of the numbers of trips
being made, although both high-income and low-income groups made
similar choices as to destinations visited. In short, the economic and social
factors discussed in the earlier chapters influence the actual psychology of
decision taking.
The classification of tourist types and motives listed above possesses
some advantages, but the evidence increasingly shows that tourists are not
consistent in their wants, and hence in the type of holiday selected. Gyte
(1988) found in his survey of tourists in Majorca that some perceived their
package holiday as a second holiday not only in terms of numbers of
holidays taken, but also in type. In Plogs terminology, the holidaymaker
may engage in allocentric behaviour at one time, and in psychocentric
behaviour at another. Given increased incomes and travel opportunities,
people can increasingly meet a series of needs. Iso-Aholas model recogSeek intrinsic reward
Personal
Interpersonal
Ego-enhancement
Personal
Desire to leave
behind home
environment
Escape from
responsibility
Strengthen kinship
Aesthetics
Interpersonal
Status enhancement
Prestige
Figure 4.3 Motivations of holidaymakers
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Meet new people in

new places
Play

86
nises the dialectical process that exists between a wish for escape and the
desire for intrinsic reward. It is thus becomes possible that, not only over
different holidays but indeed within the same holiday period, people will
switch from one cell to another within the suggested matrix (Figure 4.3).
This is a recognition that, although a holiday may satisfy a prime need, a
good holiday also has the ability to satisfy a series of secondary needs.
These secondary needs may become more pressing when the primary need
is satisfied. For example, if the primary need is for relaxation, a few days of
idleness might well meet that requirement, and the holidaymaker will then
indulge in other forms of behaviour, such as seeking out new places and
new activities, thereby becoming far more proactive.
This suggests that holiday taking is goal driven, and that the goals are
attained through the adoption of specific forms of behaviour. It also implies
that holidaymakers are just that, holidaymakers and not simply holiday
takers. Given this proactive interpretation of tourism, it becomes possible to
perceive a series of potentially alternative tourism roles. Yiannakos and
Gibson (1992) identified three main motivational dimensions that underlie
tourist roles. These were a desire for more or less structured itineraries or
activities, a wish for either a stimulating or a tranquil environment, and
finally whether the tourists wished to visit a familiar or an unfamiliar
environment. Based on these dimensions Yiannakos and Gibson were able to
identify fourteen different tourist roles: sun lovers, action seekers, anthropologists, archaeologists, organised mass tourists, thrill seekers, explorers, jetsetters, seekers, independent mass tourists, high class tourists,
drifters, escapists and sports lovers. For example, action seekers would
often seek a structured adventure tourism product in a stimulating environment in unfamiliar surroundings. With reference to life stage, the same
authors subsequently examined whether these roles were associated with
any specific demographics (Gibson and Yiannakos, 2002). They concluded:
... gender and life-stage linked psychological needs (push factors)
drive the selection and enactment of tourist roles ... Further (the
study) provides statistical support for the contention that tourist roles
serve as vehicles through which vacationers may satisfy or enhance
deficit or growth needs. (Gibson & Yiannakos, 2002: 377378)
Ryan and Huyton (2002), although writing with specific reference to
tourism based around the culture of indigenous peoples, raise another
point. They argue that the identification of a tourist as a cultural tourist
actually says little about the depth of that interest, and suggest that within
each classification of tourist type there may be a continuum from serious
leisure to superficial interest. One interpretation of their research findings
would be at least three types of cultural tourist in the context of Australian
Aboriginal tourism. First, the serious, who would stay overnight in an
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Aboriginal community (in their study, about 3% of visitors). Second, those

who have an interest of varying levels, including those for whom an
interest in Aboriginal culture is located in a context of an understanding of
the Outback. Finally there are those with just a simple wish to obtain a
little understanding, albeit through a medium of edutainment. However,
from the viewpoint of official statistics, since all are recorded as having
attended an Aboriginal event, there is a danger that all would be classified
as cultural tourists.Whilst, intellectually, the idea of links between motivation, holiday types and destinations is attractive, in practice the linkage
may be subtle, exposed as it is to a lack of consistency of behaviour as the
tourist changes holiday types from one holiday to another. Additionally,
for many, family holidays may in fact be compromise decisions that
attempt to reflect the differing interests of family members. One must also
again refer to the nature of the holiday decision. As previously stated, it is
the purchase of, in most instances, a previously-unseen intangible, and it
might be that false images created by the marketing departments of tour
operators actually lead the holidaymaker to make a wrong decision.
Crompton (1979) makes this warning statement:
... to expect motivation to account for a large variance in tourist behaviour is probably asking too much since there may be other inter-related
forces operating. (Crompton, 1979: 424)
These other forces have been identified as being economic and social as
well as psychological. In isolation each seems unable to forecast tourist
behaviour; together the variables are perhaps too many to permit an easy
explanation of complex behaviour patterns. However, together they point
not simply to a growth of demand for tourism, but to a realisation that such
growth cannot simply be taken for granted. The very increases in income
that made tourism possible now generate opportunities for an improved
quality of life within the home environment that undermines the escape
motivation. Concern with quality of life may make people wonder if travel
is necessary. The tourist may travel, but each takes his or herself. Escape
from daily routine is possible, escape from self is not. If there is a relationship between income, recreational opportunity and concern about quality
of life with the attributes of self-actualisation as described by Abraham
Maslow, then the question can be asked, does self-actualised man require
travel? Certainly there have been occasions when, at least in the very short
run, people have chosen not to travel. One such example was after the suicide
attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, by members of AlQaeda; for several months after, American citizens delayed or cancelled
travel plans both domestically and internationally. Ironically, however, such
an example illustrates the very opposite end of the Maslow hierarchy of
needs, when fears for safety overcome other needs that motivate travel.
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Urry (1990) has provided an alternative thesis that the changes in our
society have created the cosmopolitan rather than perhaps the global
citizen. Such a citizen, it might be argued, collects experiences, and is sufficiently sophisticated to slip into various roles and indeed is more than
capable of role-playing. This ludic tourist can also effect detachment, can
capably split him or herself from place and action even while performing
the ritual associated with place. It is possible for the sophisticated tourist to
wryly smile at his or herself as while pounding the table at the bequest of
some jester at the medieval banquet. This they say, is fake: I know it to be
authentically fake, and I can enjoy it for what it is. The motives for travel
thus become quite complex. In part people travel because that is what
people do on their holidays. It is the norm, it is what is expected. Yet the
motives outlined earlier also have their role to play travel is still prompted
by curiousity, by relaxation needs and by purposes of social interaction. But
the tourist is able to play out different roles at the destination, can adjust
and adapt, change motives, and might be said to be a chameleon traveller,
able to absorb not only that which is sought, but that which is provided. In
short, while on the one hand general economic, social and psychological
themes may be identified and analysed as potential determinants of
demand for tourism in general, and indeed for specific categories of
tourism product, the individuals choice and experience has still yet to be
explained. It is possible to separate, at least theoretically, the context within
which holidays are demanded, and the specifics that pertain to any individual his or her choice of place. In short, questions arise as to what is the
nature of the tourist experience that is so strong as to induce people, time
after time, to engage upon travel and leave behind the comforts of home.
It has been argued that the tourist is a collector of experiences who
provides meaning to the spaces through which he or she passes (Wearing &
Wearing, 1996; Ryan, 2001a). If the experiences are gained through transitional space and ephemeral periods, to what extent can it be said that the
tourist is satisfied? This seems to imply a whole range of experiences,
ranging from the shallow to the profound, and it can be argued that tourism
does provide all of these. That tourists are satisfied is shown directly by
studies of tourist evaluations of places and indirectly by the high level of
repeat behaviours shown by tourists. For many, holidaying is more than
simply an annual event. Within the services marketing literature, the
debate over satisfaction in the 1980s gave rise to models of service quality as
offering measurable determinants of satisfaction. The model of service
quality that for much of the last two to three decades has dominated the
literature has been the ServQual model suggested by Parasuraman,
Zeithaml and Berry (1985, 1991).
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The ExpectationEvaluation, ConfirmationDisconfirmation

Paradigm
The conceptualisation of service quality initially suggested by
Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1991) is based on a simple notion,
namely that service quality can be measured by the gap that exists between
scales that measure client expectation and evaluation of a transaction (or, in
this case, a holiday). Thus if on a seven-point Likert type scale (where 7 is
the highest score) a holidaymaker has an expectation of 6, and evaluates the
experience as being 6, then it might be said that as expectation is met,
service quality is high. The literature relating to ServQual quickly raised a
series of questions, among which were:
(1) If expectation (E) is 1, and evaluation or satisfaction with the holiday
(S) is also 1, (i.e. E = S = 1), in what way can a gap of zero measure
service quality? What if E = S = 5? In short, was the value of the gap a
constant in meaning, or did it differ depending on the part of the scale
from which the gap emerged?
(2) If expectation is, say 5, and evaluation equates to 7, how does one interpret this in terms of a measure of service quality if confirmation of
service quality is said to exist when expectations are met? Is this some
form of super satisfaction?
(3) How are expectations formed? It might be said that expectations can
be formed with reference to past experience, what are thought to be
acceptable levels of service, or against some model of the ideal. If this is
the case, is there commonality in any of these measures of expectations, or do these three sets of expectations relate to different concepts?
(4) It was quickly found that the gap was primarily determined by the
level of evaluation (satisfaction) in that this measure showed greater
degrees of variance. What role, therefore, did the expectation scale
play? Was it not simply possible to measure service quality by a
measure of satisfaction alone?
Given these and other criticisms (which are, in the context of tourism,
reviewed by Ryan, 1999a), the actual measures of satisfaction being
adopted by researchers might be said to fall into one of a number of classifications. These include:
(1) The atheoretical, ad hoc scales. Basically these can be described as scales
based on no psychological theory; they are simply assessments of a list
of attributes possessed by a location or attraction.
(2) Importanceevaluation modeling, where it is argued that two components of satisfaction might exist. First there is an evaluation of attributes, but this is thought to be insufficient without reference to an
assessment of what is important to a visitor. There is a difference
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between a high rating of satisfaction on an attribute of lesser importance and the same rating on an item of higher importance. It might be
said that there exist two measures of satisfaction the absolute
measure of the evaluation (or satisfaction) scale alone, and the relative
measure, when the gap between importance and evaluation is
measured. However, as yet this approach is, from the perspective of
satisfaction measurement, poorly conceptualised, and it is open to
some of the same criticisms made of the ServQual scale above. Here,
though, the theory is derived from attitude measurement (e.g.
Fishbein, 1967) and the belief that attitude comprises three components: the cognitive, the affective (or emotional) and the conative (the
predisposition to action).
(3) Non-positivistic approaches, where it is argued that satisfaction is a
shifting entity dependent on the presence or absence of many variables, and is not consistent. It can be found only through qualitative
research methods where the actual words and language of the participants are the raw data. Interpretation is thus dependent not only on
the language use of the respondent, but also on the stance and role
adopted by the researcher. These issues of researcherrespondent
relationships are part of the considerations voiced by Denzin and
Lincoln (1994).
(4) Motivational approaches, where satisfaction is explored on the
premise that it is based on the presence of varying needs. These needs
include self esteem, a need for society, a desire for knowledge, a wish
for prestige and the desire to relax. From a psychological perspective
they are, within the tourism literature, derived primarily from
humanistic psychology, with which the name of Maslow is closely
associated. Thus, as explored in the next chapter, theories of tourist
action have been based on Maslows hierarchy of needs (see Pearce,
1988 and Ryan, 1998a, for an analysis of the tourist career ladder).
However, other schools of motivational importance exist, and Ross
(1994) offers a review of these theories within the context of tourism.
These include McClellands need to achieve, and Skinners theory of
operant conditioning.
Finally, before completing this section, it needs to be stated in fairness to
the ServQual model that it goes beyond a simple consumer gap between
expectation and evaluation. The full model examines in more detail four
other relationships that pay attention to management expectations and
evaluations also. This full model has been applied much more fully within
research related to the hospitality industry than tourism, and of some
interest have been recent findings that, perhaps because of the globalisation
of the hotel industry, the model possesses value for management even in
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non-Anglo-Saxon based cultures. For example, in preliminary research,

Tsai, Ryan and Lockyer (2002) argue that, for five-star business and resort
hotels based in Taiwan, there was little evidence that Chinese cultural
values of kuan-hsi and mien-tsu intruded on guest, staff and management
evaluations of service quality. Kuan-hsi is regarded as a set of connections
that secure business and personal interests; mien-tsu is loosely translated as
a sense of importance or, colloquially, face. Essentially Tsai et al. concluded
that the derivation of satisfaction came from the service expected from a
multinational hotel chain mode of operation, and thus the ServQual dimensions were operational. These dimensions relate to tangible signs of service,
reliability, responsiveness, empathy with customers and reassurance; but
respondents did not utilise traditional Chinese concepts when relating to
service.
On the other hand, Seaton (2000) raises another issue about the nature of
tourism that is not well catered for in the models discussed, and that is what
might be termed emotional intensity. In a description of different groups
of tourists touring the battlefield sites of Flanders, Seaton describes the
sense of ownership felt by an expert group of hobbyists. Their research led
them to identify with individual fallen and sites, and they became, in their
eyes, part of the drama. They talked of the battlefields in affectionate,
proprietorial terms, as if it was a kind of homeland (Seaton, 2000: 70).
Summary
The demand for tourism is determined by a number of economic,
psychological and social factors. These include variables such as income,
taxation, interest rates, attitudes to saving, available time, prices of holidays, and other factors. In consequence, the potential holidaymaker has a
discretionary income that permits holidaying behaviour, but the type of
holiday to be taken is decided not in isolation, but within a set of behaviour
patterns that reflect allotted values to competing demands on leisure time.
People may wish to use holidays as a means of escape, or of fulfilment, but
in many cases holidays are prompted by more than one motive, whilst
being subjected to income constraints and the demands of other family
members. Simple unicausal theories are inadequate to explain holidaytaking behaviour, and complex models incorporating economic, psychological and sociological factors would be required to develop more meaningful explanations.
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Chapter 5
The Tourist Experience

Introduction
Chapter 4 finished with an introductory discussion of service quality
and its relationship to satisfaction with the tourist experience. It is a
commonplace that the holiday requires several components to work effectively before a satisfactory holiday is generated.
Cost
The first component is the ability of travel agents and other initial intermediaries to make the appropriate arrangements at prices suitable to the
tourist. Given the increasing degree of choice and the at times bewildering
patterns of airline pricing, any tourist requires a travel agent with a high
degree of knowledge of ticket availability. While it is true that, for many
passengers, direct booking through websites creates some price savings, it
is not yet true that perfect knowledge of a transparent market exists. Some
airline websites are simply inadequate. For example, while Air New
Zealand had introduced web-based ticketing some years earlier, it was only
in 2002 that they introduced an ability to purchase childrens fares on the
website. In this they were not alone. In other cases, return tickets are
cheaper than one-way prices. In some cases flights via an intermediate
destination and onward to a third destination are cheaper than a direct
flight from the origin of the trip to the intermediate destination. Wily
passengers simply end up buying a full ticket and throwing away the final
part, or buying return tickets and either not using or, in some cases, onselling the return part of a ticket. For their part, airlines over book expecting
no-shows and sometimes they get it wrong, so some passengers miss their
flights. On the other hand airlines then offer hotel accommodation and
upgraded seats in compensation. It is easy to feel that logic and airline
pricing are not always compatible. Recently the author found that a fare
from Auckland to Seoul was $NZ1700, while a continuation of that same
flight to London was only $NZ100 more! However, airlines seek to carefully control and allocate seating and pricing to obtain the most profitable
loading through the exercise of yield-management techniques. Airlines
juggle booking between First, Business and Economy classes; between
employees flying for free, other privileged clients such as politicians, and
others seeking to use air points for free or upgraded flights. Such is the situ-
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ation that one feels that optimum loadings are not always achieved. For
these reasons, plus the convenience offered, it is of little surprise that
package and all-inclusive holidays continue to hold major portions of some
markets. In addition to the convenience, there also exists, on the part of the
consumer, a greater degree of certainty in the purchase decision. This is
because not only is there knowledge of the destination and holiday type,
but this is reinforced by expectations associated with brand. Packageholiday companies increasingly seek to capture loyal clients through
relationship marketing based on databases of past purchases. This creates a
symbiotic relationship of mutual advantage. The client gains certainty as to
enjoyable outcomes through the avoidance of unpleasant surprises, while
the company gains repeat business. From the tourists perspective the
fulfilment of expected outcomes is an optimal solution to risk taking within
limited periods of leisure time that involve significant financial outlay. Not
all tourists have the opportunity to experiment with holiday types, particularly, for example, if they are constrained by the presence of young children.
Additionally the safeguard exists that failure to deliver the required
services renders the travel company liable to legal action. Certainly within
the USA and European Union the use of the package-holiday industry
sector simplifies the gaining of redress for accidents and other unfortunate
outcomes that might occur overseas.
Travel
The next component for many people is that of travel. Land travel often
involves the use of cars or other forms of road transport. Car hire companies
often provide a sense of security through the provision of new vehicles with
little mileage, offers of cell phones, temporary membership of automobile
associations and, today, the provision of Geographical Information Systems
and mapping systems that continually monitor progress. In addition, car
rental companies provide other services such as advanced bookings
through the Internet, and minimal paperwork for customers belonging to
their schemes so that they can walk directly to car parks to pick up their
vehicles when they arrive at airports. Similarly, airlines seek to provide
loyalty schemes, club lounges and check-in points at city centres and hotels.
In short, there is again an emphasis on customer reassurance and convenience.
Accommodation
The next stage in the holiday experience might be that of commercially
provided accommodation. This sector is also now characterised by prebooking, loyalty schemes and yield management and, over time, by an
upgrading of facilities and services. Equally, however, a range of types of
accommodation has come into being to suit client needs. There are camp-
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sites, huts, budget motels, luxury motels, hotels, deluxe hotels, eco-lodges
and luxury lodges a range of accommodation from the most basic to those
with full suite services, private spa pools and baths, a choice of restaurants
or no restaurants. Hotels can be distinguished by location. They range from
airport hotels located within a few minutes of an airport offering limousine
or shuttle services for their clients, to those serving central business
districts, beach resorts, islands, mountainous areas or indeed floating
hotels for example on the Great Barrier Reef off Australias eastern coast.
Facilities
Once at a destination, the tourist might take advantage of a range of
services, attractions and facilities dependent upon the type of holiday
being sought. The choice is enormous; from tours of cultural and historic
sites, to night club entertainment, from the most active of pursuits to the
most passive.
From this brief review it can be seen that to discuss the nature of the
tourist experience is to enter a minefield of exploration. However, and
bearing in mind the content of previous chapters, a series of issues can be
identified for consideration. These include:
(1) To what extent is satisfaction with the holiday an evaluation of the
whole experience, or of a series of events? During the holiday, to what
degree is there a tolerance of disappointment with some aspects that
can be offset by above-expected levels of performance or experience in
other parts of the holiday? Are there critical incidents of such magnitude that they have the potential to literally make or break a holiday?
(2) Given, as seen in Chapter 4, a number of different roles that tourists
can play, can there be any portfolio of roles that tourists are able to
adopt given any range of circumstances? Does the ecotourist who
books into what is described in the brochure as an eco-lodge on a safari
holiday adopt another role quite easily when it is found that the lodge
actually services the needs of perhaps well over a hundred short-stay
tourists on package tours? In other words, do individual tourists
possess social skills to readapt in order to achieve the main goal
which might be defined as having a good holiday? Or do they
demonstrate less flexible skills that lead to situations of disappointment and perhaps conflict?
(3) Just how important is the issue of authenticity in tourism? For many
writers tourists are characterised by a wish to sample the unfamiliar,
but such sampling should occur within what are seen as authentic
locations.
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The Issue of Authenticity

There has been significant discussion within the academic literature
about the need for authenticity and the nature of the product that is being
offered to tourists. The roots of this debate can be discerned in a number of
writings. First, there was the feeling that modern tourism emasculated the
experience of travel. As already noted, this was a view advocated by
Boorstin (1962), who saw in the development of advertising, branding and
the speed and ease of modern transport systems, a removal of the travail
associated with travel. The packaged holidaymaker was then being served
with time-constrained presentations abstracted from the original context of
meaning associated with the culture from which the performance was
lifted. So, it was argued, tourism lacked the rigour of travel of the past and
served up a pastiche of culture. Greenwoods study of the Hondarribian
Alarde (Greenwood, 1977) was then often cited (e.g. by Mathieson & Wall,
1982) as an example of host communities themselves seeking to meet tourists needs by separating spectacle in culture from original meaning. The
implication was that this too represented a degradation of the host culture
in exchange for profit. In this particular case, a re-enactment of a past siege
in 1638 had been attracting increasing numbers of tourists to the extent that
the local municipality decided to hold a second performance, on the same
afternoon, to meet tourist demand. For Greenwood this represented a diminution of a tradition based on the celebration and reinforcement of local
community, and he felt that outsiders should not intrude.
The word authenticity, with its associations of adherence to an original,
when compared to the commercial values associated with the word commodification that came to be used to describe this process, appeared,
somehow, morally superior. Certainly a number of criticisms came to be
voiced. MacCannell (1976) adopted the view that Boorstin was incorrect in
his view that the tourist was satisfied with this process. For MacCannell, the
irony of tourism is that many tourists achieve the highest levels of satisfaction when they feel that they have ceased to be tourists. They do not necessarily want to be full members of the host society, for to do so means they
lose the privileges accorded to a guest. Rather, they seek the status of
guests, because as such they are welcomed into what MacCannell (1976)
called the back stage, the area not normally seen by the outsider.
MacCannell wrote:
Tourists are not criticised by Boorstin and others for leaving home to
see the sights. They are reproached for being satisfied with superficial
experiences of other peoples and other places ... (but) touristic shame is
not based on being a tourist but in not being a tourist enough, on a
failure to see everything the way it ought to be seen. The touristic
critique of tourism is based on a desire to go beyond the other mere
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tourists to a more profound appreciation of society and culture, and it

is by no means limited to intellectual statements. All tourists desire this
deeper involvement with society and culture to some degree; it is a
basic component of their motivation to travel. (MacCannell, 1976: 7677)
A second criticism of this perspective of Boorstin (1962), Fussell (1982)
and MacCannell (1976) himself was that their perspective was based on
traditional elitist values that often obscured other sets of values no less
important. For example, it was pointed out that holidays traditionally had
been periods of disjuncture in social processes. Rojek (1993) indicated a
history of tourism that included fools days and the carnivalesque, where
settled order was deliberately set aside. Ryan (2002) pointed to a working
class history of holidaying where a celebration of solidarity was often an
important consideration, whether in the walking clubs or the hopfields of
late nineteenth century England. The work of historians of tourism also
demonstrated that concerns with the authentic culture had often been
mediated in various ways, by class values, by guidebooks that were selective in what deemed sightworthy, and that in many cases motives for travel
were not always the best (e.g. see Towner, 1996).
A third critique of the importance of authenticity is that cultures are
dynamic and change, and that these processes are often an evolutionary
process created by change agents, adaptation to change by those affected
and the choice of both viewer and viewed as to what is considered to be
acceptable. MacNaught (1982) pointed out that host societies were not
empty sponges that simply and without question absorbed the influences
of the visitor. The nature of the demonstration effect began to be questioned
more critically and, as will be considered in Chapter 9, the complex interactions between some types of visitors and some types of hosts came to be
better understood.
Fourth, it was recognised that almost any experience offers the reality of
an emotive and cognitive reaction. Wang (2000: 49) has argued that there
are different interpretations of authenticity, including existential authenticity. In effect, this distinguishes between the level of congruence that a
replica or performance has with the original, and the nature of the experience that the participant feels. Therefore while, for example, the performance of a dance with poi by Maori performers in Rotorua, New Zealand,
may not exactly replicate the original performance and meaning of that
dance, for the overseas visitor it provides an insight into Maori culture that
is new and never before experienced. Such a visitor can genuinely enjoy the
dexterity of the performers and the spirit in which the performance is
given. In short, existential authenticity lies in a state of being. However,
there exists, too, the existential authenticity of the performance. This
example has, however, several levels of analysis. The Maori people of
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Rotorua have been involved with the tourism industry for more than 140
years, and have established their own traditions of performance and
guiding (Ryan, 1997). Former guides are remembered and honoured by the
Te Arawa people, and thus the tourist performance has come to take on its
own authenticity as being part of an unbroken tradition of several decades.
In short, the meanings of authenticity have been re-examined and found
to be complex. Heron (1990) argued that any interpretation creates its own
selections and choices, some of which are associated with the norms of
professionalism adopted by guides, interpreters and others associated with
the sustenance and presentation of cultures. Wang (2000) therefore
suggests two other forms of authenticity, objective authenticity, which is
conformity with the original, and constructive authenticity; which is the
authenticity projected on to the toured objects by the tourists and producers
of tourism images.
Fifth, there has been a re-investigation of the evidence. For example,
V.L. Smith, in her investigations of Inuit people and the skinning of seals
modified her interpretations of practices of public and non-public seal skinning between the first and subsequent editions of Hosts and Guests
(V.L. Smith, 1989; Smith & Brent, 2001). Similarly Aramberri (2001) revisits
Greenwoods work and asks, where is the proof of the claims made? Additionally Aramberri advances the example of a similar Alarde held at Irn,
where, in 1997, the mayor cancelled the march because of disputes between
the traditionalists and those supporting feminist claims to permit women
to be involved in the march. What, he asks, is the value of authenticity when
it is based on division, dubious ancestry, and who is selling what to whom?
By its nature, culture is vibrant, changing, and exists in world of commerce.
Ryan (1997, 1999c, 2003) and Ryan and Huyton (2000, 2002), in a series of
studies of tourism associated with Maori and Australian Aboriginal
people, question the use of the term authenticity. In the case of tourism
based on the culture of indigenous peoples, they argue that its use has
hindered analysis of the key issues. Cultures, it is argued, are continually
subject to change, and to seek compliance with some perceived original
raises the issues of stultifying a culture, creating stereotypes, and indeed of
passing initiatives to the promoters of tourism product. The key issue is,
they argue, who authorises the performance, and it is suggested that the
term authorisation rather than authenticity should be the subject of analysis. Is the performance within the control of the indigenous people? Where
does the power lie? Who receives the income and what levels of income ?
These are more meaningful questions than whether a performance is
authentic?
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The Tourist as Outsider or as Guest

While wanting to delve into the backroom, to experience that which is
perceived to be close to the original, the tourist may be defeated by a combination of factors. The first is that, while the tourist may have this wish to
understand the host society, it is but one of a number of wishes, and relaxation and other motivations may have priority. Second, the tourist usually
has only a limited amount of time, and hence must use the intermediaries
available to him or her, and such intermediaries may promise understanding of the host society and culture, but may themselves be tangential
to it. Third, the tourist is caught up in what Pearce (1982a, 1982b) has
termed, a tourist environment. Pearce argues that the characteristics of the
tourist environment are that it has a highly transient population, has been
physically modified to facilitate inspection of the locale, and has a structure
to control visitor accessibility. These physical attributes foster the feeling of
being a tourist. Essentially what is this feeling? It can be argued that it
consists of sensing that one is an outsider, and of being immediately
recognised as such. Arguably the sense of being a tourist is not strongly felt
in mass tourism centres such as Torremolinos or Benedorm, but is in fact
more keenly sensed in the less-crowded areas, in the areas perhaps visited
by few tourists. Perversely, in the areas of mass tourism, especially those
popular with ones own nationality, the sense of being an outsider may be
only marginally felt. The shops, places of entertainment, and accommodation are filled with people with whom communication is easy, and with
whom there are shared conventions and sets of expectations. In such cases
the tourists experience the sense of being outsiders only if something goes
wrong and they come into contact with the legal or medical systems of the
host community.
It can be argued that there is a continuum that moves from being a tourist to being a guest and potentially a friend of a local resident. This is
demonstrated in Figure 5.1. A sense of being a tourist can be engendered
within the context of The Mass Tourist (Cohen, 1974, 1979). The tourist is
but one in a coach party, just one of many staying in a hotel. Often tourists
seek to establish their identity, as is evidenced by the need to strike up a
relationship with the waiter who usually serves their table. But the waiter
has seen such attempts every week of the summer. Accordingly identity is
often established with other members of the holidaying group, and thus the
sources of satisfaction are found in communication with fellow holidaymakers and not from contact with the host community. The desire, if it was
at all strong in the first place, to relate to the host society is displaced by this
activity to meet the needs of belonging. Dann (2000) in his study of older
British tourists staying on the island of Mallorca, provides ample evidence
of these people creating their own spirit of community and resistance to the
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structures imposed upon them by the holiday package. Indeed, Danns

comments on the treatment of these visitors make one wonder about the
nature of the holiday experience. Thus he writes:
Reference has already been made to the clinical features of La Paloma
Blanca. The admission procedures tend to substantiate this impression.
On admission all-inclusive customers have plastic bracelets affixed to
their wrists similar to those applied to hospital patients. The bands
have expiry dates on them and are generally worn on and off the
premises. (Dann, 2000: 85)
Given the institutional arrangements of this holiday, it is little wonder
that guests revert to playing a role of us against them and indeed Dann
proposes an extension of Ryans (2002d) analysis of time on holidays by
asking whether these senior tourists ... (are) having the time of their lives,
time for their lives or are simply doing time? (Dann, 2000: 91).
From the viewpoint of those who serve the tourist, the tourist is but part
of an anonymous, amorphous mass. The situation begins to improve when
the tourist manages to establish some personal identity with the supplier of
a service. In this process the tourist becomes a customer; there is a recognition of individuality, albeit on a formal basis. Some tourist environments
permit this. The hotel waiter can get to know those he serves, the receptionist can recognise the hotel guests and call them by name. Those who
serve in local shops can recognise their customers. On the other hand those
who receive tourists at tourist attractions by the busload will have little
opportunity to relate to their visitors in such a way. Indeed, a criterion for
TOURIST ENVIRONMENTS ENHANCE FEELINGS OF BEING
Tourist
Customer
Visitor
Traveller
Guest
Friend
Highly organised
structures
Little perception
of tourists
individuality
Recognition of tourists
individuality on a
formal, scripted basis
Recognition of individuality
on an informal, social basis
Tourist is an outsider
looking at specially
packaged tourist
events
Tourist is an outsider
looking at normal
host society events
Tourist partakes in normal

events increasingly on an
equal footing with members
of the host society
Figure 5.1 The touristguest continuum
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the success of such visits is whether the tourist feels that a relationship has
been created by the tour guide. At the same time, as the tourist goes shopping, uses local transport, perhaps goes to the local theatre or cinema, or
uses a restaurant, he or she engages in the same type of activities as many of
the host society. In consequence, those that serve these activities, whilst
they may treat tourists differently from local people, have constraints
imposed upon them by the fact that both tourist and local person intermingle more closely by sharing the same physical space.
For many tourists, a reason for continuing to return to a given destination is that they have established a relationship with local people and a
friendship has developed. Increasingly they become part of a local community, even if for a short time. It might be said they are part of, but not from,
the host community. For many tourists a highlight of the holiday is talking
with local people. A perverse phenomenon may be observed about such
contacts. The middle-class tourist frequents a bar and is drawn into conversation with a local, who often is a manual worker. Upon returning home,
the tourist will talk of the conversation and the insights that it gave him or
her into the host society, and perhaps even into life itself. The irony is that
whilst at home that tourist would not normally frequent the company of
manual workers.
Aramberri (2001) objects to the emphasis that tourism scholars have
placed on hostguest relationships on the premise that a romantic nonsense
is being perpetuated and the realities of most tourism encounters are being
ignored. First, most tourist encounters are not with indigenous peoples.
They are, quite simply, with other tourists or with the intermediaries of the
tourism industry. Aramberri also argues that most tourism is about visits to
locales of similar nature to those from which tourists come, and thus:
The host-guest paradigm cannot be used to account for most types of
what is called tourist behaviour. Excluded from the visual field are all
the interactions that do not take place between members of preindustrial communities and denizens of developed societies.
(Aramberri, 2001: 745)
However, Aramberris own observations are not beyond criticism. First, it
might be doubted that the notion of touristhost interactions of the kind
described by Smith (1977) was being advanced as a theory to explain tourist
behaviours. Rather, they were instances of specific types of circumstance
relating to impacts on host cultures, not a general theory of holiday experience. Second, Aramberris critique seems peculiarly blinded to the very
things that he wishes to espouse, namely the nature of everyday interactions between tourist and host. Instead he seems to concentrate on a selective reading of a supposed academic position, which to this author is not
representative of most of what written about tourism.
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It might be said that, as with any experience, events do not take place in
isolation from other events. The tourist experience results from a set of
behaviours, which themselves may be dictated by a set of antecedent conditions interacting with intervening variables. The tourist arrives at a destination with a set of expectations and motivations shaped by socio-economic
variables, and his or her knowledge and perception of the area. The location
itself is an information transmitter with an infrastructure of facilities, transport networks and contact points that influence an individuals wishes,
desires and subsequent behaviour. Equally, the time constraint and the
abruptness of changed circumstances have their role to play in determining
the tourist experience. The holiday may have been long anticipated, and
there might be an excitement about the travel and the arrival. This may be
tempered by tiredness on arrival. Therefore, on arriving at a new location
there is a process of recovery from the journey, followed by learning,
discovery and an exploration of the immediate vicinity. Whilst this process
of learning and discovery may last the whole of the holiday, it tends to be at
its greatest during the initial holiday stages, and thus subsequently the
latter part of the holiday might involve repetition of favoured behaviours.
Towards the end of the holiday, thoughts of the return home occur, while
other emotions such as regret that the holiday is drawing to a close might
also be felt.
Tourist Learning and Behaviour

From this simple description, a number of hypotheses can be constructed about patterns of behaviour:
(1) there is a pattern of exploratory behaviour by the tourist;
(2) stress may be associated with the process of adjustment;
(3) environmental learning of that thought to be important by the tourist
occurs relatively quickly; and
(4) behaviour is determined in part by anticipation of enjoyment.
The first observation to be made is that initial anticipation about the
nature of the destination and the existence of a time-constrained holiday
period on the one hand can create an eagerness to learn and explore, while
on the other hand it can generate an intolerance of what is perceived as inferior service. Both perhaps are aspects of a desire for immediate gratification
of wishes. The first couple of days of the traditional package holiday are
often characterised by certain sets of behaviour. The first day is spent in
both recovering from the journey and checking the immediate environment. During this checking a process of comparison takes place. The expectations about the actual hotel and resort derived from past experience,
hearsay or the travel agents brochure will be used to measure the perceived
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reality of what is found. Expectations may be met, surpassed or disappointed. Often the first night of the stay is characterised by a group of tourists
discussing initial impressions, and these might not always be favourable
compounded, as they might be, by the remnants of tiredness from the
journey and the process of adjustment. This adjustment process is not
simply one of a change of venue, but a change, however temporary, of lifestyle. During the second and third days, it can be hypothesised that in many
cases a misplaced confidence can occur. It is during this time that the
holidaymaker may lie in the sun too long, and so become sunburnt, or eat or
drink too much, and therefore suffer with upset stomach or a hangover.
Past travel experience can of course inhibit such negative practices, but
such behaviour patterns would be readily recognised by many travel
couriers. After a few days, exploratory behaviour takes the tourist further
afield and, by the beginning of the second week of the typical two-week or
ten-day holiday, favourite venues are being established, whether they be
tavernas, scenic spots, restaurants or discos. Thus by the end of the holiday,
a greater predictability of travel patterns might be established.
Is there evidence to support this type of observation? Evidence of the
predisposition for minor illnesses comes from Pearces (1982a, 1982b) study
of Australian holidaymakers on the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The
study sample was asked to record minor illnesses for the fortnight prior to
the holiday, and then those that occurred during the holiday. These Pearce
divided into three categories. Tension symptoms (feelings of anxiety,
headaches, nervous irritability and the like) were felt by a third of the
sample prior to the holiday, but these symptoms declined through the
holiday so that by the fourth, fifth and sixth days only 8.6% of the sample of
300 recorded such feelings. On the other hand there was an increase in viral
symptoms (colds, coughs, stomach upsets etc.) so that by the same period a
third complained of these. And just over 60% complained about stings,
insects bites, skin rash, sunburn and similar environment shock symptoms by the end of the first weeks holiday. The nature of such illnesses will
be in part determined by the age and social characteristics of the tourist, and
the degree of difference between the physical components of the holiday
environment and that of the tourists home. Nonetheless, the reality for
many holidays is that they are indeed characterised by minor complaints
(usually associated with food, sun or drink) that can mar enjoyment.
However, in recounting the story of their holiday to friends and peers upon
return (which process is itself part of the enjoyment of the holiday), such
illnesses are either conveniently forgotten, or become part of the story of
adventure. Few will actually admit to not enjoying their holiday.
Evidence for the exploratory patterns of tourist travel also exists. For
example, Cooper (1981) mapped the travel patterns of a sample of tourists
to the island of Jersey. Within the first day the great majority of visits (75%
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approximately) were of St Helier, the capital and the hotel. Only a small
proportion went touring on their first day. On the second day St Brelades
Bay became a popular destination, and it was not until the fifth day that the
tourists were reaching Plemont. Also by this stage of the holiday travel
patterns were becoming more dispersed. Similarly Elson (1976) traces the
recreation activity space of visitors to the south coast of Sussex in England.
The coastal resorts of Brighton and others account for 90% of the reported
visits, whilst only 20% visited the northern parts of the county. In consequence travel patterns by visitors can be established, and it does appear
that there are temporal aspects to such travel activities.
Guy and Curtis (1986) studied the speed with which tourists make
perceptual maps of the holiday destination by observing tourists visiting
the town of Wurzburg in West Germany. The results were scored on four
variables, the number of items mentioned, the correct identification by
name and the correct function and location. The researchers concluded
that:
Overall, the results of the exploratory research parallel expected
patterns. First, it appears that environmental learning takes place relatively quickly. Fewer tourist sites were added to maps over time than
business or retail items suggesting that perhaps most touring activities
occurred early in the visit. Shopping and retail commerce activities
evidently remain stable or increase as the tourists stays lengthened.
Experience did indeed function as the primary correlate of environmental learning in terms of scope, accuracy and detail. (Guy & Curtis,
1986: 163)
In another study of tourist learning about place, this time of Coffs
Harbour in Australia, Walmesley and Jenkins (1992) asked tourists to draw
maps of the resort zone. It was found that the longer the stay the less
detailed became the maps as the longer-stay tourists tended to concentrate
on those landmarks that were of specific interest to them. Those who had
not been in the resort so long tended to identify more geographical locations as they were still engaged upon a process of site discovery. As might
be expected, the maps drawn also reflected the main types of holiday activities being engaged in. For example, there was a higher incidence of locating
certain fast-food outlets among holidaymakers accompanied by young
children as compared with those without such companions. Many of these
types of studies are heavily dependent on the initial analysis offered by
Lynch (1960), one of the first modern geographers to look at perceptual
mapping. He found that five elements dominated such maps: paths (channels of movement), edges or boundaries, districts (zones of identifiable
character), nodes or foci of travel and landmarks. Pearce (1981) also found
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that the experience of travel had an important impact on the creation of

perceptual maps. For example, drivers had a better and more detailed recall
of routes than did their passengers.
One of the factors that may influence travel patterns in terms of determining the number of sites visited is social class. Cooper (1981), in an
analysis of numbers of sites visited, found that professional classes were
more likely to visit a greater number of sites on a holiday trip. In his sample,
over 40% of social group AB visited more than 9 sites, compared with 34%
of group C1C2 and less than 28% of group D. Various hypotheses can be put
forward as to why this is the case, but the travel pattern is partly the result of
an interaction between motivation, expectation, accessibility and promotion. Moreover, the recording of such travel behaviour is not in itself a
measure of the strength of any one of these individual factors, but rather of
the synergy arising from combining these variables. Social class plays a role
as education shapes an awareness of site possibilities and income generates
the means to access those sites.
During the 1990s there was a growing interest in health and accident
studies relating to tourists and their experiences of place. Initially much of
the interest in travel medicine stemmed from an interest in the epidemiology of diseases, motivated in part by the relationship between travel and
the incidence of AIDS (for example see the work of Cossar et al., 1990, and
the subsequent publication of the books edited by Clift & Page, 1996, and
Clift & Grabowski, 1997), but subsequent work has analysed the causes of
death and accidents amongst tourists. The growth of these interests is signified by the establishment of a Journal of Travel Medicine and the Centre for
Risk and Tourism Management at the University of Queensland under the
directorship of Professor Jeff Wilks. For example, Wilks, Watson and Faulks
(1999) reviewed evidence and their own past research into the causes of
motor accidents involving tourists in Australia and made a number of
recommendations as to ways in which such accidents could be diminished.
Many of these would require quite significant changes in practice on the
part of customers and car rental companies, and being pragmatic the
authors changed some of their original proposals. However, some possible
practices are simple to carry out for example providing a tape or CD that
can be played in the car and provides useful information on patterns of
driving and rules of the road in the host country. That car accidents are a
leading cause of mortality amongst tourists is confirmed by the work of
Page et al. (2001), who also provide a useful summary of the literature on
this issue for the period 19851999. Unfortunately, although estimating that
the costs of accidents involving overseas tourists from 19921996 came to
about $NZ21 million in New Zealand, the authors conclude that there
appears to be little interest from the public agencies and the tourism industry that tourist road accidents are a real problem (Page et al., 2001: 522). In
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another New Zealand study, Irving (1999) estimated that accidents

involving tourists accounted for a work load equivalent to about 27 general
practitioners. The nature of these accidents has also been analysed. For
example, Bentley, Page and Laird (2000) comment that, while the risk of
serious injury is very small, higher incidences of minor injuries such as
sprains and bruising are not uncommon, and tend to be associated with
activities that involve the risk of falling from a moving vehicle or animal.
They cite activities such as cycle tours, quad biking, horse riding and whitewater rafting as being those most likely to result in injuries to participants.
Observation at any ski-field will also show that broken limbs are a measurable risk with this form of tourism. Other studies have looked at tourists as
victims of crime and at the nature of insurance claims that are made (e.g.
Ryan, 1996).
Espiner (2001, 2002) has suggested that one of the paradoxes of the
contemporary age is that, while on the one other hand society increasingly
reduces the risk that individuals assume through a range of measures
including insurance, safety legislation and the need for tourism operators
to adhere to standards of good practice and risk minimisation, and the more
explicit messages of warnings that are required by legislation, on the other
hand, adventure tourism has been growing in popularity. It can be
observed that, like the term ecotourism, the term adventure has been
appropriated for marketing purposes, and covers a range of activities from
soft adventure to the hard core extreme activities requiring high levels of
skill and expertise. Espiner (2002) suggests that more regulated societies
give rise to a compensatory need for risk. Ryan (In press, b) nonetheless
suggests that:
what is required is the certainty of achievement of being able to
achieve within their limits a feeling of surmounting challenge. In
consequence the commercialism of the adventure leads to the construction of an experience where both company and client play a game of
shared disbelief. The company promises adventure and its accompanying risks while trying to ensure that risks for any given level of
ability are minimal and that satisfaction is the outcome. Nature is
coerced into being a resource to satisfy the wants of escape, achievement, challenge and physical release required by the tourist. The
tourist on the other hand wants to believe in that presence of challenge,
but equally entrusts the company to deliver the means toward achievement. (Ryan, in press b)
In seeking to explain the paradox proposed by Espiner, it might be
suggested that a mutual process of reciprocal responsibilities is being
assumed by individuals and current society. The regulatory forces of legislation, concerns over worker safety, safe practices and the extension of
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those practices to tourists are designed to protect the provider of services

from legal liabilities in the event of things going awry, subject to the caveat
that the provider of services can show that all reasonable care was taken.
This protects the interests of tourists, and in turn their responsibilities
towards their dependents. On the other hand, the tourist assumes the
responsibility to take due care and act responsibly by complying with the
instructions given. In situations known to involve risk, then the tourist
knowingly assumes those risks that is, it is the duty of the operator to
clearly convey and clarify those risks, but having done so the tourist
excuses the operator from further liability. The paradox is more apparent
than real; and is simply a recognition of more clearly defined positions of
responsibility, albeit within a context that there is a need for higher degrees
of explicit warning and consent than existed previously.
The Role of Expectations

Expectation and perception can be powerful determinants of satisfaction, but the direction between these two variables and satisfaction is not
entirely predictable. Saleh and Ryan (1990: 327) observe with regard to
guests perceptions of hotels that ... it is imperative that guests expectations be realistic and possible for the firm to deliver, otherwise an obvious
gap in service quality is created. The question arises as to how the tourist
deals with the gap. The tourist may either feel dissatisfied by the shortfall
between reality and expectation, so that the holiday or trip experience is
perceived as having negative components, or a process akin to cognitive
dissonance occurs. What takes place in many cases is a re-evaluation of
aspects of the location, and changes of behaviour result from such re-evaluations. For example, holiday destinations have spatial components, and
hence the holidaymaker can escape the immediate cause of dissatisfaction
in two ways. The first is simply a geographic move away from hotel, beach,
resort or source of dissatisfaction; the second is an associated activity
change. Coupled with cognitive dissonance whereby the unsatisfactory
hotel may now be perceived as being unimportant in the holiday mix
because compensating activities have been initiated, the holiday may still
be perceived as being successful. The determining factor as to which path is
selected may be the commitment to the success of the holiday. As Kelly
(1955) comments, behaviour is an anticipatory as well as a reactive factor.
An example of this is given by Adams (1973) in a study of beach users in
New England. When the weather forecast was one of 60% chance of rain,
this information was interpreted differently by separate behavioural
groups. Of those actually on the beach, 46% interpreted the forecast as
meaning that it was likely or almost certain to rain. Of those that cancelled
their trip, 86% interpreted the same data as being likely or very likely to
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rain, as against two-thirds of a control group who similarly interpreted the

forecast. One interpretation of these findings is that the level of commitment to a given course of action (in this instance, going to the beach) meant
reinterpretation of data. The reluctance to let unsatisfactory factors interfere with the enjoyment of the holiday is perhaps reinforced by the process
of anticipation of enjoyment prior to departure. The anticipation shapes the
behaviour, the behaviour changes the perception. Equally, therefore, the
findings can be interpreted as meaning the actual behaviour was subsequently justified by offering a specific interpretation of the data. No matter
which interpretation is accepted, what is operating is that actual behaviour is
linked to selective interpretations of probabilities; that is, it is linked to expectations. Nonetheless the implication of any theory of adaptive behaviour in
the light of destination- and interaction-specific variables, is that subsequent
sources of satisfaction may have little to do with initial sets of expectations.
Furthermore, the above discussion implies at least two broad roles for
expectations: namely that there are predictive and normative expectations.
The former relate to what consumers believe will happen in the forthcoming consumption experience, while the latter relate to what they
believe should happen. Given this distinction, the sources of expectation are
important. Ryan (1999a) has argued that a reiterative relationship exists
between past and current satisfaction, which in turn implies that the
normative can be tempered by past consumption that influences the predictive. In short, while it is easy to conceptually make the distinction, the
actual measurement of each one is very difficult. Yuksel and Yuksel (2001)
argue that consumers use multiple interpretations in the same question set
when responding to questionnaires and, indeed, may also be highly
dependent on biased sources of information in the absence of others. Examples of such biased sources include information disseminated by service
providers, or by informal sources such as friends.
The Interpretation of Experience: Cultural Capital and

Preference
European, and particularly British, package holidaymakers might be
said to have a lovehate relationship with the tour operators. They love the
low-cost holidays when things go well, but hate the consequences when
things do not go according to plan. In different years (for example in 1988,
1989, 2000 and 2001) issues have arisen over holiday airline schedules and
their disruption. Strikes by air traffic controllers, or by Spanish coach
drivers, have meant long delays at airports with little compensation being
offered other than perhaps a meal voucher; meanwhile embattled airlines
did the best that they could with aircraft in the wrong place at the wrong
time. For several holidaymakers this caused high levels of dissatisfaction at
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two key points in the holiday process. First there was a delay at the very
onset of the holiday. Expectations of an immediate departure were simply
not being met. On the other hand, the very press coverage of the issue actually meant holidaymakers arrived at the airports expecting a delay, and
hence small delays of up to two hours were regarded as acceptable. For
those experiencing longer delays, it can be expected that encroachments
were being made on valuable holiday time and hence higher levels of
dissatisfaction were being created. This was particularly the case if only one
weeks holiday had been booked. However, upon arrival at the holiday
destination, the pattern of the holiday would mitigate the initial bad
impressions. But at such times the return home was also characterised by
the same delays, and in many cases these were worse because return flights
from overseas airports are often undertaken later in the day. This permits
knock on effects to lead to accumulated delays. It can be suggested that
one requirement of returning holidaymakers is certainty of arrival time in
order to meet family, the need to travel perhaps for several hours back
home from the airport, and a requirement to get back to work. If delays are
long, the very benefits of the holiday in terms of relaxation are undermined.
However, one difference between events in the late 1980s and those of the
early 2000s was that holidaymakers had better modes of communication
with family and work colleagues back home through the use of cell phones.
So there were fewer problems of worried relatives awaiting the return
home of their loved ones.
The risks run by holidaymakers go beyond those of simply delay and
inconvenience. Holidaymakers may be shot in exotic destinations such as
Thailand or Kenya, mugged and have their bags stolen from their shoulders by young Mediterranean males on scooters, run the risk of being
assaulted by fellow holidaymakers, or taken hostage by rebel groups as in
the Philippines. Throughout 1988 and 1989, the trade press reported new
airline policies of refusing to carry drunken passengers. By 2000 many
airlines had put into place hard-line policies of suing passengers for any
extra costs incurred by having to depart from schedules or for disruption to
in-flight services and annoyance to other passengers.
At the other level, sources of annoyance simply include other tourists.
Davison (1989, cited by Ryan, 1991a), reporting on the 40th anniversary of
the British Package Holiday, saw fit to repeat Eric Idles observations from a
Monty Python sketch that:
Herded into endless hotel Miramars, Bellevues and Continentals with
their modern international luxury roomettes and Watneys Red Barrel
and swimming pools full of fat German businessmen pretending
theyre acrobats ... Adenoidal typists from Birmingham with flabby
white legs and diarrhoea trying to pick up hairy bandy-legged wop
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waiters called Manuel. So-called typical restaurants with local colour

and atmosphere and you sit next to a party from Rhyl who keep singing
Torremolinos, Torremolinos and keep complaining about the food.
(Ryan, 1991a: 42)
The truth of such observations is that the resorts that attracted the initial
expansion of the Mediterranean package holiday came to be perceived by
many, in the late 1980s, to be drifting down market, offering tacky accommodation and risks of interruption by boisterous if not drunken lager
louts. In resorts such as Torremolinos, at the height of the tourist season, it
was not uncommon for 200 British youths to spend the night in a Spanish
jail because of drunkenness and creating disorder (Sunday Times, 30 July,
1989; cited in Ryan 1991a) and over the intervening decades the pattern has
become established. By 2002 several different reality television programmes (particularly British ones) had followed the antics of hedonistic
holidaymakers in locations such as Ibiza, the Caribbean and the Canary
Islands. The fortunes and misfortunes of holidaymakers had become the
established fare of several television series based on airlines, airports, coach
line operators and specific locations. That such programmes were not only
being made but also proving popular testifies to the images and importance
of holidaying, certainly amongst the British. It is interesting to speculate
why this has been the case. On the one hand there is the recognition factor
among audiences, and a modeling or demonstration effect that holidays are
periods of escape from norms of respectability; they are sanctioned periods
of irresponsibility. Yet the image that comes across has a moralistic tone
for often these holidaymakers are shown as foolish, as clowns seeking a few
minutes of fame. The holiday time is one of hubris; and shadows of carnival
hang over the proceedings where respectability is overthrown. Arguably
though, there is now a difference. The cultural values are those of laddism:
live for today, hangovers are the norm, chicks or blokes are for bedding, and
exuberant behaviour is the norm. The carnivalesque described by Rojek
(1993) and other like commentators has now been commodified, packaged
and sold to an audience for whom the holiday has become an extension of
the Saturday night out with the lads and lasses it is adolescent pub culture
gone to the Mediterranean. However, there is another side to this particular
coin. New, more serious television programming about holidays where
comments are made about environmental impacts and a need to respect
local cultures have emerged from the holiday review programmes of the
1980s.
There is perhaps a wider explanation based on Bordieus (1978) concept
of cultural capital. By this term Bordieu meant that all consumption,
including sports and leisure consumption, requires appropriate tastes and
preferences as well as skills and knowledge. Cultural capital is a conse-
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quence of a socialisation process of upbringing and education, and thus

varies by social class. He came to this conclusion when comparing the
sporting activities and preferences of the French social classes, arguing that
there existed prole sports such as boxing in which the upper classes were
not interested. An alternative explanation is that access to various sports,
recreations and indeed types of holidays is determined by income, in other
words by economic rather than cultural capital. Thus the more expensive
types of holidays are accessible only to higher-income groups. However,
such is the pace of social and technological change, that the world of the
early twenty-first century is different from the more structured world of the
French social class system of the 1970s. Package holidays can be found for
almost all types of holiday, the hedonistic and the cultural, and arguably the
price differentials are considerably less than was once the case. Second, the
working classes are not necessarily lower-income groups, given the
squeeze that has occurred since the 1960s on the incomes of many traditional middle-class occupations (for example, teaching in schools and
universities). The growth of the entertainment and IT industries has also
created high-income jobs based on skill, while the widening of access to
higher education has meant that more people can gain those skills. Additionally the models of pop stars, soccer players and other entertainers, who
are not notable consumers of high cultural product (or at least, not as so
reported by the popular media), legitimise more hedonistic ways of
spending leisure time. Therefore, paradoxically, cultural capital in terms of
preferred norms, becomes more important than economic capital in determining holiday choice and experience yet the economic forces of the
contemporary world commodify all types of experience, making, in terms
of time and price, all types of holiday more accessible to all. Consequently,
as discussed in Chapter 4, it is personal preference that becomes the most
important determinant of holiday choice, and of the selection of criteria by
which holiday experiences are assessed.
Bordieus concept of cultural capital originated in a comparison of class
structures and values, but it can be argued that culture has a specific role
when holiday patterns are examined across different ethnic groups. There
is a growing literature about cultural differences between cultures, particularly with reference to the differences between Western and Asian cultures.
It has been observed for example, that Chinese culture places more
emphasis on group travel, the importance of gift giving, and the different
ways of interpreting courtesy and empathy (e.g. see work by Reisinger &
Turner, 1997, 1998; Becker et al., 1999). On the other hand, it has been
observed that there are inter-generational differences between Asian
groups, and that the younger ethnic Japanese and Chinese are more likely
to share many of the same values as their western counterparts (e.g. in
studies of backpackers, see Ryan & Mohsin, 2001). On the basis of inter-
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views undertaken in hotels in Taiwan, Tsai, Ryan and Lockyer (2002) also
suggest that the culture of service shared by hotels that aim at the models of
best service as demonstrated by multinational chains, combined with the
expectations of staff, management and guests, creates its own culture of
service norms. Thus they found little reference being made to traditional
Chinese values of kuan-hsi (personal relationship) and mien-tsu (face) in the
service situation. For their part Master and Prideaux (2000) found no
linkage between culture and holiday satisfaction in the case of Korean
holidaymakers, while McCleary, Choi and Weaver (1998) found many
commonalities between Americans and Korean business travellers in their
assessments of hotel services. It is also evident from different studies of the
Chinese market (e.g. Ryan & Mo, 2001; Yu & Weiler, 2001) that, in ranking
various motives for visits to overseas destinations, the reasons given are
close to those provided by other overseas nationals. Thus, for example, in
visits to New Zealand, the scenic and fresh, green values rank as highly
with Chinese visitors as with Europeans and North Americans.
The Privileged Outsider

It can be suggested that there is an additional facet to culture and cultural
capital the culture of being a tourist. Yiannakis and Gibson (1992) and
Gibson and Yiannakos (2002) have suggested that tourists assume roles,
while Ryan (2002a) has argued that holidays possess the potential for
cathartic experiences. In short, the temporary exile from home and all that
is associated with these temporary periods of freedom from the usual
responsibilities creates a different set of norms by which people act. If,
indeed, culture comprises sets of assumed values, behaviours and artefacts, then the paraphernalia of hotels, beaches and tours are the visible
signs of a culture that is different from the norm. It is not new to suggest that
tourists are marginal people (e.g. Cohen, 1982a; Ryan & Hall, 2001). In 1987
Cohen explored the relationship of tourist and the law by pointing out that
the tourist is in an ambiguous position. The tourist is not simply a stranger,
but is a temporary stranger. To a greater or lesser extent the tourist is a guest,
but an impersonal guest. The result is that, given the context of the state of
tourism development in the host community and the types of tourists being
attracted, the tourist may be victimised as being a highly visible stranger
ignorant of laws and customs. Alternatively, the tourist may be given preferential treatment, with ignorance being treated as an extenuating circumstance for minor infringements of the law. Cohen (1987) also argues that the
mass organised tourist will be less exposed to local criminals and will enjoy
the protection of the tourist establishment and the law-enforcing agencies.
The drifter may be more exposed to the local criminals but enjoy protection
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from the local community, even whilst, however, subjected to suspicion

from the legal agencies.
An important component of the tourist experience is the quality of the
encounter with the provider of a service, and in other industries this has
increasingly been studied. Bitner, Booms and Tetreault (1990) explore the
service encounter through the use of critical-incident analysis in three
situations: hotels, restaurants and airlines in the United States. They
concluded that degrees of satisfaction and dissatisfaction arose within
three groups of incidents, namely, employee response to service delivery
failure, employee response to customer needs and requests, and the nature
of unprompted and unsolicited employee actions. There were industry
differences between the incidences of each of these incident types for
example most of the incidents in the restaurant industry were of the third
type (unsolicited actions). Arguably, within tourism as a whole, it is this
third type of incident that will be the greatest source of satisfaction or
dissatisfaction, as tourists find what is to them out-of-the-ordinary concern
for them as individuals, or possibly the opposite, marked rudeness because
the tourist is perceived as an outsider. Parasuraman et al. (1985, 1991,
1994a, 1994b, 1994c) draw attention to the gap between expectation and
perception of the reality of the service as a source of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The model they proposed, the ServQual model, was based on the
dimensions of tangible components of the service, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. Additionally it comprised various gaps that
determined the consumer gap wherein the quality of the service provided
was assessed by a gap between client expectations and client evaluations of
the experience obtained. The other gaps that needed to be assessed
included the gap between management perceptions of what clients wanted
and the client expectation, the gap between management expectation of
service delivery and actual service performance, and the gap between
service promised (for example, by the marketing messages) and the service
performance. Such gaps shaped the consumer gap, or at least indirectly
highlighted the operational constraints under which management would
operate. For example, management might desire a given level of service
performance based on its perception of what its customers wanted, but
have to accept lower levels of service performance because of restrictions
on supply capabilities.
This mode of thinking has had an important influence on the literature of
services marketing generally, and has been widely adopted as a framework
of analysis within both tourism and hospitality management. It possesses
real value as a means by which management can identify areas of operational concern, but nonetheless there are conceptual issues that imply some
limits on the practical use of the instrument. First, in its application to
tourism it must to be noted that the tourist has more discretion over the
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nature of the service provision than in other service industry situations.

Tourists can simply use other restaurants, visit other attractions and change
their patterns of behaviour within a resort zone if they do not get the level of
service they initially expect at one bar of restaurant. They can also switch
into different roles. In short, the state of being a tourist permits a more
proactive role over the period of the holiday than does the time-specific
service encounter at any one retail store, bank, garage or restaurant.
Second, what is meant by expectation and evaluation? How, it is asked, is
an expectation being formed is it against an ideal level of service, an
acceptable level or a level determined by past direct experience (Ryan,
1999a; Oh, 2001)? Third, it has been noted that much of the variation in the
consumer gap is due more to the evaluation scale than to the expectation
scale. The gap correlates highly with the assessment of service, thus raising
the question as to whether the gap is needed at all as a measure of service
quality (Teas, 1993, 1994; Ryan & Cliff, 1996, 1997a). Indeed, in 1994
Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry amended their initial scale by increasing
it to 9 points to increase discrimination and by re-allocating some of the
items to different dimensions (Parasuraman et al., 1994a, 1994b, 1994c).
Possibly most important of all, they attempted to measure a zone of
tolerance by introducing a third measure that of expected service.
Unfortunately, the questionnaire became much more cumbersome and
time consuming for respondents.
An alternative approach can be recognised in the work of
Csikzentmihalyi (1975) and Csikzentmihalyi and Csikzentmihalyi (1988)
and Voelkl and Ellis (1990), who argue that in recreational pursuits the
degrees of satisfaction to be obtained are determined by the dimensions of
challenge and skill. If the challenge exceeds the level of skill, dissatisfaction
results, with a reduction in participation. If skill exceeds challenge, then
boredom results. However, if both the nature of the challenge and the level
of competency an individual possesses are congruent, then a condition of
flow occurs, as represented by the diagonal line in Figure 5.2. While initially
designed to explain the nature of intrinsic motivation and satisfaction
where individuals such as painters could work as hard as any high-earning
executive, but for much less financial reward, the concept has been utilised
by researchers in the fields of leisure, recreation and sport. Within the
touristic setting it has been used in examples such as white-water rafting in
adventure tourism to explain the role of guides in shifting the competency
levels of participants so as to better ensure a flow situation without engendering highly risky situations (Ryan, 1997b). From another perspective it
might be argued that the flow situation is one of optimal levels of arousal,
where enabling stress occurs. The person has a heightened sense of being, is
in tune with the environment, and is reacting positively to any challenge.
This model has immediate application not only to certain types of holiday
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Level of challenge
114
Level of challenge
is greater than
competency
so potential
outcome if level
of arousal too
high is nonperformance
The direction of flow
Competency is greater than

level of challenge so a
possible outcome is boredom
Level of competency
Figure 5.2 The condition of flow
activities based on hobbies and sports, but could also be adapted to cover
certain components of the travel experience. For example, passengers
delayed in air terminals might be observed to pass through a process of
arousal to anxiety to worry to apathy as they are initially frustrated by
delays but eventually reach apathy because of an inability to control events
(i.e. their skills are not appropriate to the situation). Certainly these
approaches open new avenues for research into the nature of the tourist
experience.
The Quality of the Tourist Event

One of the major activities undertaken by tourists is sightseeing. The
quality of this activity has attracted criticism from a number of writers such
as Boorstin (1962), Turner and Ash (1975), and Fussell (1982). Thus Boorstin
writes:
The multiplication, improvement and cheapening of travel facilities
have carried many more people to distant places. But the experience of
going there, the experiences of being there and what is brought back
from there are all very different. The experience has become diluted,
contrived, prefabricated. (Boorstin, 1962: 88)
To some extent these and other writers such as Rivers (1974a, 1974b) and
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Morris (1987) decry the current tourist experience as not having value
compared with the days of travel. As has already been noted, adverse
comparisons are made with the past, where the motivation for travel is
perceived as being one of education and self-enlightenment. To some
extent this view of the past may be a misconception. As Christopher
Hibbert (1987) shows in his history of the Grand Tour, for many young men
the highlight of the tour of Europe was not the culture of Classical Rome,
but the adventure, spice and thrill of Venice, the brothel of the eighteenth
century. The emptiness of the modern tourist experience is reputedly
shown by what Boorstin (1962) termed the pseudo-event. Thus it can be
asked, what is the value of the visit to, for example, the Spanish Fiesta,
where coaches bring several hundred guests from high-rise hotels to eat
chickens barbecued and served with chips, to sing the anthem of the
package holiday, Viva Espana, and to carouse with fellow holidaymakers
of their own nationality. The Spanish influence is served and packaged
without risk as dancers meet the desired stereotype, and the long wail of the
saeta is not heard. For Boorstin this is a pseudo-event, a drama packaged
for the tourist with little reference to reality. But, just as Boorstin perceives
that it has little to do with a cultural experience of Spain, so too do many of
the tourists. It has much more to do with different sets of values and norms,
the norms of group consciousness and relaxation. The occasion is a
pretence designed not to meet educational purposes, but to generate a
good time, which parts the tourists from their money but leaves them
feeling euphoric and good tempered. Perhaps more of a pseudo-event are
some of the very items celebrated by the middle-class tourist in their search
for reality. As MacCannell provocatively states:
Modern museums and parks are anti-historical and unnatural ... not in
the sense of their destroying the past or nature because, to the contrary,
they preserve them, but as they preserve, they automatically separate
modernity from its past and from nature and elevate it above them.
Nature and the past are made a part of the present, not in the form of
(an) unreflected inner spirit, a mysterious soul, but rather as revealed
objects, as tourist attractions. (MacCannell, 1976: 7677)
It can be argued that the value of the tourist experience is not that of the
academic writer imputing a set of normative judgements to the situation,
but what is felt by the tourist him or herself. In short, it is an issue of existential authenticity, as described above. The tourist brings to the situation and
the site a set of expectations that interact with the site. The site itself is also
not a constant with reference to the physical attributes of the situation. Part
of the site is the weather and other conditions within which the tourist sees
it. Thus, for the visitor to, say, the Alhambra in early spring on a clear
morning early in the day, there is a magic that the visitor would not find in
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the month of August at 5pm when there are large numbers of other visitors
present and the sun beats down mercilessly. Equally, the busiest hotel on
the popular Costas can create different experiences for the tourist depending
on the mix of people present, or the time of year.
Cohen (1979a) sets out a model of interaction between scene and expectation with reference to the authenticity of the event viewed. Essentially
there are two dimensions, the tourist who views the event as either being
staged or real, and the nature of the event itself, as being staged or real.
Given the debate above about whether this concern over authenticity
should possess the importance once attributed to it, the model may appear
to have little current applicability. However, it might yet still have importance for specific types of tourism and tourists. If, as would appear to be the
case, there is a minority of tourists (about 515% depending on definitions,
see Chapter 9) for whom compliance with required norms of cultural or
environmental legitimacy is important, it is possible to revert back to
Cohens model within this context. The model provides a four-cell matrix,
as shown in Figure 5.3. Tourists with an expectation and need for authenticity or legitimisation as they perceive it will be dissatisfied if they find an
inauthentic event and perceive it as being such. Equally, if they feel an
event to be staged, even where this is not the case, then low levels of satisfaction will occur. Cohen then develops the model for the tourist with a low
need for authenticity/legimitisation, and indeed such a tourist, it may be
cynically observed, has a higher chance of moderate degrees of satisfaction.
But what are the clues that lead to these perceptions being formed, either
correctly or incorrectly? Indeed, it has been argued that, as expectation
shapes behaviour, tourists may indeed find themselves in the situation of
obtaining high levels of satisfaction through having failed to identify the
proceedings of a pseudo-event! And what if the tourists, although
The tourists impression of the scene

Real, authentic
Staged, inauthentic
Authentic and recognised as

such.
The nature
of the event
Suspicion of staging.
Result low satisfaction
Result high satisfaction

Failure to recognise the event as
staged.
Lack of authenticity is
recognised.
Result high satisfaction
Result low satisfaction
Figure 5.3 The link between authenticity and satisfaction
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requiring authenticity/legimitisation, perceive the event to be false, but

suspend disbelief and enjoy the spectacle on its own terms? This form of
behaviour is found in many other areas of human behaviour, so why
should it stop when a person becomes a tourist?
It is right to be concerned with quality of tourist experience, but the
quality of that experience is not dictated by whether or not the event has an
elitist meaning, as seems to be implied by writers such as Fussell, Boorstin
and others. Nonetheless, historically, their viewpoint has had a significant
impact on the literature of tourism, and to discuss the authenticity of the
tourist experience is in itself a reflection of their impact, for it discusses the
issues on the terms they espouse. It is perhaps only in the period since about
1990 that commentators have been more critical of the terminology, and it
might now be argued that a new orthodoxy has been established that
perceives the issue of authenticity as requiring considerably more sophistication than was once the case. Today, it is a clich to argue that the quality of
the experience is dictated by the needs of a tourist, the quality of the provision of the service and the management of the tourist area. There is nothing
intrinsically wrong with a desire for relaxation. The tourist can enjoy the
experience of the fantasy as portrayed at theme parks, and can equally
enjoy the packaged insight into native culture as carefully sanitised by
native groups performing in the bars of multinational hotels. In both cases
the tourist does not leave behind his or her critical faculties, and recognises
that both are forms of show business.
This approach permits more realistic appraisals of the problems of
tourism. As Krippendorf (1987) observes, the holiday experience itself
exhausts. The holiday resort is just a backdrop, often the reality of packageholiday tourism is that the tourist is surrounded by the familiar the same
people, the same nationality. More importantly ... we drag with us the
problems of our towns and present them to our hosts the traffic problems,
air pollution, noise, metropolitan architecture, alienation (Krippendorf,
1987, cited by Ryan, 1991a: 46). Whilst the packaged show of culture can be
rationalised in that its objectives are limited to simply those of entertainment and generating an awareness of the traditions of a culture, it arguably
fails to achieve the latter limited purpose when it distorts the culture of the
hosts to fit tourists stereotyped images. For example, Pettifer (1987) argues
that to show bare-breasted African female dancers in Muslim areas of
Africa is a reflection of the culture of the tourists, not that of Africa.
In the 1980s it was increasingly being argued by academics that this was
a perverse presentation on the part of the tourism industry. Enthused by the
emergence of a middle-class broadsheet press and television media that
adopted a tone of responsible tourism, and partly in recognition of the
growing popularity of a green environmental movement, it was argued
that tourists simply did not want this form of 1950s Hollywood style
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clichd presentation of an exotic other. That view can still be found today, in
for example, the claims being made by Boniface (2001) that a new spirit of
tourism exists. Yet even as organisations such as Tourism Concern were being
created to voice this way of thought, some criticised the perspective as
ignoring the realities of the success of package holidays, and of advocating
inappropriate solutions. Notable among such critics was Wheeller (1990,
1993). In 1993 Wheeller coined the expression ego-tourist in an analysis of
ecotourism as simply the taking of tourism to previously unspoilt areas,
and as being inappropriate as a solution of mass tourism by simply ignoring
the nature of that tourism. For Wheeller, ecotourism was simply an additional form of tourism designed to smooth the fragile social sensitivities of
readers of the left-oriented press who wanted holidays with like-minded
people in destinations where they would not feel packaged or guilty. The
irony, of course, is that these tourists still used many of the services of the
distribution chain, used polluting means of transport and then initiated the
process of the destination lifecycle, which meant many previously small
communities would become engaged in tourism growth.
Many claims were made about an emerging new sophistication on the
part of tourists, and it can be argued that that is indeed true, but not perhaps
in the manner understood by academic commentators of the late 1980s. It
was true that tourists were experienced at being tourists. They had seen the
peep shows and the imitations and, especially as they were not limited to
one holiday a year, were clearer in their expectations and wants. In particular they wanted well-managed tourist resorts that permitted choice and
flexibility of arrangements. The need for such management was, and
continues to be, a two-sided need, for the host environment also needs
similar care if it is to maintain the qualities that attracted the tourists in the
first place. However the situation today is that the tourist, as Urry was to
note in 1990, is such a sophisticated animal that he or she could engage in
game playing. The modern (or should that be post-modern?) tourist is a
collector of places and experiences, and can happily collect both the
peepshow and the natural, unspoilt place that is offered by the ecotourist.
The tourist is a willing participant in the creator of meanings devoid of their
original context. The impact of films and their relationship to tourism is of
specific interest. Do, it might be asked, the tourists who visit Alnwick Castle
in Northumberland visit the home of the Percy Family (a significant family
in English history), or do they seek to familiarise themselves with the original location of the game of quidditch from the film of the mythical Harry
Potter? The castle, which incidentally has been used in many different films
(including Elizabeth about the sixteenth-century English queen of that
name), offers, legitimately, both stories and both can be enjoyed by the
tourist. The meanings of tourist space are not simply those associated with
the history and structure of a place meanings are not simply dominated by
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the supply side of the equation. Meanings are the consequence of human
thought, and such consequences are the outcome of a dialogue between
message signifier, sender and recipient. The recipients, in this instance tourists, therefore bring to the place their own perspectives, interpretations and
experiences, and use these to direct both the search for and the interpretation of messages for their own purposes in what they see, hear and do.
Accordingly, tourists are capable of utilising both the older forms of
tourism and the new, alternative products. Both types of products are
simply experiences created by capitalist systems into which the tourist as
consumer buys, adopts, modifies and uses as he or she sees fit.
Generating Tourist Satisfaction

Are there any possible links between the elements of the above discussion? What is being implied is that there is a process between initial
perceptions of destination image, consequent expectations, subsequent behaviours, and derived satisfactions. This link is contextualised through
interaction with and between the intervening variables presented by the
location, and the way the tourist responds to these variables. The response
is a two-stage process. There is initially a series of conscious and unconscious adaptations to the destination that are subsequently expressed
through sets of behaviour. These behaviours are generally directed by a
wish to achieve satisfaction, but the ability to adapt to the gaps that might
exist between the original perception and the actual experience becomes a
determinant of eventual satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The antecedents of
expectation creation prior to the trip are based on an interaction of personality and other attributes of consumer behaviour as tourists respond to the
images that are created of the destination, their own past knowledge and
experience and their assessments of the marketing efforts of the destination
promoter. The nature of travel to the destination may, at least in the initial
stages of the holiday, colour perceptions. Was it, for example, a trouble-free
journey? During the first days of the holiday, the tourist will learn about the
resort and what it has to offer. Gaps may then exist between expectation
and reality, but the nature and seriousness of the gap depend both on the
perception of the problem and the internal processes of adjustment. Part of
this process depends on the possession of certain skills, for example social
and adaptive skills. The result is that a series of behaviours are engaged
upon that have has their objective the creation of a satisfactory feeling about
the holiday. The level of satisfaction achieved in turn becomes feedback in
the system in that it shapes knowledge for the next holiday.
This process is reflected in Figure 5.4, which highlights the role of the
personality of the tourist. Personality is a factor that helps formulate motivation and sets of expectations, as indicated on the left of the figure. The
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10 April 2003 11:32:05
124
Marketing
and image
projected
by the
destination
Past
experience
and
knowledge
Expectation
Motivation
Travel experience
Personality
Social class
Life style
Life stage
Ethnic nature of
destination
Number of
sites/activities
available
Quality of
accommodation
Nature of
destination
ease and nature

of accessibility
to destination
comfort
delays
Intervening variables
Antecedents
P
E
R
S
O
N
A
L
I
T
Y
W
I
T
H
I
N
T
E
R
A
C
T
Nature of
social
interaction
with hosts
and fellow
tourists
Perceived
gaps
between
expectation
and reality
Ability to
obtain
required
relationships
to acquire a
sense of
belonging
Ability to
engage in
cognitive
dissonance,
displacement
activity and
belief
suspension
Ability to
identify
authentic
and
inauthentic
events
the location of
favourite
activities
Activity patterns
the location of
favourite places
Travel patterns
Behaviour
Satisfaction or
dissatisfaction
Original
expectation fulfilled
or amended
Outcome

120
Figure 5.4 The link between expectation and satisfaction

121
interaction of the personality with the travel experience and the nature of
the resort area both generates perceptions of gaps between the resort zone
and expectations, and also governs the nature of interactions with others.
But then certain social and psychological skills also come into play in the
sense of being able to perceive authenticity, suspend disbelief when
required, and conduct positive sets of relationships. These attributes help
shape travel and activity patterns that permit the fulfilment of the original
or amended expectations, and hence create satisfaction. Tourists do not
therefore assume a passive role, but utilise all the social and psychological
skills that they normally exercise within their home setting, and actually
engage in goal seeking, purposive behaviour the goal being the generation of a satisfactory experience. (Those who are interested can read a fuller
explanation and derivation of this model in Ryan, 2002e.) Indeed, the cynic
might say that it is this ability to generate a good time out of the sometimes
substandard accommodation provided by tour operators in the past that
has in fact produced the high satisfaction rates recorded by Lewis and
Outram (1986). Thus, they record that the flight was on time only in 27% of
cases, in 23% of cases good food was not available, and the courier was not
readily available in 30% of recorded cases. On the other hand, the weather
was good on 95% of occasions! In total, 54% of the respondents agreed that
there were some disadvantages to their holiday, and yet 69% also agreed
with a statement that they would advise their friends to go on the same
package holiday. The authors conclude that the data analysis indicated a
high level of overall satisfaction among the respondents with regard to
their package holidays. To which it can only be observed that, in view of late
flights, a high chance of poor food, and experiences of some drawbacks, this
indicates a high value placed on convenience and, it may be argued, a
strong level of determination to enjoy the holiday.
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Chapter 6
The Tourist Resort Zone

In seeking to analyse the tourist resort area it can be said that four
approaches exist. These are:
(1) The descriptive approach. Essentially this consists of creating an inventory of facilities and assets possessed by the tourist area, and
describing them. The description might also extend to a description of
the tourists perceptions of the area.
(2) The explanatory approach. This considers the patterns of travel and rates
of usage of facilities within the area, and attempts to explain them. It
notes the nodal points within the area, the routes taken by tourists
between these points, and the mode of travel used. It seeks to establish
the patterns of tourist travel and behaviour within the area.
(3) The predictive approach. If it becomes possible to establish patterns of
usage within the tourist area, then by definition it could become
possible to make predictions as to not only future patterns of use, but
also the future shape of the tourist zone. The predictive studies of an
area are thus concerned with trend analysis and the spatial interaction
between attractions within the zone.
(4) The prescriptive approach. Forecasts in themselves are of little purpose
unless used for management strategies in establishing priorities of
use. In the case of tourism, the establishment of priorities requires a
series of normative judgements, for the assets that are being used are
natural habitats and social groups and, possibly fragile, non-renewable assets with limited carrying capacities. In consequence, the structure plans of planning authorities contain prescriptions as to use in
terms of zoning levels of activity within the tourist resort.
In practice these are often overlapping approaches, for the descriptive
should lead to the explanatory, and so on, and thus any given technique
may serve more than one purpose. It will be argued that analysis of tourist
resort areas is a complex task, for the tourist zone is not static in either
spatial or temporal terms, and in addition there exists an inter-relationship
between the attributes of tourist attractions and the types of tourists being
attracted.
In describing the tourist area there is commonly a need to undertake an
audit of the attributes of the area, and Gunn (1979, 1982a, 1982b) suggests a
cartographic approach in his studies of Texas and Canada. Nine variables
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were identified; water resources, flora distribution, climate, topography,

history, aesthetics, visitor attractions, service centres, and route network.
Each of the nine variables was mapped, and the relative importance for an
area of each aspect was assessed by distributing 100 points between the
variables. The process can be simply completed by creating a series of
overlay maps which then highlight areas or features with the scores indicating greatest importance for tourism. Two immediate problems arise
with this approach. The first is the boundaries of the area. Usually a political or administrative area is studied, but of course tourist use does not
always recognise such boundaries, and the tourist zone may overlap
different administrative regions. In consequence, a second approach may
be adopted, and that is to undertake some perceptual or cognitive mapping
that consists of asking tourists to draw maps indicating the tourist attractions as they seem to them, and the spatial relationship between these facilities. Whilst both approaches establish boundaries, the problem of the
stability of those boundaries still remains. However, to ask tourists to
undertake perceptual mapping of an area does begin to quantify an answer
to the question of how strongly the area is perceived. The detail and accuracy of answers become a measure of how clearly delineated the area is, and
by implication, how mature a tourist attraction it is.
Today, the mapping of such features and the tracing of tourist movements are much easier than in the past. Advances in geographical mapping
and information systems combined with maps derived from satellite
images and positioning now permit much more detailed cartographic analysis than in the past. Some industries have become heavy users of such
facilities, including the utility industries that need to map gas pipes and
electricity lines. Within tourism-related industries, different national parks
systems around the world have quickly adopted the use of such technologies, which are used to plot changes in zones of vegetation, fire damage,
geomorphological features and so on. It is evident that such mapping
permits zones to be delineated much more accurately than in the past, and
thus there are implications for tourism where zoning is used as a form of
visitor control. For example, Delaney (1999) uses the situation of a
proposed new marina development as an example of GIS (geographical
information system) predictive modelling. If there is a raster grid cell layer
for land values, it becomes possible to mathematically derive the changes
of land values by using a distance decay curve. (A raster grid is simply a
zonal analysis where the final grid is the sum of the previous grids, and is
illustrated in Figure 6.1. So, for example, in the bottom grid the value of any
one cell is the sum of the previous overlays.) Additionally, a common use
made of cartographic modelling is where overlays of different land uses are
developed to identify zones within which permitted or non-permitted
activities might be allowed.
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Input grid 1
1
Input grid 2
8
Output grid
9
Figure 6.1 The development of raster grids for zonal analysis

One of the examples of current GIS applications in tourism has been that
of Forer and Simmons (Simmons & Forer, 1996). In a series of papers, they
applied GIS to data derived from New Zealands domestic and international visitor surveys which request, among other data, lists of destinations
visited. They have used these data in the mapping of New Zealand tourism
flows with computerised maps that include more than 2,400 different place
names. The analysis is, it is argued, of practical use for both government
and industry. For example, the maps clearly show that German tourists in
particular are being drawn to the west coast of New Zealands South Island.
Given the countrys regional economic policies and the wish to develop
new sources of employment for the area as employment associated with
logging declines, policies designed to extend the stay of such tourists could
have economic benefit. From an industry perspective, it is possible to interrogate the GIS database to find where visitors travel immediately prior to
visiting any given destination. It is argued that this might have practical
implications for a more optimal distribution of marketing literature to
tourist information centres; more optimal in terms of deriving advanced
bookings for accommodation and activities. The potential benefits of such
earlier booking include not only possible increased revenue, but also better
planning and more cost-effective allocation of resources to tour groups.
The Changing Nature of the Tourist Destination

Young (1983) and Miossec (1976), amongst others, have indicated how
the tourist attraction may change over time. Young, writing of the develop-
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ment of a Maltese village into a tourist resort identifies a six-stage process,

as shown in Figure 6.2. Initially the village is in its early traditional stage,
and its traditional economic functions still provide the main sources of
income for the village. Second, comes the late traditional stage, which is
characterised by the arrival of some summer homes and, in Youngs model,
by the arrival of a police station, which represents a need for higher levels of
security, perhaps for the winter period when the summer homes may be
empty. In many of these models, as will be discussed in Chapter 9, on the
social impacts of tourism, there is often a supposition that one is considering the arrival of foreign tourists, but this is not necessarily the case.
Indeed in many instances tourism is first developed by nationals of the
country where the tourist resort is located, these being the first to identify
the tourist potential of the location. Thus, for example, in the island of
Majorca, it was the wealthy classes from the capital, Palma de Mallorca,
who built their villas in the north at Alcudia and Porto de Pollensa. In
Youngs model therefore, it can be hypothesised that these summer homes
might belong to fellow Maltese escaping from Valetta.
The third stage in Youngs model represents the period of initial tourism
exploration, where tourist rooms and guest houses are being established.
The tourist area is now slowly beginning to change its shape and area. The
summer homes have been built on the perimeter of the village, thus
extending it. The guest houses may be creating a process of change of use of
village buildings. This is certainly the case in the fourth stage, the period of
early tourism involvement. The village might now be showing some signs
of the wealth accruing from tourism. In Youngs example, a new church has
been constructed; this is not only a symbol of new wealth, but is also a
continuation of traditional priorities. But the tourist complex has also
arrived, based on a new modern, luxury hotel. The original homes that
faced the harbour are being purchased, and their original use has changed
as they are used for souvenir shops and other enterprises based on the
tourism trade. Hence into stage five expanding tourism development. A
planning zone has by now been created to cope with the increasing
demands on land. This demand comes from at least two sources. There is
continued expansion of hotels and villas, and the village is also expanding
as it needs accommodation, schools and medical facilities to meet the
demands of a larger population; the tourist industry will either have
attracted migrant labour, stopping the past patterns of outward migration,
or will have attracted back those who previously had left their village in the
search for work. Finally, there is the stage of intensive tourism consolidation. By now there is little that resembles the original fishing village. The
very harbour itself will have become subject to a redevelopment plan and
is now a marina where luxury yachts have replaced the wooden fishing
boats of the past. It is, nonetheless, a past rediscovered and packaged for
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STAGE 2 (Late traditional)
STAGE 1 (Early traditional)
Historic
tower
Bay
PS
S
S
Church
Farmers homes
Fishermens homes
Shops / services
STAGE 3 (Initial tourism exploration)
S Summer homes
PS Police Station
STAGE 4 (Early tourism involvement)
A
New
church
TC
S
S
GH
S
TC Tourist complex
A Apartments
Commercial invasion
T Tourist rooms
GH Guest house
STAGE 5 (Expanding tourism

development)
STAGE 6 (Intensive tourism

consolidation)
Planning area
boundary
Sc
TC
A
TC
Sc
H
V
TC
A
H Hotel
V Villas
Sc New school
A
V
Ca
V
Ca Casino
R Redeveloped central area & waterfront
Figure 6.2 The evolution of a Maltese tourist destination
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tourists through the celebration of a fishermans day and the establishment of a marine museum. A casino helps to attract an international jet set,
and the rationale of the whole complex is tourism; it has no other purpose.
Thus the tourist resort has developed, and as Miossec (1976) points out, the
resort now has an image of its own. It is no longer perceived as being part of,
in this case, Malta, with the images that tourists would associate with
Malta, but now is clearly delineated in the mind of the tourist as being an
area in its own right. Thus, for example, Benidorm or Torremolinos are no
longer Spanish in their image, but rather something else. The tourist resort
area thus undergoes a change in terms of its area, its prime functions, and
even its image.
In essence what has been described is a lifecycle of the tourist resort
area, and associated with each stage of the resorts development are
different numbers and types of tourists. In the early stages, the supposition
could be that if foreign tourists are involved they are not only few in
number, but tend to be explorers as defined by Cohen (1974), or Plogs
allocentric tourists (Plog 1977, 2002). As the numbers grow, so the early
explorers leave, to be replaced by perhaps mid-centric tourists, until in the
stage of maturity these too are being replaced by psychocentric tourists.
There are many changes associated with the resort lifecycle. For example, it
is possible to distinguish a changing pattern of business ownership and the
intrusion of external capital over time. Initially the tourist industry is likely
to be dominated by small, local businesses. Local families will hire out their
rooms in bed-and-breakfast style accommodation, perhaps the wealthier
will speculate by purchasing land and building holiday homes for let. A
need will emerge for publicity material and perhaps the local authority will
respond by helping to establish and fund a local tourism association.
However, the association will soon find that it is dependent on external
bodies to disseminate its material to the tourism-generating markets, and it
will begin to find itself immersed in a system of commissions, inbound tour
operators and overseas holiday companies. Should it be successful it will
increasingly need to access more capital, which will require borrowing
from financial intermediaries or establishing partnerships with outside
organisations. There can come a point where those outside companies will
feel a need to exert more direct control so as to better ensure service quality
levels for its own clientele, or to maximise their profit from local operations.
Over time, the better-financed external business organisations will be
better able to buy the prime spots of land or indeed to change the whole
local focus of business and geography by building larger hotels, complexes,
retail malls and the like. Local businesses, according to this scenario, are
increasingly marginalised, spatially, financially and operationally in terms
of dealing with visitors that come from outside the region. The marketing of
the destination now lies in the hands of businesses that are primarily non-
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local; and it is they who manipulate and manage the image of the destination and decide those types of visitors to whom they will market the destination. Of course, some local businessmen will have done well from this
process, but even they will, for the most part, be dependent on the
marketing effort of others.
A significant issue is that, if a resort becomes dependent on external
sources of finance, marketing and resort development, then it can effectively become a prisoner of market forces that are oriented toward gaining a
rate of return on investments made. Part of Butlers (1980) original thesis of
a destination lifecycle was that resorts can experience a slowing of the rate
of growth of visitor numbers, and indeed reach a position where these
numbers consolidate, and then stagnate. If the numbers of visitors become
static, and this is associated with constant numbers of bed nights and
expenditure, then the implication is one of declining profitability as entrepreneurs need to finance refurbishment and enhancement from steady, but
non-growing, revenue flows. There exists the danger that cost-reduction
policies will be followed, and this can take the form of a declining level of
service or a delay in refurbishment and non-delivery of product enhancement. The resort then faces the possibility of decline, particularly if new
competitors emerge. Indeed Buhalis (2000, 2001) has suggested that, in the
Mediterranean, package holiday companies have deliberately engendered
competition between existing and emerging resorts so that as tour operators they can both indulge in product enhancement and keep accommodation costs down by threatening to switch demand through their own
marketing efforts. One implication of this scenario is that, if external private
sector finance is withheld from a resort, the public sector might well have to
finance development, or manage the issues associated with resort decline.
Accordingly local authorities will often adopt pro-development policies
(e.g. permitting the development of marinas, casinos, resort complexes) to
sustain the economic advantages that accrue from tourism, yet such policies inevitably create changes in the nature of the resort and the types of
visitors being attracted.
There are certainly a number of studies that have examined changing
patterns of locations and businesses over time. For example, Smith (1992)
traced the changing land use of Pattaya in Thailand, to develop a beach
resort model that has many commonalities with that described by Young.
In short, initially buildings are clustered around the beach, perhaps around
some key focal assets such as a jetty or a place suitable for the beaching of
boats. Eventually buildings are built in a linear fashion along the beach
front, and possibly service areas (for example, retail units) are then built
back from the beach. In due course, a greater intensity of building occurs
and there might even emerge a satellite business core that is built on the
approach road to the emergent resort.
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For their part, Kermath and Thomas (1992) analysed the geographical
relocation of tourism businesses in Sosa in the Dominican Republic and
found that over a period from 1979 to 1986 almost half of the informal
vendors had relocated. By 1987 foreigners owned approximately 75% of all
tourism formal sector businesses. Similarly Debbage (1991) found evidence
of growing degrees of oligopoly in the Bahamas with a spatial concentration of accommodation in the Nassau/Paradise Island area. In response to
observations made by Haywood (1992) Debbage indicates that financial
stagnation of the resort complex was very evident, as might be expected
from the formulation of the resort lifecycle described by Butler (1980),
which is described in Chapter 8. Haywood (1992) argues, for his part, that
large multinationals often wish to encourage business diversification
within a tourist zone, for a number of reasons. First, it represents some
diversification of financial risk, and second, it permits complementary
diversification of assets that add to the overall attractiveness of the tourist
zone by creating new activities and attractions of a nature in which the
multinationals have little business experience or interest. Haywood (1992)
also suggests an ecological model of the destination lifecycle, arguing that it
is one of the birth, death and changing numbers of businesses, each of
which evolves different strategies for survival. Destination zones are
dynamic entities, not simply systematic ones.
Further evidence for this is provided by Hovinen (2002), who examines
one of the first applications of Butlers lifecycle theory. This states that destinations proceed from an exploratory stage to one of involvement with
tourism to subsequent growth, consolidation and then possible decline or
rejuvenation. In 1981 Hovinen applied this to Lancaster County, the site of
the Amish communities in Pennsylvania. Returning twenty years later,
Hovinen (2002: 227) concluded that Although Butlers proposed later
stages of consolidation and stagnation do not fit well with the empirical
evidence of Lancaster County tourism trends ... his model still provides a
useful framework for description and interpretation in this case study.
Hovinen also comments that he found some evidence for the assertion by
Russell and Faulkner (1998, 1999) that resort development cannot be
explained solely in terms of logic and curvilinear relationships . There is a
need to conceptualise the unexpected and the serendipitous in terms of the
presence of movers and shakers, i.e. entrepreneurs who seek to break the
mould in developing entirely new enterprises.
One debate about the concept of the destination lifecycle has been to
what extent is it purely a descriptive process? Can it be used for management purposes is it possible to make predictions based on past flows of
visitor numbers? Haywood (1986) argues that an obvious method is to
examine the change of visitor numbers from one year to another, and to plot
such changes as a normal distribution with a zero mean to distinguish the
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stages of growth and decline of the resort. Wilson (1989) adopted this technique in her study of Scarborough, a mature seaside destination in Yorkshire, England, and she was able to distinguish, as Haywood suggested, six
clear historical periods from 1761 to 1988, with stagnation commencing in
the early 1950s. The same resort was studied by Cooper and Jackson (1989)
and by Lundtorp and Wanhill (2001). Lundtorp and Wanhill develop a
demand model of the resort cycle. In part they borrow from Morleys (2000)
model of tourist demand by attributing an importance to previous visits,
tourists predisposition to return to the zone, and the word-of-mouth effect
in recommending the site to others, so inducing them to visit. In consequence, at a period t, the market (M) will comprise those with knowledge of
the destination (Mt) and those without (MMt). If h represents the velocity
of dissemination of knowledge about destination D, then information will
spread to Mt x h x dt in the period dt. As more people get to hear of D, so the
number represented by MMt declines and the number who do know is
represented by the relationship (MMt)/M. Therefore the total increase in
the numbers knowing about D during a time, dt, will be:
dM t = M th
M Mt
M
dt M t < M
The solution of this differential equation is:

Mt =
M
1 + e ht+c
where c is a constant. Lundtorp and Wanhill then assume that c can be

defined as the velocity of information dissemination in the previous period,
and this assumption permits the derivation of logistic curve, which replicates the normal curve associated with a destination lifecycle, as is shown in
Figure 6.3 (which is simply a replication of Butlers original 1980 destination lifecycle). The curve is then applied to data about visitor numbers to
two locations, namely the Isle of Man in the United Kingdom and Bornholm in Denmark. Lundtorp and Wanhill conclude from their studies that
the destination lifecycle model fits observations fairly well in situations
where there are high levels of repeat visitors. Otherwise it is an approximation to what actually happens, and furthermore becomes increasingly
distorted ... to a point where the model collapses (Lundtorp & Wanhill,
2001: 962).
For her part, Agarwal (2002) approaches the issue from the perspective
of supply of facilities, and emphasises the structuring of accommodation
stock. Using the English seaside resorts of Minehead, Scarborough and
Weymouth, she traces changes in accommodation stock, visitor numbers,
visitor nights and expenditure. In her thesis she notes two forms of restruc-
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Number of tourists
turing, namely product transformation, which is concerned with new

product, and product re-organisation, which concentrates on enhancement
of core product. Associated with each of these forms of restructuring are
eight related strategies: product quality enhancement, diversification,
repositioning, adaptation, professionalism, preservation, collaboration
and product specialisation. Agarwal argues that these policies have been
successful in the case of Spanish resorts, but, particularly in the case of
Minehead, these strategies are failing because of a lack of finance. Additionally she suggests that in these instances restructuring is not occurring in
ways that best create competitive advantage. It can be noted, however, that
the conceptualisation of a rejuvenation phase in the destination lifecycle
does not necessarily imply success. As Agarwal notes, but does not pursue
in her article, the English seaside resort is now having to compete in a world
of greater consumer choice, including short breaks in cities and longer holidays in warmer climates.
It can be argued that the model of the tourist destination lifecycle is but a
model of what might happen if proactive resort planning, reinvestment
and refurbishment policies are not adopted. A failure to engage in such
approaches can lead to a decline in the resort a decline that leads to a deteriorating asset structure that can attract visitors only by continuous price
reduction, thereby impeding further the investment necessary to commence resort rejuvenation. Yet, equally, it is obvious that the changes being
described here must have significant impacts on the social and natural
environments, and these are discussed in subsequent chapters.
Time
Figure 6.3 Possible pattern of visitor numbers to a destination

After Butler (1980)
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The Role of Destination Image

To state the obvious, for a resort to develop, it must be attractive to
existing and potential visitors. For those who have yet to visit the resort
zone, the destination needs to project a positive image. The literature of
tourism contains many studies of tourist place image because such images
are important sources of information to potential visitors. Baloglu (1999)
suggests a model of visitation intention formation and argues that eight
key factors exist: the variety and amount of information available, professional advice, word of mouth, advertisements, non-tourism books/
movies/news, escape/relaxation motives, knowledge and prestige. These
eight factors impacted on visit intentions both directly and indirectly. They
indirectly impacted by being utilised by visitors within a framework of past
experience and evaluations of attractions, environment and values. It is
evident that many of these factors can be summed up as having importance
because they help the tourist formulate an image of the place. Gallarza,
Saura and Garca (2002) review the literature relating to destination image,
noting, for example, the different definitions of image used by past
researchers. For example, Lawson and Bond-Bovy (1977) referred to image
as being an expression of knowledge, impressions, prejudice, imaginations
and emotional thoughts that an individual has of a specific place. Reynolds
(1985) defined image as a mental construct developed by the consumer on
the basis of a few selected impressions among a flood of total impressions
that comes into being through a creative process of elaboration, embellishment and ordering.
It appears that the image of any destination is (1) dynamic because it is
subject to change, (2) often relativistic because generally a process of
comparison is involved, is (3) multiple in nature, because it involves many
different attributes and their evaluation, and consequently (4) generalisations about place do little to help in the promotion of any given resort. Two
linked questions emerge. First, does any place image per se possess
degrees of commonality with other place images? If image is relativistic
and comparative, then this implies that common sets exist within destination images, otherwise how else is image to be created and compared?
Second, does the search for destination uniqueness mean, on the other
hand, that in the final resort the image of any one place is solely unique to
that place? If this is the case, then it implies that image of any one place
cannot be assessed solely by the summation of, or product of, individual
destination attributes, and that individuals perceive places as being both
unique and sharing commonalities with other places. One of many such
studies that sought to identify underlying dimensions was that of Russel,
Ward and Pratt (1981). They found that four continua underlay affective
images of place: arousing vs. sleepy, pleasant vs. unpleasant, distressing vs.
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relaxing and exciting vs. gloomy. In a sense, therefore, this work predates,
and reverses, the much-cited work of Echtner and Ritchie (1991), who
discussed the issue of common functional attributes versus unique and
psychological features. Certainly, as they and others have subsequently
pointed out, most studies of destinations and places emerge with lists of
attributes specific to the destinations being considered. For example, it is
evident that seaside resorts will induce different sets of images from those
associated with cities. It is also evident that images of the same place can
differ among different sets of tourists, depending on the referential framework of the individual visitor. For example, in work commissioned by
Tourism Auckland, Ryan and Cave (2002) adopted a process of open-ended
questioning of English, Japanese and Chinese tourists to New Zealand and
of New Zealanders from Wellington and Christchurch about their perceptions of Auckland. Using content analysis aided by textual analysis
programs, they found that the different groups of respondents had quite
different images of the same city. Additionally, even though there were
commonalities between the Wellington and Christchurch visitors, nonetheless differences also existed. To summarise these differences the authors
stated that for the overseas samples Auckland represented a comfortable
urban escape from the world, while for the New Zealand sample Auckland
represented the outside world being present in New Zealand.
That image can comprise a long list of attributes was shown by SeakhoaKing (2002) in the pilot study for his research into the quality of tourist
destinations. Based on three methods of data capture (in-depth interviews,
focus groups and open-ended questionnaires) he sought to capture what
tourists meant by a high quality tourist destination. The final list of attributes mentioned numbered over 100 and ranged from the vague (all the
activities offered at the destination are good) to the very specific (the destination has a cheap taxi service, the destination has rubbish bins easily
accessible to the tourist). Echtner and Ritchie (1991) actually question
whether it is possible to fully analyse and understand destination image as
a concept. That it is possible to elicit lists of attributes of image from respondents is, however, demonstrated by a large number of studies in the literature. However, such lists may be time, place and respondent specific, which
would raise the question of the durability of any image. In a sense, however,
durability of image has as much to do with the dissemination of information about place, and the credibility attributed to the sources of information, as it has to do with the actual attributes of place. Issues of image have
to recognise the potential for, at least in the short-term, the lack of congruence between place and image. For example, new destinations may seek to
promote a certain image, but that image is unlikely to persist if the tourist
experience is other than what is expected. One can only conclude that,
while image of destination is important, it is also complex. It results from an
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interaction of visitor experience, promotional messages and actual physical

and service attributes, the evaluations attributed to those attributes by
actual and potential visitors, and is multi-dimensional, referential and
subject to change.
Measures of Physical Attractiveness

One of the factors that follows from the above discussion is that, in
describing the resort area, it is not sufficient simply to undertake an inventory of attractions. It is also necessary to have some measure of visitor
perceptions. Some simple measures concentrate on the numbers of attractions that have a degree of uniqueness. For example, within an area,
however defined, if there is only one of something, then it might be that its
uniqueness will call tourist attention to it and thus it becomes a heavilyvisited attraction. Uniqueness can therefore be measured as:
U=
where
1
Number of items having listed features
U = measure of uniqueness.
The truly unique feature thus has a value of 1 (i.e. 1/1). It is possible to
create a composite or aggregate uniqueness score where:
U=
where
1
1
1
1
1
+
+
+ ... +
F1 F2 F3 F4
Fn
F1 ... Fn are the features being listed.
The features listed may be separate features (e.g. the number of historical
homes, churches etc.) or they may be aspects of a particular attraction. For
example Leopold (1969) tried to create an index of uniqueness of rivers
based on 46 variables representing physical, biological and human usage of
rivers. A number of problems exist with this type of approach. First, there is
the definition of the region, the numbers of competing regions, and the
actual definitions and classifications of attractions to be adopted. The
numeric value ends up as simply hiding a number of evaluative judgements. The second problem is the difficulty of interpreting the numeric
scores that have in effect, been comparing the proverbial oranges and
lemons.
For these reasons the uniqueness approach has been falling out of
favour, overtaken both by better methods and by new technologies. Nonetheless it retains some value as a quick, back of the envelope type of
calculation. Another approach that has sought to quantify subjective
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assessments of geographical features has been the use of landscape photographs where respondents have been asked to measure on various
evaluative scales, the attractiveness of the landscape features (Fines, 1968;
Smith, 1983). The result of such measures is that the derived scales can then
be applied to other landscapes, thereby assessing the potential attractiveness of the landscapes or other tourist features. Amongst recent researchers
who have adopted this approach are Fairweather and Swaffield (2001). In
their work respondents sorted 30 photographs of landscape views of
Kaikoura (New Zealand) on a scoring scale that ranged from 4 to +4. They
were also asked to explain their choice. The scores were also used as data for
a factor analysis, and from this it emerged that five themes underlie
peoples perceptions of landscapes and land usage: ecotourism, maritime
recreation, the picturesque, family orientation and traditional coastal activities.
The problems associated with these approaches are self evident in terms
of interpreting results, but there is a purpose to the exercise. As described
below, one of the ways of predicting travel patterns within, or between,
tourist areas is the use of spatial modelling, or gravity models, and such
models require measures of attractiveness. These measures of uniqueness
etc. can therefore be used within the gravitational models. These are
discussed in more detail below. Another approach, so far little used in the
tourism literature, is that of hierarchical analytical techniques, as described
by Saaty (1980). The premise behind hierarchical techniques is that it is
difficult for tourists to rank or scale a series of features of attractiveness; but
it is possible for people to make comparisons, and to say that one feature or
facility is more attractive than another. Thus the respondent is presented
with a series of pair-wise comparisons and asked to state whether the two
items are of equal attraction, or one is more attractive or very much attractive than the other. It is as a result of these comparisons that a scale is developed. In his book, Saaty(1980) shows how the technique worked when
respondents were asked to assess the distance of cities one from another.
When used to quantify a variable, distance, where respondents did not
possess an exact knowledge, the technique produced an answer that highly
corresponded with measured distance. By inference, therefore, in cases
where known measured scales do not exist, the technique produces a value
that possesses objective meaning. It is these scores that can then be utilised
in spatial modelling. Unfortunately, the nature of the questioning required
to use this technique becomes tedious for respondents, who are continually
asked to make pair-wise comparisons between locations, and to assess,
using given scales, just how much more attractive one may be over another.
Once the list of destinations being compared is more than six, the numbers
of such comparisons where all destinations have to be compared, one with
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another, means that respondents have to be well motivated to continue

such assessments.
Other problems pertain to this approach. The image of a place, arguably
(following Fishbein, 1967; Ajzen, 1988), consists of two components. The
first is the belief about the place, and it is this that scales of attractiveness
may be measuring. The second component is the importance of the belief.
For example, it may be found that tourists rate an area as being very attractive, but still do not visit it because it is attractive on the basis of criteria that
are unimportant to them. This may seem to be a perversity of human
nature, in that the premise of attractiveness is that it attracts people to it.
But, to use Plogs (1977) typology, a psychocentric tourist may agree that
the Amazonian Basin is indeed attractive, meaning beautiful, but would
not wish to visit it. Equally, an allocentric tourist may agree that Banff
National Park is attractive, but again would not visit it. It may be that the
very word attractive poses problems, and hence researchers need to be
careful to distinguish between properties that actually attract/pull tourists to them, and those that are perceived as being beautiful but do not
pull the tourists.
It might be thought that the constructs of attitude towards what makes
an area attractive or otherwise are complex, but researchers utilising the
methods espoused by the American psychologist George Kelly have generally found that they are in fact comparatively few in number. Both Kelly
(1955) and Allport (1961) argued that people attempt to make sense of the
situations in which they find themselves, and in doing so create a list of
elements (such as holiday destinations), and then seek to differentiate
between them. This process of differentiation, the way in which two or
more things are alike and thereby different from a third or more things
(Kelly, 1955), thus forms a series of constructs. Each construct is bi-polar,
for the process of affirming something means that simultaneously something is denied. The third component of the attitude is the linking mechanism. This requires a judgement of each element by the use of the construct.
This linking element is essentially revealed by the form of a grid that
might be measured through ranking, or as a list of dichotomous attributes.
Utilising the method is comparatively straightforward. Respondents are
asked to indicate whether they like, dislike or feel unsure about certain
holiday destinations. From each of the like and dislike lists, four destinations are selected, and to these is added one destination about which
respondents might be unsure or indifferent. The respondent is then
presented with a group of three (a triad), compiled in such a way that they
contain either two likes and one dislike, or two dislikes and one like, or
one like, one dislike and one unsure. The respondent is then asked to
select which is the odd one out, and then to state why. The factor selected is
the construct. Generally it is found that respondents will repeat themselves
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after a comparatively short time; equally, any given sample will generally
produce a comparatively small number of constructs. The responses can be
analysed by statistical techniques to find the underlying themes. From the
viewpoint of practical research, comparatively small numbers of samples
are required, approximately two dozen. Gyte (1988), in a study of British
tourists to Mallorca, found that criteria being used to assess the attractiveness of the destination included: how good the beaches were, the variety of
sites, host attitudes, whether the holiday was active or peaceful, the cost of
the holiday, the scenery, the history and culture of the area, facilities,
whether the destination was spoilt by tourism, food and drink, and the
degree to which the culture was familiar or unfamiliar. Denis (1989) using a
sample of Canadian students found similar constructs, with culture,
climate, the degree of commercialism, scenery and familiarity accounting
for most of the responses.
In another study, Pike (2001, 2002) applied Kellys Triad to differing
samples to better identify those variables thought important in shortbreak holidays. Among these were driving time, ability to visit more than
one destination/attraction, beaches and other facets familiar to New
Zealanders such as wineries and walking tracks. Bowler and Warburton
(1986) utilised Kelly Grids to assess attitudes towards water resources in
Leicestershire, and found that the attractiveness of the resource was
assessed by scenic quality, leisure facilities, level of use, accessibility, size
and the resources naturalness. The actual attractiveness of the site to any
given tourist will, however, depend on the type of tourist, and the requirements of the holiday. Thus, with multiple holidaytaking occurring, the
tourist may want an urban setting for one type of holiday, and an unspoilt
rural setting for the next. The same destination can therefore be both attractive or unattractive depending on the type of holiday that is required. In
short, models that utilise measures of attractiveness cannot necessarily
regard attractiveness as an objective value without reference to the context
of use. Nonetheless, such a measure is required when seeking to explain
travel patterns.
Patterns of Travel Between and Within Resorts

Spatial models
One means of explaining travel between locations and within locations
has been spatial modelling, which owes its origins to Newtonian physics.
The law of gravity can be rephrased to state, Two tourist areas attract trade
from an intermediate (tourist generating) point in proportion to the size
(attractiveness) of the centres and in inverse proportion to the square of the
distances from these two tourist areas to the intermediate place. Initially
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developed in the 1930s by Reilly (1931) to trace retail patterns in the

southern USA, it can be expressed as:
Ta Pa d a
=

Tb Pb d b
where Ta = the proportion of trade attracted by location a from the

= intermediate point
Tb = the proportion of trade attracted by location b from the
= intermediate point
Pa, Pb = populations of locations a and b
da, db = distances from the intermediate point to locations a and b.
From the viewpoint of initial work in assessing retail location, size of
population was a sufficient criterion of attractiveness, but subsequent
studies began to replace this with other criteria such as floor space or retail
mix. Following, therefore, the redefinition of the concept by Huff (1966), the
basic model became:
Tij =
A aj d ijb
I
A
n =1
a
j
d ijb
where Tij = the probability of a trip from origin i to destination j

Aj = the attractiveness of destination j
dij = the distance between origin i and destination j
a and b are parameters to be empirically determined.
There are both practical and conceptual difficulties involved in the use of
such models. The first is, what measurement of attractiveness is to be used?
For example, in the case of Canadian tourism, Smith (1989) uses populations of areas on the basis that much Canadian tourism is prompted by
visiting friends and relatives. Ryan (1999b), in a study of New Zealand
conference centres, used the ratings of an expert panel to assess the attractiveness of such centres. In many cases the criteria of attractiveness are
quantitative, and rarely attempt to utilise measures of subjective attractiveness, although in tourism one would expect images of places to play a role
in determining travel. A second practical problem is determining the
values of the parameters a and b to be used. One method is essentially a
curve-fitting exercise, whereby the variables are applied to known data on
travel movement, and the values of parameters duly determined. These
values can then be transferred to a new situation. In undertaking this, reference can obviously be made to past studies, and with a computer the
process becomes relatively easy. The conceptual problem can be essentially
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summarised as whether a law of physics, which has no reference to human

behaviour or its motivation, can really be applicable to a subject such as
tourism? Even if one does incorporate subjective assessments into the
criteria used for measuring attractiveness, the question remains. Smith
(1989: 113) refers to this question, and argues:
This criticism was historically correct but is irrelevant, and is no longer
true. Stewart (1948) and Zipf (1946) ... based their formulations explicitly on an analogy to Newtons law of gravitation. Although their
models had no theoretical basis, it has been shown empirically that
their models and various modifications that developed were successful or more successful in forecasting travel patterns than models
derived directly from theory. Further, Niedercorn and Bechdolt (1966)
have derived the gravity model from existing economic theory. They
demonstrated that the gravity model is a logical and theoretically
sound solution for the problem of maximising individual satisfaction
subject to time or budget constraints. (Smith, 1989: 113)
Ryan (1999b), however, points to the significant amount of data that such
models use, as the New Zealand study required travel time estimates
between a comparatively large number of competing centres, and had to take
into account car, ferry and air transport. Again, however, advances in
computer technology and cartographic systems that incorporate travel times
make such systems easier to use than in the past. Afurther point that needs to
be borne in mind about the technique is that it has a tendency to over-predict
short trips and to under-predict long trips (S.L.J. Smith, 1989; Ryan &
Richardson, 1983). This tendency can be adjusted by using various weightings.
Mayo and Jarvis (1986) have some useful comments about the spatial/
psychological dimensions of space as they relate to gravitational models.
The usual assumption is that distance is an inhibiting factor in travel, but
this is obviously not necessarily the case. Mayo and Jarvis enumerate six
factors that will influence inter- and intra- tourist destination travel:
(1) gravity a force that stimulates travel, pulling people to a destination;
(2) friction of distance a force that deters travel;
(3) start-up inertia a force acting to impede travel of any length, no
matter how short;
(4) inertia of movement a force acting to reduce the effect of friction of
distance (i.e. momentum);
(5) subjective distance a force stimulating travel beyond a certain point
because each additional mile is perceived to be less than a measured
mile; and
(6) the attraction of the far-off destination some travel to a destination
simply because it is far off.
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They argue, on the basis of studies of perceptual mapping, that subjective distance increases proportionately less than objective geographic
distance does, but that, as subjective distance increases, the attraction of
the destination grows for the tourist. An example of this is Fiji. For many
British tourists, Fiji would be an exotic destination, and they would not
realise that it is in fact a built-up tourist destination catering for the
Australian market. One of the possible implications is that, if gravitational models are being used to study movements between tourist areas,
then perhaps the distance component within the formula may have to
reflect the subjective distance as described by Mayo and Jarvis (1986).
Another variable that may influence the pattern of travel, both within
tourist areas and between tourist destinations, is that of travel time. If, as
appears to be the case, in large urban areas that are also tourist attractions
(such as London), the average speed of travel is 10 mph, then time
becomes a consideration. It is also one of the perversities of modern flight
that the time taken to travel from home to actually sitting in the aircraft
may be longer than the time actually taken to fly several hundred if not
thousands of miles. Travel time rather than distance per se might thus be
the friction in the gravitational model.
Nearest-neighbour models
A related question is whether, in looking at a tourist area, the attractions are clustered or randomly distributed. Arguably random distribution is an inhibiting factor in tourist travel. A planning authority might
therefore be seeking to locate new attractions in places that create logical
travel patterns. The word logical, in practice, obviously requires careful
definition. For the current purpose it might mean the location of attractions in positions that help engender tourist visits, alternatively they may
be in positions that help protect fragile areas. Accordingly various
measures of dispersal have been created. Ten patterns of dispersal can be
identified; each of the ten in turn being based on combinations of patterns
on linear, uniform, clustered, dispersed or randomly arranged formations. Figure 6.4 illustrates this.
Associated with each pattern is a range of values derived from various
techniques such as nearest-neighbour analysis. This approach has been
used for a number of problems as diverse as measuring distribution of
flowers in a field (Clark & Evans, 1955; Pielo, 1959), shopping patterns in
Nottingham (Whysall, based on cartographic analysis, 1974, 1989) and the
provision of urban recreation facilities (Lovingood & Mitchell, 1978; Rolfe,
1964). When applied to tourism, the technique seeks to assess whether or
not there is any order in the location of facilities.
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10 April 2003 11:32:11
Figure 6.4 The distribution of spatial patterns
Source: Kariel & Kariel (1972)
145
Random clustered
Linear cluster
uniform
Uniform linear
clustered
Uniform clustered
Random dispersed
Linear uniform
Linear random
Linear uniform
dispersed
U
C
D
R
=
=
=
=
=
Uniform
Clustered
Dispersed
Random
Linear
Linear dispersed
Uniform dispersed


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142
Essentially the nearest-neighbour statistic is a ratio between the actual

mean distance between neighbouring features, and the expected mean in a
randomly distributed pattern of equal density. It can be expressed as:
R=
Ra
Re
where R = nearest neighbour statistic

Ra = actual mean distance to neighbour
Re = expected mean in a random distribution of equal density
and Re in turn is the reciprocal of the square root of the density of points
multiplied by 2, i.e.
Re =
1
2 D
The calculation of density will in part depend on the nature of the shape
of the area being considered. In looking at linear shapes, Re has the value of
0.5(L/n-1), where L is the length of the line and n is the number of points or
attractions being considered. Smith (1983, 1989) provides examples of
calculations. The resultant value of the calculation can be compared to a
series of known values. Thus for example, if R = 1 then there is a random
pattern, if R = 2.14 there is a hexagonal pattern of Christallers central place
theory (1964). Should R have a value of less than 1, then a cluster is
emerging, but above a value of 1, more uniform spacing is occurring. There
are some criticisms of the approach. For example, in interpreting the result,
some different patterns may be associated with the same value of R. Smith
(1989) raises the point that it is important where the boundaries are drawn,
as this changes the value of Ra. One might also question just how satisfactorily the technique deals with vacant or empty sectors. In addition, the technique is essentially concerned with pair-wise relationships within the area.
Morisita (1957) and Whysall (1974) further refine the approach to overcome
these objections by imposing quadrants on the area in question and looking
at clusters within the quadrant. Morisitas Index of Dispersion is thus given
as:
Id = qx
where x =
ni ( ni 1 )
N( N 1)
where q = number of quadrants

ni = number of quadrants containing i units
N = total number of units in the pattern.
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Nearest-neighbour analysis thus becomes a planning tool in that it can

be combined with gravitational models. The planner can not only look at
the forecast probability of trips between locations or between attractions
within the same tourist area, but can assess the logic of the location of the
new site according its spatial relationship with others. In short, nearest
neighbour analysis might help in locating a logical location for a new
attraction, and gravity models will predict the probability, and the magnitude, of flows of tourists to the new site.
It has to be admitted that the numbers of applications of such tools
being reported in the tourism literature are few and, given the current
direction of human geography and geographers seeming obsession with
post-modernistic interpretations of space, then it is unlikely that this situation will change. Indeed, even such a conventional geographer as Doug
Pearce (who makes reference to gravitational modelling in his book,
Tourism Today: A Geographical Analysis) confines nearly all of his examples to
studies undertaken before 1990. Stephen Williams (1998), in his analysis of
tourism geography, makes no reference to such modelling. Norton (2000)
analyses the decline of spatial modelling, arguing that it was founded in a
positivistic tradition, and was important in the 1960s and 1970s to the point
where it dominated much of geographical thinking. From the perspective
of the English-speaking world, it can also be noted that this was a period of
rapid expansion in retail development with a need for studies relating to
store and warehouse location, and was also a period of establishment of
new towns (particularly in the United Kingdom) with needs for spatial
planning. Such models also lent themselves to the new computer-based
modelling that was emerging. However, Norton states that in the final
resort it contributed little to cultural geography, partly because it was
perceived as dehumanising, and indeed Norton concludes that cultural
geography has not been able to retrospectively single out any aspects of
spatial analysis that might be of value (Norton, 2000: 193). Hall and Page
(1999) provide a detailed discussion of the contribution made by geography to the study of tourism, and in their own book The Geography of
Tourism and Recreation (1999) provide examples of spatial patterns of distribution both of infrastructure and of visitor use of space. Yet, in the latter
case, the most detailed case they provide is derived from the work of the
late Sue Glyptis and her published study of visitors to Westwood Common
near Hull, in the United Kingdom. Glyptis (1981), by her use of nearestneighbour analysis, was able to demonstrate that visitors used only about
20% of the space available to them, that specific patterns of site usage could
be discerned, and that carrying capacity was not a fixed entity. It might also
be observed that even in the journal, Tourism Geographies, articles on gravitational modelling and its derivatives are notably infrequent, and thus it
might be concluded that geographers are increasingly being seduced by
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new forms of analysis. Yet these new forms of analysis would appear to
require a greater analysis of sociological, psychological and economic
trends than those associated with traditional geography. It might also be
asked why geographers want to deny their own traditional concerns with
spatial relationships, geology and geomorphology where their skills have
much to offer.
Econometric models
Nonetheless, the use of gravitational and related models, particularly if
allied with GIS, makes it possible to forecast the effect of various changes on
visitor flows. For example, any change in one of the variables within the
model that relates, say, to attractiveness of the resort because of an enhancement to the visitor attractions, to a diminution of travel time because of
increased accessibility or to changes in population can be assessed with
reference to numbers of visitors to that resort. However, such modelling
initially implies that the coefficients a and b are constant, which may not
necessarily be true over longer periods of time. While these coefficients can
be changed, there must be good reasons for alternative values. Additionally, if the forecasts are to be valid, it is probably necessary to
disaggregate visitor numbers into different sectors based on variables such
as interest, ethnicity, age and income, thereby again requiring very high
levels of information. While not wanting to diminish the practical issues
that surround the use of such models, examples of possible applications
exist. For example, in 1992 the English Tourist Board introduced a
computer-based model for examining flows of visitors to recreation centres
and potentially to other sites (ETB, 1992). Based on gravitational modelling,
the software permitted not only an estimation of clients movements, but
also, by incorporating revenue and cost estimates, extrapolated the
numbers of visitors into revenue and cost flows.
Yet, in spite of such advances, the numbers of such applications are few,
particularly when compared to the use of econometric modelling in forecasting international visitor movements. Reference has already been made
(in Chapter 2) to some of the studies by Witt and Martin (1985) and
Quayson and Var (1982). To briefly reprise their arguments, the validity and
reliability of econometric models in tourism rest on a number of requirements. Technically problems such as multi-collinearity may have to be
avoided, i.e. the variables perceived as determining variables will need to
be independent of each other. This will be difficult to achieve. If, for
example, exchange rates and real incomes are perceived as potential determinants of demand for tourism, there is a need to recognise that exchange
rates and real income may in fact be linked variables in terms of their
economic relationship. Adverse exchange-rate movements may increase
the rate of inflation within a country by increasing the price of imports
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including consumer durables and raw materials, and increased inflation

reduces real incomes, even whilst increasing the cost of overseas holidays.
In the absence of countervailing processes, ceteris paribus, the demand for
tourism would be expected to fall. But what proportion of the reduction in
demand is due to adverse exchange rates or falling real income? Apart from
these problems, for which there are statistical techniques to help, it has to be
recognised that econometric models for tourism require large amounts of
data. Even comparatively simple models might require data on the costs of
transport, travel time and departure frequency (important for business
travel), the characteristics of the destinations, the relative costs of activities
at the resorts, socio-economic data about consumers, income data, exchange rates, and differential inflation rates between competing tourist
destinations and the tourist generating countries. All these data will be
required for each of the years under examination. A further problem then
emerges, and that is the quality of the data. There are well-known problems
with some tourism data. Hotel occupancy rates are a particular problem if
the sample needs to be representative, because smaller hotels in particular
may make returns infrequently. Regulations on the need to register guests
may vary from one country to another. Theoretically the quality of this data
should improve with an increasing adoption of computerised reservation
systems that will print out tables of occupancy rates on demand. Data on
international travel are also, in some cases, prone to what is in effect double
counting. British tourists who land at Calais and proceed to drive into
Belgium, then through Germany on their way to ski in Austria may be
counted four times, even though the duration of their stay in France and
Belgium may be quite short. Figures of cross-boundary movements may
include shoppers who, living in the locality, may simply cross the border to
take advantage of lower prices or tax differences. They nonetheless may be
counted amongst the arrivals. The sampling points of cross-border traffic
may be comparatively few in terms of not simply counting tourists, but
seeking further data, eg on the purpose of the visit.
Implications for Planning

The above discussion has centred on such questions as, what tourist
facilities exist, how they are to be described, what their components are,
how attractive they are, what numbers of people are likely to come, what
patterns of transport might emerge, and similar tactical questions. But it is
vitally important to ask the strategic questions, how many tourists do we
want and how many can the host environment sustain, both physically and
socially? This requires a concept of carrying capacity, and a recognition that
management of tourist areas is not simply a question of tourist promotion.
There is little to be gained from increasing visitor numbers if the result of
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such numbers is an increasing hostility to tourists, and a downgrading of

the very factors that attracted the tourists in the first place. The management of tourist resort areas requires that the tourist experience is enhanced
even while the benefits to the host area are maximised and the dis-benefits
minimised. The product lifecycle of the tourist resort area as initially
described would appear to have an in-built logic to growth and inevitable
decline. The process is not automatic. The host community may in fact
choose not to permit tourist development beyond a certain point. This is,
however, difficult to achieve. It requires that the host community has some
other sources of economic wealth that permit employment and income, or
that the community has a strong cultural and organisational bond whereby
it is able to dictate the terms on which it permits tourism, and is able to
control its own members (some of whom will want to encourage tourism
development). In many instances the cycle is not completed for reasons
beyond the control of the community, for example tour operators might
find other resort areas more willing to permit the developments they wish
to foster. These questions will be discussed in more detail in the following
chapters. They do, however, add another dimension to what is meant by
the tourism area. The tourist resort area is not only a geographical entity
that may change spatially over time, it is also a reflection of norms and attitudes that become expressed through the type of tourist development that
is permitted. It is a cultural entity. The nature of the culture it reveals is a
reflection of the strength of the host community norms and aspirations. Yet,
even this truism, as Murphy (1978) shows, needs careful assessment, for it
cannot be held true that the host community is homogeneous, and the
tourist resort area often becomes a meeting place of different sets of values
and concepts. In consequence, the tourist resort area is a catalyst of change,
a physical reminder of questions about what a society wishes to achieve.
The place where tourists play out their fantasies, relax, seek to satisfy their
cultural curiosity about another land or travel to museums, is thus not
simply a statement about the tourist, but is also a statement about the area,
region or country that has permitted the tourist resort area to take place. In
practice, therefore, the tourist destination is a place of power structures and
political processes. Consequently it is also a place of unequal sets of power
nodes, where, for example, business interests are often better able, through
access to finance if not political decision takers, to better present their side
of the argument. Because tourism is a consumer activity that takes place
within the social environment that produces the product, it is more highly
visible than are many other economic processes. The development of the
resort or destination therefore implies a need for political structures that
legitimise and give voice to different stakeholders if development is to
proceed in a manner that is acceptable to the competing interests that exist
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within a destination. It is these questions that will form the content of the
next three chapters.
It has become a clich that the impacts of tourism can be categorised as
economic gain versus social and environmental loss. It will be argued that
the issues are not as clear cut as this; and that it is possible to regenerate
natural environments and social communities, but that there is a need for
careful planning if this to occur. However, such planning is difficult to
obtain, is accompanied by political processes, and requires continued
monitoring to better reflect changing realities. Indeed, as will be noted, it is
these very requirements that led some to argue that market mechanisms are
the best means by which optimal solutions might be gained.
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Chapter 7
The Economic Impacts of Tourism

Introduction
It has become a clich to state that tourism is the worlds largest
industry. Many writers make this claim and support the contention by
citing World Tourism Organisation and/or World Travel and Tourism
Council data on shares of Gross Domestic Product or the numbers of
passengers flown. To be honest, this author does not know the veracity of
this claim, for much depends on the definitions and the methods of
counting used. There are few alternatives or comparisons offered when
this contention is made. Perhaps information technology, food production or entertainment are really the worlds largest industries, because
they are just as pervasive in the daily lives of most people, perhaps even
more than tourism. Does the claim really matter? Perhaps it was a claim
made simply to attract the attention of politicians and those who fund
research, many of whom, or so it is said, have difficulties in treating
seriously the claims of importance from an industry or field of study that
is concerned with pleasure and fun. To study tourism seems to offend the
traces of puritanical thought that remain in Western culture (Hall & Page,
1999)! In many senses the claim of being the biggest is inconsequential.
What can be stated beyond any doubt is that tourism is a major economic
force in the world economy and therefore one purpose of a chapter such as
this is to reiterate, albeit briefly, the importance of tourism as an economic
activity. However, economic importance goes beyond the parading of
numbers that quickly date, for the issues are often ones of who is being
employed, where and who are they, what levels of remuneration are being
gained, what costs are being sustained, and what are the consequences of
these patterns of income and employment? In turn such issues generate a
subsidiary set of questions how are these flows and impacts to be
measured, what data exist, and how might such data be used? The generation of data, however, does more than simply permit measurement, for a
series of other questions comes to the fore. These questions include: what
are the associations between tourist expenditure and income in the form
of wages and profits, are there interactions between investment flows and
job creation, what is the nature of such relationships, and is it possible to
conceptualise and predict from the proposed models? Such questions
form the content of this chapter.
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The chapter will therefore commence with an overview of the economic

benefits of tourism and the nature of the benefits. It will describe the theories behind the multiplier process on the premise that this model
adequately describes the ways in which benefits are distributed through
the economic system. Adopting this approach also acknowledges the
pioneering work undertaken by people such as Brian Archer in the 1970s
(Archer, 1980). The chapter then undertakes a review of the findings
derived from this approach, followed by a discussion of the related technique of inputoutput approaches, expenditure modelling and tourism
satellite accounts. Within this discussion a number of leit motifs are
identified, and these include issues pertaining to income and employment
generation. Because multiplier effects partly depend on structural factors, a
discussion on the nature of employment and its productivity is also
included. Additionally a description of the problems involved in estimating economic impacts is offered. Some of these are common to different
methodologies, and hence some points are repeated, but this is done to
specifically emphasise the advantages and disadvantages of the various
methods that are used to estimate economic impacts of tourism.
The Economic Benefits of Tourism

The economic benefits of tourism can be classified as being primarily
eight-fold.
(1) First there is the earning of foreign exchange that results from the
spending of overseas visitors and contributions to exports. Equally, of
course, the spending of a countrys citizens overseas represents a loss
to the economy. and is thus entered as an import.
(2) Visitor spending represents a source of taxation revenue for the
government of the tourist-receiving country. This may be quite direct,
as a specific tax on visitors, or through the normal mechanisms of indirect taxation such as a sales tax or value-added taxation.
(3) Visitor spending generates profit for those businesses in tourism and
those organisations that in turn provide services and capital to the
tourism industry.
(4) Employment is created.
(5) Various economic benefits are derived from what Dwyer and Forsyth
(1998) termed externalities. These are defined as above-normal
profits through transport operations such as airports, port expenditure (including crew expenditure) in short operations that would not
occur if it were not for travel and tourism.
(6) There are the impacts on the terms of trade that can be beneficial as
demand for a currency arising from tourist movement alters the cost of
that currency against other currencies.
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(7) Of particular importance to small economies, tourism permits the gain

of economies of scale. For some countries this can be quite significant.
For example, in the case of New Zealand, which has a population of
about 4 million people, the 2 million overseas visitors each year represent substantial increments to demand that permit economies of scale
in some operations. Indeed, arguably this effect is not restricted to
countries that have small populations. Thus the UK, with a population
of about 58 million, still derives economies of scale in various industries associated with travel by receiving about 20 million overseas visitors each year.
(8) Finally tourism offers the opportunity for a redistribution of income
and employment to regions that are traditionally peripheral to the
mainstream of economic life. This is because many of tourisms assets
(such as historical heritage and scenery) may be found in zones now
marginal to the urban, First-World countries that dominate the
twenty-first century.
It should be noted that each of these categories is not only a potential
gain, but also a possible cost. Tourist-receiving countries are also touristgenerating countries, and so both positive and negative financial transactions can occur. In some instances it is the flow of tourist numbers that
generates the economic benefits, and the direction of the flow may be
immaterial. This is at its most evident in people handling and transport
systems. From the perspective of airport operations, other than in the case
of migration, most travel requires both an outward and a return trip, and
thus the revenue gained by an airport is dependent on numbers of clients.
Whether these are residents flying out and then returning, or overseas visitors arriving and then departing is, in a the narrow sense of revenue generation for an airport, immaterial. Again, it can be argued that marginal zones
sustain values and environments that possess values not caught by
economic values measured by market transactions, and that to develop
them as part of mainstream economic activity implies losses as well as
gains. The nature of some of these losses is examined in Chapters 8 and 9.
Finally, it should be noted that, while there is a presumption that tourism
tends to generate specific economic benefits, it should be remembered that
this is not automatically the case. Indeed one of the implications of the
destination lifecycle considered in Chapter 6 is that economic success may
turn to failure with significant longer-term costs. Indeed Arell (2000)
provides a longitudinal study of the Swedish resort zone of the Trna
Mountains from the 1920s to the early 2000s and concludes his study in a
period when construction has stopped and property prices have fallen to
half of their value in the 1990s. In short, there is no guarantee that tourism
will sustain economic success.
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The Economic Value of Tourism

In both developed and developing countries government authorities
have identified tourism as a means of generating employment and income
in vulnerable economies. For example it was noted that, among the 49 leastdeveloped countries surveyed by the World Tourism Organisation (WTO)
in 2001, in 7 cases tourism was the leading source of foreign exchange earnings, while in 10 others, tourism earnings were among the top three sources
of foreign exchange income (WTO, 2001a). Nonetheless, such countries
account for only 0.59% of total international air passenger kilometres
(WTO, 2001a). But it is argued that, from one perspective, such small
market shares indicate the levels of progress that can be made with carefully planned small tourism flows. Thus countries such as Ethiopia
launched development plans for 20002005 in an attempt not simply to
attract more visitors but to develop an infrastructure appropriate to their
own needs as well as those of the tourism industry. In the First World it can
be claimed that one of the environmental successes of tourism has been the
revitalisation of nineteenth-century decaying waterfronts and associated
urban renewal. Different cities, including Baltimore, Sydney, Birmingham,
Liverpool and Boston, have been able to reclaim former decaying ports or
canals in phased developments. Here the attractions created for tourism
have been an important part of a retail and restaurant mix that is also attractive in creating an ambience for the offices of the service sector industries
such as finance, insurance, consultancy and legal services. Consequently
such zones bring employment, and in many cases they also contain residential areas. In some cases sporting success has been a catalyst for urban and
waterfront renewal, but tourism has sustained demand once the initial
event has taken place. Fremantle and Auckland offer two such examples
based on the defence of yachtings Americas Cup (Barker et al., 2002).
In short, major initiatives have been and continue to be generated. In Eire
the governments plan for National Recovery of 1987 targeted a number of
key industries to generate prosperity. One of these was tourism. In the UK
the English Tourist Board (ETB) in 1987 published its planning document
Vision for England (HMSO, 1987). Under these plans a public sector
investment of 570 million was planned to develop a total investment of $4
billion by 1992, with the creation of an additional 250,000 jobs. Just over a
decade later, in the report Tomorrows Tourism, the Department for Culture,
Media and Sport (UK) noted that tourism, with 1.75 million jobs in 125,000
businesses, accounted for about 13% of all new jobs created in the previous
decade, was worth 53 billion annually, and attracted about 25 million
overseas visitors to Britain (DCMS, 1999). The document than proceeded to
list 15 action points to create a tourism strategy; these ranged from a better
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use of information technology, better marketing and more staff training to

policies designed to ensure sustainability.
In the 1970s the French government partly financed developments in the
Languedoc-Rousillion region of the south not only to relieve tourism
congestion on the Cote dAzure, but also to generate employment and
income in an area perceived as having a marginal economy. Policy consideration and implementation for this region has continued over the intervening decades, and a summary of these was provided by the 1999
conference hosted by the GermanFrench planning seminar of the Institute
of Regional Planning and Regional Sciences (1999).
Such pressures for tourism development come from many different
sources. For example, local government seeks to attract funding to support
tourism development as a means of revitalising waste land and so
converting it into a prosperous area that becomes, not a drain on local
authority resources, but an actual contributor to the tax revenues through
higher property taxes and other forms of tax revenues. Hoteliers and other
commercial interests are also an important pressure group for tourism.
Thus, for example, in the 1960s, the British Hotel industry continued to
press government for grants similar to those given to manufacturing
industry in areas where unemployment was higher than the national
average. Indeed, partly as a result of this pressure, the government
responded with the Hotel Incentive Development Scheme in 1969, which
offered grants to all hotels regardless of area (HMSO, 1969). However,
when the industry sought to obtain better recognition of tourism and to
obtain tax, grant and administrative concessions prior to the UK governments 2000 budget announcement, it was less successful.
There is little doubt that in many cases the economic importance and
consequences of tourism have brought it into the political arena, as is
discussed in Chapter 9. If, however, the tourism industry is going to seek
specific concessions from both central and local government, it is then
necessary to understand the nature of the determinants of economic
impacts, and how they might react to policies designed to promote the
interests of the tourism industry.
The Determinants of Economic Impacts

The determinants of the economic impacts of tourism and the modelling
of those impacts depend on the unit of analysis that has been selected. For
example, if one is seeking to examine the impact of tourism on a national
economy, then, as noted in Chapter 2, a range of macro-economic variables
need to be discussed. For example, just as exchange rate movements were
identified as a determinant of international tourism demand, so too any
contribution made by tourism earnings to the balance of payments may
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well in turn impact on the value of the currency of the tourist-receiving

country as its balance of payments records either a deficit or surplus. Therefore one unit of measurement to be defined is the time period to which a
study applies. Again, when assessing the economic impacts of an event, or
the flows of tourist movements through a local government administrative
region, issues specific to that event or region might arise. However, for
success in tourism at national, regional or local levels, some basic factors in
calculating economic impacts would seem to apply. Places and events must
be attractive to people who do not ordinarily live there. Transport systems
must make the host region accessible, and that region must possess an
infrastructure that is able to derive revenue from those visitors. For
example it must maintain an appropriate accommodation stock, as the
duration of stay and the nature of accommodation used are key determinants of the generation of income from tourism.
Hence, even this simple description of process indicates a number of key
variables that must be considered when assessing the economic impacts of
tourism. Therefore, it might be useful to list the variables that might be
important in order to develop a context for more detailed discussion. The
first of these is the structure of tourism and the infrastructure of the tourism
industry itself within the designated zone. As Dwyer (2000) comments:
It is the net visitor expenditure that determines the economic contribution of tourism to a destination. In general the magnitude of leakages
will depend on such things as the structure of ownership and control
(of) the tourism industry, the type of accommodation and other
tourism facilities offered, and the extent of linkages between tourism
and other sectors such as agriculture, food processing and manufacturing. (Dwyer, 2000: 93)
Several variables need to be considered.
The level of economic development of the destination area
The size of the economic unit being considered is important. If a hotel is
built and attracts visitors, there is a significant difference between whether
that hotel is built in a town or a village. Within a town the spending of hotel
guests will represent but a small proportion of total spending. But in a
village it will be a significant addition to the total income of the village,
subject to the important proviso that the expenditure of the guests and the
hotel actually does take place in the village.
The nature of the tourist facilities and their attractiveness
The nature of the tourist facility helps to determine the total expenditure
that takes place. As will be discussed below, generally a higher proportion
of any one pound, euro or dollar spent in farmhouse accommodation will
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remain in the local area than is the case if the money is spent in a hotel. This
reflects the fact that the farmer (or spouse) has a greater propensity to buy
goods and services locally. However, against that fact, visitors staying in a
hotel are more likely to be paying more for their accommodation. Although
a smaller proportion of tourist expenditure in hotels finds its way into the
local economy, it is nonetheless a smaller proportion of a much larger sum
of money. Therefore, in strict terms of additional revenues the local
economy may gain more from the hotel than from the farmhouse. This
argument is, however, totally negated if the visitors do not find the hotel to
their liking, and tourists are in fact demanding the experiences associated
with staying with local farmers.
The degree of foreign or out-of-region ownership of hotels and
tourism infrastructure
Although the hotel may be successful in attracting guests, the leakage of
revenue away from the area in which it is located may be increased by
factors other than simply where the hotel management buys its resources.
One factor that has attracted attention in the literature is the ownership of
the assets. If, for example, a hotel is in foreign ownership, then the profits
may be remitted back to the parent company, and thus again leave the local
economy. This phenomenon is not simply restricted to hotels or retail businesses that are owned by foreign nationals, but is repeated wherever tourist
businesses are not owned by local proprietors. For example in many of the
Greek islands the ownership of the restaurants or shops may be in the
hands of Athenians who, at the end of the season, close their business and
return to their other businesses in Athens. That such leakage occurs reflects
direct ownership patterns. But one implication of the arguments of Buhalis
(2000, 2001) in his analysis of the policies of European package-holiday
companies is that leakage can result from patterns of market power, and not
simply from ownership. For example, suppose Greek accommodation
owners are faced with higher costs, but are unable to pass those higher costs
on to many tourists because the package companies are threatening to
reduce demand for Greek destinations by more heavily promoting Turkey,
which is offering lower-cost accommodation. In this scenaro, any one of a
number of leakages of revenue can occur. First, of course, Greece might lose
revenue to Turkey. Second, if Greek hotel owners maintain their lower
prices to attract the revenue, then lower profits are being made, which in
turn might mean lower entrepreneurial income and/or investment. In
practice, Buhaliss arguments simply point to the implications of any
competitive situation where, if there are no distinguishing features
between products, then lower prices can become the drivers of demand and
subsequent income distribution.
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The employment of non-indigenous labour

The impact of tourist expenditure in terms of generating local revenues
may also be partly diminished by the employment of labour from outside
of the area. A number of reasons can dictate such a practice. First, there
might be insufficient local labour to meet the demands of the peak season.
Local people might be reluctant to be involved because their own economic
base is sufficiently developed to provide employment alternative to the
tourist industry, or there may be social factors that prevent them from
seeking jobs in tourism. If the businesses are owned by large international
companies, they might require practices or skills not found in the host
community, which may lack the experience of management in large-scale
organisations. On the other hand, if the small businesses are owned by
entrepreneurs of the same nationality, but from outside the local area, they
may employ family members in preference to local labour. Finally, of
course, a significant reason for the use of non-indigenous labour may be the
fact that such labour is cheaper. As will be discussed, there are significant
numbers of examples of tourist areas attracting labour from rural economies that are characterised as low-income areas with high levels of unemployment or hidden unemployment. Thus tourism copies other industries
that attract migrant labour from marginal economies. An example of both
phenomena is found in Spain, where migration has occurred from the
hinterland to the coastal tourist strip. Yet this must be placed within a
context of Spains tradition in the 1950s of being a source of emigrant labour
to the industrialised northern European countries, whilst within Spain
itself from the 1950s to the present day there had been migration from the
poorer southern areas such as Andalucia to the industrial areas of Barcelona and Bilbao.
Whatever the reasons for the use of non-local labour, the consequence is
that a payment of wages is made to non-local people, and again it is
customary that a proportion of such wages is sent home. This is shown by
Alison Lever (1987) in her study of Spanish migrant workers to Lloret del
Mar and by Milligan (1989) in her study of Portuguese workers in
Guernsey.
In addition to the loss of revenue to the host community, there is also a
cost associated with this practice. Local workers require accommodation,
medical services, transport and other services. Whilst it can be argued that
the provision of such services in themselves generates flows of income, the
practicalities of the situation may mean that the additions to local income
may be marginal and may be associated with a number of social disbenefits.
This point is further discussed in Chapter 9, on the social impacts of
tourism.
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Government provision of infrastructure

Whilst an area may have initially attracted those types of tourists designated by Cohen (1979a) as explorers, if it seeks to attract more tourists and
move into mass tourism, then additional investment will have to be made
by both private and public sectors. While the private sector will provide the
hotels, bars, restaurants, discos and many other forms of entertainment
facilities, the government will have to provide a range of infrastructure
support. Accessibility will be improved by the provision of roads and car
parking spaces; services relating to hygiene including sewage disposal and
treatment, the provision of public toilets and water treatment plants will be
needed; medical facilities might be needed to treat not only the tourists but
also the influx of labour that may be created; and plans relating to property
development will be needed, and implemented. The provision of such
services generates a complex pattern of revenues and costs. The building of
these services is obviously a means of generating employment, and in an
area of high unemployment, if local labour is utilised, the very building
programme itself will be viewed as a positive economic impact. Indeed, the
provision of these services will help to attract private sector investment not
only for the tourism industry, but for other economic sectors such as
retailing and other service industries through the provision of office accommodation, and possibly light manufacturing industry. In fact this is the very
sort of process that has characterised waterfront developments in North
America, Europe and Australia. But the provision of such services requires
funding, and thus a series of costs are initiated. Where central government
is involved, the costs of these investments are shared amongst the wider
community, and not simply amongst the host community in the tourist
destination. The host nation considers that it will gain from increased
foreign currency earnings and additional revenues on its balance of
payments, and thus such investment is justified on these grounds.
However, where investment is financed or implemented by local government, the host community bears the costs as well as the rewards. Taxes may
be raised either to meet the expenditure directly, or to service the loans
borrowed to finance the building. The final balance sheet of costs and revenues will thus depend on the success of the venture. For there is no guarantee of success, particularly in the case of marginal economies (marginal in
either national or world terms), for tourism is subjected to whims as to
which location or type of holiday or leisure day-trip activity is in fashion.
The initial euphoria of success may, after a brief period, turn sour as tastes
and the market move on. Examples of such changes in fashion include the
success of UK safari parks in the 1960s, the changing fortunes of Turkish
tourism in the period from the mid-1980s, and the transient success of countries such as Kenya and South Africa that have struggled to hold on to past
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tourism gains because of fears of violence and reports of muggings and killings of tourists.
The type of tourist
All of the factors listed above have tended to be supply led in nature,
that is, they indicate the economic flows that arise from the provision of
services to tourists. But what of tourists themselves? The economic impacts
are obviously greater the higher the number of tourists and the higher the
average expenditure per tourist. But the nature of their demand is also
important. If mass tourists require items that the local community is unable
to provide, the result is that a significant proportion of the revenue gained
from tourism is immediately lost because of a need to import those items
from outside the region or country. In this sense there may be a series of
trade-offs for any tourist planning authority. Greater numbers of highspending tourists may, perversely, have less beneficial impact than a
smaller number of lower-spending tourists if the latter creates a lower need
to import. Equally, it can also be argued that larger numbers of tourists
generate higher social costs in terms of their impingement upon the life
styles of the host community. This is particularly true if wide disparities
exist between the life styles of the tourist and that of the local population. It
is now a clich to say that an American tourist visiting Canada has very
little impact, but that same American tourist in, say, Bangledesh, will have a
much greater economic influence.
Links with other parts of the economy
In part, the economic activities associated with tourism become important when considering the purpose of tourism within a general economic
framework. In the case of marginal economies, whether regional or
national, it can be argued that the import requirements to service the tourists are themselves an important part of the overall economic objective of
bringing the area back into the mainstream of economic life. Importing
means dealing with those located in the economic mainstream, and thus the
lack of trade that initially created peripherality is itself corrected even if (at
least initially), the cost is one of a deficit trading account. Second, there is a
need to consider the interactions between tourism and other industry
sectors within a destination zone. Many of these issues are illustrated by
Dwyers (2000) study of the potential that tourism possesses for the
economy of Andhra Pradesh in India. The means of strengthening links
between tourism and the local economy listed by Dwyer include increasing
the duration of stay to increase visitor expenditure by establishing tour
circuits that offer shopping opportunities for the local industries (handicrafts, pearls and jewellery, garment, and leatherware), and to reducing
leakages by making better use of the local agricultural, construction and
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furniture-making industries. He also identifies as being important the role

of the tourism industry as a source of employment for women, noting their
low participation rates in the formal economy in this part of India.
The Measurement of Economic Impacts

The question of how to measure the economic impact of tourism is both
important to ask and difficult to answer. In practice four related techniques
are commonly used to calculate these impacts:
(1) the use of multiplier studies taken from macro-economics;
(2) the use of inputoutput measures, again taken from macroeconomics;
(3) the development of satellite accounts; and
(4) local impact studies utilising a number of ad hoc measures of varying
degrees of sophistication.
The Multiplier Process

From the 1960s various studies have been undertaken throughout the
world to assess the economic benefits of tourism to the host community.
Many of these studies took place throughout the 1970s, but increasingly
researchers became aware of just how difficult it was in practice to measure
the flows of income and the numbers of jobs that were being created, and to
some extent multiplier studies became less frequent in the 1980s. However,
with the emergence of tourism as a means of helping to regenerate inner
city areas in both Europe and North America, there has been some renewed
interest in the use of such techniques. Essentially the reasons for this are
pragmatic. Local authorities have had to justify the spending of public
money to their own elected councillors and rate payers, especially where
the local authority is one of the major sources of revenue for local and
regional tourism organisations (as in countries such as the United
Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand). Additionally, at least in the United
Kingdom, many public sector expenditures on tourism ventures have been
justified as pump-priming exercises where local and national government
fund projects that in turn attract money from the private sector. Such
schemes have had mixed patterns of success. In the late 1980s and early
1990s the then Conservative Government attempted to use a series of
Garden Festivals to promote areas of economic decay. Some were more
successful than others. For example, Liverpool did arguably obtain some
longer-term benefit, whereas the unkind might say that all that Ebbw Vale
obtained was a supermarket and a car park! Some such schemes were
highly controversial, with the Millennium Dome having a chequered
history including the successful foiling of a jewellery robbery by the police.
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The Domes critics point to the millions of pounds lost, its defenders argue
that without the Dome the much-needed improvements to roads infrastructure in Greenwich would not have taken place, and that there is still
hope that longer-term gains can result. In short, the effectiveness of such
expenditure is often assessed, albeit with perhaps varying degrees of care,
as will be discussed below. This new spirit of pragmatism had two further
effects. The first was in the methods used to assess the economic impacts,
because simpler methods of measurement came to be used, particularly at
sub-regional level. Second, tourism became increasingly perceived as part
of a total package of economic regeneration that included retailing, property development and general leisure provision. The presence of these facilities is subsequently used to attract other forms of industry.
One of the controversial aspects of these studies is the use of the multiplier. Initially the concept of the multiplier is taken from the ideas of Kahn
(1972) and Keynes (1936), as developed in their seminal works of the 1930s.
Keynes argued that economic growth was dictated by two broad groups of
flows of activity: leakages from the economic systems, and injections into
that system. The injections consisted of investment, exports and government expenditure. Investment was important for at least two reasons. The
very act of creating the investment was in itself a means of creating jobs and
income, while the investment also became a means of perpetuating
employment and income for the future because it added to productive
capacity by creating new equipment. Exports meant selling goods overseas, and thus earning money from overseas residents. Government expenditure was a means of financing investment and also a means of
transferring income to individuals who could then purchase items and
generate a demand for goods and services. Such redistribution of income
was often to individuals with high propensities to spend (for example lowincome groups on benefit) and so consumer spending was higher than it
would have been in the absence of such payments. In short, the injections
added to economic growth. From the viewpoint of tourism, the building of
the tourist attraction is thus an investment; its existence helps to attract
overseas visitors and so it is a form of export, whilst simultaneously the
enhancement of tourist facilities within a country may be an import-saving
investment for it means that its citizens will holiday within their own
country rather than spend their money overseas.
The leakages in the system are savings, taxation and imports. The act of
saving withdraws money from the economy, and diminishes overall levels
of demand for goods and hence employment. Savings only become useful
when used by financial intermediaries to fund investment. The same is true
of taxation. By raising taxation, the government withdraws money from the
economic system, and so again diminishes levels of demand. It is only by
government expenditure that that money is released back into the
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economy. Imports are a leakage in the sense that by purchasing from overseas, the jobs associated with the production of those goods are also to be
found overseas, funded by the expenditure of the importing country.
Keynes (1936) argued that when both the injections and leakages are
in equilibrium, then the economy is also in equilibrium. Economic growth
is generated by the injections being greater than the leakages.
There is another important economic flow, which is consumer expenditure, and this Keynes placed on both sides of the equation. Consumer
spending is an injection because it is the spending that fuels the demand for
goods and services and so creates employment and income. On the other
hand, if the recipient of the consumer expenditure does nothing with the
revenue, it is money taken out of the economic system. Accordingly, the
timing and sequence of flows of consumer spending are of importance.
Both Keynesians and Monetarists also recognise that money is a commodity like others in that it has a cost, namely interest rates. Consumer
spending can therefore be affected not only by taxation (which removes
money from or adds it to the consumers budget), but also, in advanced
economies where credit is often used, by alterations in interest rates. In
addition, in societies with high levels of home ownership, and where much
of that home ownership is financed by mortgages, interest rates can act like
taxes. Increases in interest rates raise the value of monthly repayments by
mortgage holders, and thus reduce their ability to spend on other items.
Evidence of this at work was arguably present in Britain in 1989. Increases
in mortgage rates to over 13%, following an explosion in house prices in
1988, meant that subsequent spending in retail sales grew more slowly, and
the demand for overseas package holidays fell from some 13 million holidays to approximately 11 million. The relationship was, however, far from
clear as the British summer of 1989 was one of the sunniest and warmest for
decades, and holidays in Britain experienced a boom. Additionally, as
noted in Chapter 2, holidaymakers had bitter memories of aircraft controllers strikes and long delays at airports in the previous summer of 1988.
The above discussion can be summarised in Keynesian terms as
economic growth occurring where:
I+X+G+C > S+M+T+C
where
I = investment
X = exports
G = government spending
C = consumer spending
S = savings
M = imports
T = taxation.
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Equally, the national or regional income can be said to be in equilibrium

where:
I+X+G+C = S+M+T+C
Tourism therefore has economic impacts by:
(1) Contributing to the balance of payments. Holidays taken overseas are
imports, overseas visitors coming to the host country are counted as
exports, and every time citizens takes their major holiday in their
own country it might be said that import substitution has taken
place.
(2) Creating employment and income by generating:
(a) initial investment in tourist facilities;
(b) creating consumer expenditure in a given location;
(c) in many cases releases flows of savings into the economic system.
The actual employment and income generated will depend on the nature of
the leakages in the system, and the size of the original injection.
Consider a simple example where trade into and out of an area is (conveniently) not taken into account, and where government action can also be
discounted. Under these circumstances economic growth will be generated
by consumer spending, savings, and investment. Initially consumers
income is disposed of by savings and spending, hence:
Y=C+S
Now consider Figure 7.1. On the vertical axis are consumption and
savings. As the total of both equals income (measured on the horizontal
axis), a 45 line indicates the points where Y = C+S. Let us suppose that
earners spend 75% of any addition to their income, and save 25%. Therefore, if their income increases by 100 they will spend 75 of that increase
and save 25. This permits a consumption line to be drawn, indicating the
levels of consumption associated with any given level of income. Where the
consumption line (C) crosses the 45 line, consumption equals income,
and hence savings are equal to zero. To the left of this point, expenditure
exceeds income, and hence savings are negative. To the right of this point,
income exceeds consumption, and savings are positive. The savings line (S)
shows this relationship. The slope of the consumption line is calculated
from the relationship of the changes in expenditure divided by the changes
in income, i.e. the slope equals what Keynes (1936) called the marginal
propensity to consume (MPC). MPC is that part of additions to income that
are spent, and is calculated by dividing the change in consumption
spending by the value of the change in income. In the example, if income
increases by 100 and as a result spending increases by an additional 75,
then the MPC = 75/100 = 0.75.
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Suppose the initial equilibrium level of income be 100,000, is shown in

Figure 7.1; that is the level where consumption equals income and savings
is zero. Now suppose that there is a 20,000 investment in tourism. The total
demand in the economy now rises by 20,000, but the new, higher level of
Y=C+S
Consumption,
savings
(000s)
Consumption (C )
Savings (S )
100
Income (000s)
Y=C+S
Consumption,
savings
(000s)
C+I
Consumption (C )
I=$20,000
Savings (S )
Investment (I )
S=$20,000
120
180
Figure 7.1 The multiplier effect
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Income (000s)

163
equilibrium income is shown as being not 120,000, but 180,000. Total

income has risen by 80,000, and this increase consists of two components:
the initial 20,000 investment and an increase in consumer spending of
60,000. In short a multiplier process has taken place. Note that in Figure
7.1, at the new, higher level of income, the difference between the consumption plus investment line (C+I) and the original consumption line (C) is of
course 20,000, and at the point where the C+I line cuts the 45o line, the
value of savings is also equal to 20,000. A new equilibrium income has
established itself.
How has this come about? The answer lies in the process whereby the
recipients of additional income spend part of that income, which in turn
therefore becomes income for others. The investment forms an initial
impetus into the economy. The recipients now spend 75% of this 20,000
(i.e. 15,000) and save the remaining 5,000. This, of course, assumes that
the MPC is a constant. The recipients of the 15,000 spending in turn save
25%, and spend 75% (i.e. 11,250). In turn, the receivers of this 11,250
spend 75% of it, and save 25%. Table 7.1 shows the process continuing into
subsequent rounds of expenditure and saving.
In the first 5 rounds the total additions to income are not only the initial
20,000 investment but also 15,000 + 11,250 + 8,437.5 + 6,328.1: i.e.
41,015.6 of consumer spending can be added to the initial 20,000 investment. How is this reconciled with the diagram? Figure 7.1 represented the
final equilibrium position of a new, higher level of income of 180,000. The
flows of Table 7.1 represent the process of arriving at that final position of
equilibrium. It can be noticed that, with the passing of time, the successive
additions to income are becoming weaker. Keynes argued that the final
position can be deduced from the formula:
Value of the multiplier =
1
MPS
where MPS = marginal propensity to save, i.e. that proportion of any addition to income that is saved.
In the example, the value of MPS is 1/4 (25%). (In a closed economy
MPS + MPC = 1, and hence if MPC = 0.75, MPS = 0.25.) Therefore, to find the
new equilibrium level of income we multiply the initial injection by the
multiplier. Thus:
New income generated = 20,000 x 1/0.25
= 20,000 x 4
= 80,000
Hence, the value of the multiplier is determined by the value of the leakages. The higher the value of the leakages in the economic system, the lower
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Table 7.1 The flows of the multiplier process: Initial injection 20,000
Periods of time
1
Saved (25%)
5000
3750
2812.5
2109.4
1582.0
Spent (75%)
15000
11250
8437.5
6328.1
4746.1
20000
15000
11250
8437.5
6328.1
is the value of the multiplier, and the lower the resultant flows of additions
to income. For example if the marginal propensity to save was 0.50 (i.e. out
of every additional 1 earned, 50p was saved), the 20,000 injection in our
example would have produced an addition to income of:
New income generated = 20,000 x 1/0.5
= 20,000 x 2
= 40,000
From the example it can be seen that any injection into a local economy
produces these flows of income. Thus the investment referred to might not
just be the building of industrial investment, but can equally well refer to
the building of hotels, or the expenditure of tourists visiting an area. Economists therefore, in the 1960s, began to apply Keyness concept of the
national income multiplier to the calculation of regional or local economic
systems in order to assess the economic impacts of tourism at subnational
level. Foremost among these in the English speaking world was Archer,
who with Owen, published the results of an application of the multiplier to
the island of Anglesey in 1971 (Archer & Owen, 1971). In order to illustrate
the types of calculation undertaken, some of their formulae are reproduced
in an appendix to this chapter.
In assessing these impacts, three categories may be calculated, namely:
(1) The output multiplier. This measures the total output (or sales) induced
in the economy, per unit of extra spending, and is expressed in the
form of a multiplier coefficient.
(2) The income multiplier. This shows the relationship between extra
spending and changes in income.
(3) The employment multiplier. This indicates the relationship between the
extra spending and the number of additional jobs that are created
through primary and secondary employment. Primary employment
would include the actual number of jobs directly generated by the
tourist spending or investment (e.g. jobs in restaurants), whilst the
secondary effects would include, for example, those jobs created by
the spending of restaurant employees.
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In the case of tourism, the value of the leakages will be determined by the
proportion of tourist spending that remains in the area, the proportion of
tourist spending that is received by local people, and the propensity of local
people to spend in their local area. The basic formulation of the tourism
multiplier is thus:
1
Tourism multiplier = A
1 BC
where A = the proportion of tourist expenditure remaining in the area
after first round leakages,
B = the proportion of income that local people spend on local
goods, and services the propensity to spend locally
C = the proportion of expenditure of local people that accrues
as local income.
The logic of the formulation is in the fact that, as most tourist regions/
destinations are comparatively small, the highest element of leakages
occurs in the first round when imports are undertaken, and in consequence
the additions to income in the local area are felt from the second round on.
However, an important determinant of the value of the tourist multiplier
continues to be who are the recipients of the income, and what are their
spending patterns? If, in the second round, the recipients of tourist-initiated expenditure spend money outside the area, the value of the multiplier
is undermined. Hence the importance of values B and C in the equation.
However, in practice this simple formulation is insufficient. In the initial
discussion of the concept of the multiplier, some obvious questions arise.
How can we be sure that recipients of income maintain the same consistent
propensities to save and consume? How long are the time periods or
rounds, and as money trickles through the system over time, can we again
be sure of consistency of behaviour by those who receive the additions to
income? For example, if the farmers wife takes in bed-and-breakfast
guests, is this addition to the farms revenue perceived by the family as
additions to their savings, or as money for the wife to spend on herself, or as
a means of paying the farms bills? Is the attitude to these sums the same at
the end of the season as at the beginning of the season? In short, researchers
have had to disaggregate the data, often by the type of accommodation
used by the tourists. As Archer (Archer & Owen, 1971) showed in his
studies of Anglesey, there are distinct differences in the types of expenditure patterns of those who use hotels, bed and breakfast accommodation or
caravan sites for their overnight stays. Equally there are differences in
spending by the recipients of the first round of tourist expenditure. It can be
hypothesised, for example, that proprietors of bed-and-breakfast accommodation may be more prepared than hotel chains to use local suppliers. As
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already noted, the appendix to this chapter indicates some of Archers

work in this respect.
It should also be noted that, within any economic system expenditures,
incomes and employment are closely related. Tourist expenditure should
equate to income for those who receive that expenditure, while the business
recipients of tourist spending will employ people, thereby establishing a
ratio between tourist expenditures and employment generation.
Murphy (1985) provides a summary of some of the findings undertaken
by researchers for the period 19661977, and clearly shows that the smaller
the area, the smaller is the multiplier. At national level Murray records
multipliers from 0.782.7, at a state or provincial level the multiplier values
range from 0.351.7, and at regional/local areas the multipliers range from
0.32 to an exceptionally high value of 1.67 in one case. With that one exception, all the other multipliers he cites are below 0.73.
To some extent, studies of multiplier values based on the Keynesian
multiplier are no longer in such vogue as they were in the period from the
1960s to the 1980s. A number of factors explain this. First, economists have
been making distinctions between the calculation of tourism as an industry,
and its impacts on the economy, and the economic impacts that arise from
tourism associated with specific events. In the former case, one of the more
important techniques that has emerged in the period since about 1995 has
been the use of tourism satellite accounts. These are discussed in more
detail below. Second, there has been a greater recognition of the sheer
complexity of the data required. Third, has been a sense of distrust of such
calculations caused by what Getz (1997) has termed boosterism as event
promoters seek to secure public funding for events by over-promising
economic gains. Fourth, as Burgan and Mules (1992: 703) comment, There
is no general agreement among economists on how best to model an economy. Nonetheless, references to the multiplier concept continue to be
found. For example, a consultants report on the economic impacts of
tourism on the economy of Northland, New Zealand, states that a multiplier of 2.1 can be used, and undertakes the calculation, but provides no
justification for the use of this multiplier value (Price Waterhouse Cooper,
2000). In an estimation of multiplier impacts of seven events in Palmerston
North Ryan (1996b) quite specifically excludes the use of the multiplier on
the grounds of complexity and high leakage rates at a local level. But Ritchie
(1996) applies a value of 0.9 to an event in Dunedin, again simply importing
a value from other studies.
To a large extent, many consultancy reports have been suspect and,
according to Crompton and McKay (1994) double counting is one of the
major problems. Lea (1988) also provides examples of how faulty calculations of multipliers in the Caribbean gave rise to poor policy decisions.
Indeed, in his studies of the economic impacts of events, Ryan (1996b)
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specifically distinguishes between four categories of tourist expenditure in

any calculation of economic impacts. These are:
(1) Displaced expenditure: residents from a city or zone who attend an event
only because the event was in home area. The expenditure of this
group can be regarded as displaced expenditure and not additional
expenditure, i.e. it is expenditure that would probably have occurred
in the city on other items. Thus it should not be included in any estimate of the economic impact of an event.
(2) Retained expenditure: residents for whom the event was important. In
this case their expenditure can be regarded as retained expenditure, i.e.
their expenditure would have taken place because of the event, but the
fact that the event took place in their home area meant that the zone
concerned did not lose the economic effects of such spending. In other
words it is expenditure by those who would have travelled to the
event if it was held elsewhere.
(3) Partial retained expenditure: visitors from outside the event zone for
whom the event was of relative importance only, but was a primary
catalyst for the timing and duration of a visit to friends and relatives
living in the event zone. In this case the destination would have
derived some spending from this group in any case, but it might be
that the event elicited some additional spending because it made the
trip more expensive than might otherwise have been the case. This
might be termed partial incremental spending.
(4) Wholly incremental expenditure: finally, there are visitors whose spending in the destination area is solely due to the event. Their expenditure
was wholly incremental, that is, it would not have taken place in the
destination region if it had not been for the event. This group represents a true economic gain.
For their part, in the context of event tourism, Burgan and Mules (1992)
very specifically point to a need to distinguish between the economic
impacts of an event, and the financial outcome. Indeed, the same authors in
2001 produce evidence from studies of a number of events in Australia that
showed a financial loss for the event management, but which nonetheless
produced significant positive economic impacts for local or regional economies (Burgan & Mules, 2001). Examples include the Brisbane Masters
Games of 1994, which produced a loss of $A2.8 million for the organisers,
but which injected $A50.6 million into the local economy. Again, the 1996
Adelaide Wine Festival cost the organisers $A3.5 million, but produced an
overall benefit of $A11.6 million. Of course such findings do not in themselves provide solutions for what are essentially political decisions. Among
the issues discussed are to what extent should the public sector sponsor
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events at a loss that generally generate private sector gain and profit? To
what extent do the calculations of economic gain take into account all of the
costs? For example, while the Wellington V8 Super Saloon motor races
generated economic gain, their demise was due to local resident antipathy
to the closure of roads and the noise and disruption that was caused. The
same arguments surrounded the Birmingham Formula 3000 Halford
Grand Prix races in the UK in the 1980s. Another argument has emerged in
the case of the Canberra V8 Super Saloon races, and that is whether the
image of such races and their appeal to petrol heads is consistent with the
image of Canberra as a centre of government and culture. While it is
possible to allocate costs to such issues through the use of cost benefit analysis, it is the experience of this author that those with strong views are resistant to the use of such calculations where the results do not support the
entrenched position. In the long run non-economic arguments can outweigh the economic, and the reasons for this are discussed in Chapter 9.
Data Requirements for the Calculation of Economic Impacts

What needs to be appreciated is the complexity of data required for the
calculation of such multipliers. While, to again cite Burgan and Mules
(1992: 704) it is generally accepted that the economic impacts are expenditure driven, to correctly identify that expenditure is problematical. To give
a simple example, when undertaking an economic impact of a bowls championship that included singles, doubles and foursomes, it was found necessary to carefully check the accommodation expenditure being reported by
respondents because of the amount of room sharing that was taking place.
In some instances it might be easier to identify activities and then calculate
expenditure from prices charged by suppliers, than to depend on the recall
of respondents, particularly if accommodation bookings were made well in
advance and by other than the respondents. Indeed, to undertake even
simple calculations, a number of parameters must be defined. One of the
more fundamental of these is the definition of the region under consideration. As discussed in Chapter 6, the concept of the tourist destination area
is fixed neither spatially nor temporally, for different aspects of a region will
appeal to different types of tourists, and attractions change over time. It
may be possible to define the tourist area by an analysis of tourist trips
within the region, so identifying perhaps a core tourist area. However,
there is no guarantee that such an area corresponds to the administrative
area used for the collection of other data. For example the tourist area might
span more than one local authority, or travel-to-work area, and these areas
might be the basis of statistics relating to public sector expenditure or
employment. Reference has also been made to the different types of tourists. Day visitors will obviously not be spending on accommodation, whilst
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short-break holidaytakers may have a higher spend per day, but a lower
total spend per holiday visit when compared with longer-stay visitors.
Users of hotel accommodation tend to have higher expenditure than users
of caravans.
One interesting fact that has emerged from more recent studies is that
VFR (visiting friends and relatives) tourists may have as high an expenditure as tourists staying in hotels, if the area is a well-established tourist area.
The evidence for this is mixed, but is supported by Vaughans (1986)
comparison of the expenditure patterns of tourists in Cumbria, Merseyside
and Bournemouth in tthe UK. It has also been clear from studies undertaken in New Zealand that expenditure figures by VFR tourists on activities
other than serviced accommodation are just as high as those using the
serviced accommodation sector (Ryan, 1996b; Ryan & Lockyer, 2001).
Indeed, there might be comparatively little difference as, in the case of
sports events Ryan and Lockyer found that many sports people used
comparatively cheap forms of accommodation (e.g. camping grounds and
caravan sites). However, there is, it is suggested, a caveat and this relates to
the maturity of the event. In the case of the South Pacific Masters Games,
there were differences between the 2002 and the 2000 event. In 2002 the ratio
began to change in favour of more out-of-region visitors, with more visitors
also using the higher-priced serviced accommodation sector, thereby
increasing the economic impact of the event.
What Vaughan (1986), Ryan and Wheeller (1982), Hobson and
Christensen (2001), Young and Littrell (2001) and many other studies also
indicate is just how important shopping is to the tourist. Shopping for other
than food and drink can easily account for 25% of tourist expenditure. In
consequence the economic impacts of tourism in an area can be affected by
the nature of the retail provision to be found in the host community, the
ownership of the shops, and the propensity of the shops to purchase locally.
It is self evident that souvenir shops in local ownership using local
craftsmen to supply the souvenirs will have a higher economic impact on
the native population in the tourist area than will nationally- or foreignowned chains who import souvenirs. In essence this last point illustrates
another problem in the calculation of multiplier effects, and that is the need
to identify not only the average daily expenditure of tourists, but also its
breakdown between different types of business and the ownership of those
businesses.
The Economic Impacts of Tourism: Multipliers and

Employment
The impact of ownership on businesses has been demonstrated by
Sinclair in her studies of Malaga hotels (Sinclair, 1981; Sinclair & Sutcliffe,
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1982). The highest multiplier effects were associated with tourist miscellaneous purchases (i.e. expenditure on items other than food, drink, entertainment and accommodation), and thus relate to those items most likely to
be supplied by local suppliers. The multiplier was estimated at 0.99. The
second highest multiplier values were associated with accommodation
(0.66), partly because of the employment of labour living in the area.
However, there were notable differences in the levels of employment
between Spanish-owned and foreign-owned hotels. Whilst foreign-owned
hotels tended to employ more staff (52.2 per hotel) than Spanish-owned
hotels (42.3 per hotel), this was a reflection of the fact that foreign-owned
hotels tended to be larger. In terms of numbers of employees per bed space,
the average employment (for coastal areas) was marginally less in foreignowned than in Spanish-owned hotels, (0.29 as against 0.30). But in the case
of hotels located in cities, the difference was far more pronounced, being
0.49 for the foreign multiple and 0.68 for the Spanish hotel. As a general
conclusion it can be hypothesised that access to economies of scale and
more cost-effective modes of management may produce lower multiplier
effects through the process of fewer employees per bed space. In the case of
foreign-owned hotels, the position may be further exacerbated by a
tendency to remit profits. Sinclair and Sutcliffe (1982) estimated a value of
first round propensity to remit profits (for the Malaga area) as being equal
to 39% of the long-run GNP multiplier. Does this necessarily mean that nonlocal and foreign ownership of assets is to be discouraged? The position is
not as simple as first appears. The levels of payment to staff must be taken
into account. If the large multiple takes advantage of economies of scale
and management techniques to not simply save on labour per bed space,
but also to pay a higher wage per employee than their less efficient local
supplier, then the initial negative multiplier effects are offset by the higher
wages. But the final calculation of multiplier effects will then require an
analysis of expenditure by the employees.
Differences might exist between the tourism impacts at a destination
based on holidaying, and impacts resulting from tourism based on a
specific event. In assessing the economic impacts of an event on employment, it is necessary to consider the actual infrastructure of the tourism
industry. For example, Burns, Hatch and Mules (1986), while estimating
that the Adelaide Grand Prix contributed an extra $A20 million to the local
Adelaide economy, found that no additional employment could be
discerned as a result of the event. Similarly Ryan and Lockyer (2001) noted
that the South Pacific Masters Games produced no extra employment in
the accommodation sector. In both cases any additional demand for
services was met by existing staff working longer hours and overtime. This
implies that much of the extra revenue in the accommodation sector was
ploughed into profits rather than wages, and thus the expenditure patterns
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of profit receivers rather than wage earners become a major determinant of

the multiplier effect. In a Brazilian study Wagner (1997) was able to calculate the employment multipliers and found that $US1515 of tourist expenditure created 0.4 full-time employment jobs. Wagner comments that it
takes 233 tourists to create 1 full-time tourism job.
Nonetheless, if tourism is to be promoted by public authorities, there is
an obvious need to assess the possible outcome of developments and to
ensure that appropriate methods are used to calculate those impacts. In
1986 the English Tourist Board commissioned a study to see whether or not
it would be possible to devise a means of calculating not income but
employment multipliers in a way that was both meaningful and comparatively straightforward. It was finally concluded that whilst there were two
methods (either utilising Census of Employment data or transferring
multiplier values from past studies into the area under study), neither
method was ideal. Vaughan (1986) writes:
The conclusion presented in this report is that both methods can
provide broad indications of the likely size of the tourism related work
force. Both methods are subject to a number of important limitations
and assumptions, so neither is obviously superior to the other. The
qualifications of each approach should be respected in using the estimates produced as it could defeat the object of advocacy to publish estimates which are too open to question. Neither method can fully replace
a local study if qualitative information on types of jobs and types of
workers is required or to provide assurances that job estimates actually
reflect the particular circumstances of the local tourist industry.
(Vaughan, 1986: 1)
Vaughans warning is particularly apposite in a situation where governmental authorities at both local and national level seek to promote tourism
development in the belief that economic benefits will emerge. Traditionally
tourism multipliers have been found to be weak, and a number of reasons
can account for this:
(1) the comparatively low levels of pay in the industry;
(2) costs as well as income are generated; and
(3) the nature of the tourist regions.
Tourism, even in advanced economies, has been associated with low
levels of pay. The Low Pay Unit in the United Kingdom reported in 1986
that nearly 40% of hotel and restaurant employers visited by the Government Wage Inspectorate were found to be illegally underpaying their
workers (Low Pay Unit, 1986). Bland (1987) commenting on the position in
Cornwall, noted:
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In Cornwall, and doubtless in other counties, no effort is made to check

that hotels and restaurants who are receiving grants, publicity and
facilities paid for by tax and ratepayers are paying their workers legal
wages. Public funds are in effect going to support and encourage criminal employers. (Bland, 1987: 14)
If the situation is thus in advanced economies, then it is worse in developing countries. Cater (1988) argues that, in the least developed countries,
tourism imposes a high cost on infrastructure. The energy requirements of
luxury hotels are high and place a stress on the hosts electricity-generating
capacity, and in turn load shedding, blackouts and poor water pressure
pose problems in attracting western guests. Imported managerial labour
also increases leakages. In consequence, in developing economies, tourism
may not only have positive multiplier effects from the injections of tourist
spending, but also costs, and, indeed may not generate as much additional
income as is hoped. Farver (1984), in his study of Gambian tourism,
concluded that the tourist industry employed fewer Gambians than hoped
for, and also paid wages that, whilst higher than possible earnings in alternative forms of employment, were not high enough to improve workers
standard of living to any great extent. It would seem from many studies that
local ownership and control of tourist enterprise is important in ensuring
that the host community derives the highest possible tourism multipliers.
However, a contrary viewpoint is that, whilst this is true, there is still nonetheless an important need to obtain access to the markets that exist beyond
the tourist area, and locally-based businesses may not be able to do this.
There is, therefore, inevitably a need to utilise businesses located in the
tourist-generating areas. Only rarely, and generally only in the cases of
mature tourist regions receiving governmental backing, can businesses
located in the tourist-receiving areas reach directly to consumers in the
tourist-generating regions.
The problem of low wages in the industry might be, arguably, a reflection of more generally low levels of productivity and added value. There is
ample evidence that in advanced economies the hotel industry is characterised by high levels of staff turnover, and small units. In a survey of the
tourist and leisure industry, which included not only hotels but also nightclubs, leisure facilities and museums, the Institute of Manpower Studies
(1988) found that 63% of the 170 businesses examined had fewer than 20
employees. Only 8% had more than 50. Because of the small size of business
units, it was found that, whilst the industry does have a reputation for
employing part-time, seasonal labour, this was not in fact borne out by the
sample, for 68% of all jobs were counted as being permanent ones.
However, the permanent jobs included of course those of the entrepreneurs
involved, and hence the picture is one of several small businesses, capable
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of supporting the founders of the business, or the management staff of

multiples, but generally being unable to support larger number of workers.
But the position is varied, and the report concludes that it was evident that
the extent, and pattern, of use of seasonal and casual workers varied greatly
within the sector as a whole, as did the employment of permanents and
temporaries.
One of the important implications of the IMS findings is that for many
employed in the industry the actual career path is short, with limited
opportunity for career enhancement as the industry is currently structured.
The overall picture is of extensive movement between companies but
usually without promotion. Managers and Professionals are the only
group for whom careers could be common, as promotion was reported
by many establishments for recruits and leavers. This was the only
group for whom internal careers appeared to be a well established
feature of the employment structure. For all other occupational groups,
not only was promotion reported as common by a minority of establishments only but movement out of employment entirely was not
uncommon. (IMS, 1988, cited by Ryan, 1991a: 83)
Of importance in establishing a high-paid, high-multiplier industry is
the establishment of corporate career structures. In most countries,
however, the major part of the total accommodation stock is proprietormanaged and small in size. While representing an important part of smallto medium-size enterprise, such employment is not notably associated
with high levels of remuneration. Based on a biographical study of 284
hotel managers, Riley, Ladkin and Szivas (2002) report that 50% attained
the position of general manager by the age of 30, which represents a significantly early career advancement. However, what is also evident is that the
main route to career advancement in the hotel industry lay through food
and beverage management rather than through housekeeping, marketing,
accounting or finance, while 5.5% reached the post of general manager
from outside of the industry without any prior experience of hospitality. It
is suggested that such early promotion through comparatively restricted
routes represents an industry that is both relatively immature and conservative in its approach. Rapid advancement is in part possible because of a
tradition of labour turnover and advancement by movement between
rather than within organisations. One implication of the importance of the
food and beverage route is that, as this is male dominated compared to a
number of the other functions, female management career paths are more
restricted than those of their male counterparts. It also represents a paradox
in that for many hotels the more profitable sector is accommodation rather
than food sales. Thus issues pertaining to accommodation pricing, conference and banquet business generation and yield management might be
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thought to be more important to profitability than restaurant and bar sales

are. Riley, Ladkin and Szivas (2002) several times hint that work in the hotel
industry implies acceptance of a specific culture. Part of this culture is that
tourism and hospitality is perceived as interesting work representing
opportunities for travel. In consequence it might be argued that employees
have several different perspectives of what constitutes a career within the
industry, of which movement across destinations might be as important to
some as movement along a more conventional corporate career path. Whatever the reasons, a combination of transience, forms of employment that
include payments in kind such as food and accommodation, seasonality
and a lack of strong unionisation help explain why wage levels are comparatively low.
There is little doubt that in the past the value of multipliers in the
industry was undermined by comparatively low levels of pay and the associated problem of seasonality. In one sense these imply costs additional to
those being considered by Hanna (1976). It might be objected that many of
the above studies relate solely to the United Kingdom and are representative of a position that might no longer exist. However, studies of employment in the industry continue to show that, compared with other
industries, tourism and hospitality retains its position as a relatively low
pay industry because of the issues of seasonality. For example Thomas and
Townsend (2001: 299) note that: hourly earnings for males were 75% of the
average for all sectors, and that for females the figure was 83%. Throughout
Europe turnover is notoriously high: the average employee tenure is
shortest in hotels and restaurants, at 4.1 years compared with 7.8 years in all
sectors. The House of Commons Employment and Education Committee
Report (1999) also comments on the problem that part-time working has
negative implications for staff training, pay and discrimination.
However, the hitherto conventional viewpoint that tourism is characterised by low productivity has been challenged. Medlik (1985, 1988), in
particular, argued that comparisons between industries are distorted if no
allowance is made for the differing proportions of full-time and part-time
labour. Secondly, he argued that, in many parts of the tourism industry,
increasing use of information technology meant that the conventional
arguments are no longer supported by the evidence. Utilising UK data
between 1979 and 1985 Medlik argued that the tourism sector increased
its productivity (as measured by value-added per full-time equivalent employee) from 7,200 to 7,900 compared with 8,800 to 10,000 for the whole
economy. From the viewpoint of the British tourist industry, these dates are
not particularly conducive to such comparisons as 1979 represented the
peak of a business cycle, and 1985 was not higher than 1979, so arguably the
potential productivity per employee is understated, and Medliks forecasts
for the period 19851990 were for stronger growth. However, Medliks
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work again illustrates the difficulties involved in assessing productivity

and consequent economic impacts. The period of the 1980s was one of a
retailing revolution with a greater use of EPoS (electronic point of sales)
systems, more efficient stock control and a reinforcement of trends towards
more economic retail operations using edge-of-town and purpose-built
shopping centres. Thus, the retail sector is included within Medliks definition of the tourism sector to take into account the proposition that tourist
expenditure involves shopping. In calculating the productivity of tourism
labour the use of national retailing data poses problems. The shopping
experience of the tourist will vary considerably according to destination
and, whilst the retail revolution is fuelled by the multiples, for many tourists part of the holiday experience is shopping in smaller, locally-owned
outlets. Secondly, it may be argued that increases of productivity in
retailing have little to do with tourism expenditure, but more to do with the
adoption of EPoS and other factors, and thus to allocate such increases in
retail productivity to tourism is slightly misleading. On the other hand,
there is a movement towards a combination of retail and leisure activities,
as evidenced by West Edmonton Mall and the Metro Centre, and there is no
doubt that some types of tourism and tourists will actively seek out the
newer, more productive forms of retailing.
Nonetheless, subsequent to Medliks pioneering work, there is evidence
of a growing level of labour productivity. Thomas and Townsend (2001)
point to the situation in London where, over a period from 1991 to 1996, a
6.7% increase in employment was associated with a 67% increase in visitor
numbers. Yet, at the same time, London hotels and restaurants increased
their dependency on part-time labour, which grew from 31.8% to 37.5% of
the London labour force. It would appear that significant regional variation
occurs in the United Kingdom. But one sign of a possible improvement in
labour practice is that seasonality is beginning to decline and that, at least in
some parts of the industry outside of London, there is a substitution of fulltime for part-time workers. For his part, Choy (1995) also challenges the
preconceptions of the industry as lacking career paths and being one of low
pay. In an analysis of Hawaiian employment patterns he finds that, while
the industry did offer below-average levels of pay, it nonetheless ranked
fifth overall in the service sector. Second, some occupations in travel and
tourism are among the highest paid (e.g. airline pilots). Third, the proportion of staff engaged in managerial positions compared well with other
sectors of the Hawaiian economy. Choy concludes by stating that the level
of job satisfaction is high and that the quality of employment being offered
is much better than is usually recognised by those outside the industry
(Choy, 1995: 137).
It must also be recognised that the measurement of productivity in the
tourism industry is itself a difficult task. Medlik (1988) uses financial
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measures, and hence the value of turnover is a key measure. Amongst the
measures that might be used are:
(1) the ratio between the turnover of the unit and the total payroll (i.e.
wages plus pension, insurance costs, etc.);
(2) the value added (i.e. sales minus purchases of goods and services)
divided by payroll;
(3) total turnover divided by number employed; and
(4) total value added divided by number employed.
Under such circumstances the value added per employee might therefore be no more than a reflection of increases in prices, and not of volume of
output. Hence such measures must attempt to take into account inflation
not simply a weighting by the average retail or consumers prices index, but
the actual rate of inflation in tourist-related industries (as shown by, hotel
tariffs, for example). Equally productivity may seem to suffer, but this
may be due to an increase in the cost of the hoteliers raw resources. From
the viewpoint of the host community, whilst productivity may appear to
suffer because wages increase, thus reducing the ratio between turnover
and payroll, the additional wages being spent in the host community might
in fact be beneficial. Consequently the issues of productivity within
tourism are, to put it mildly, somewhat complex. However, even utilising
the methods indicated above, it would seem that in spite of evidence of
increases in tourism productivity within the UK, the productivity of labour
in the tourism sector is marginally below that of other service industries
and the economy in general. Indeed, for the period 197985 it appeared to
be significantly below the average by a factor of about 20% (Medlik, 1988).
The economic-impact implications are thus relatively clear. Not only are
the income multipliers reduced because of comparatively low levels of pay,
but the position is reinforced by most of that labour force being comparatively unqualified, and hence not able to command higher levels of wages
in the labour market generally. Add to this the fact that high levels of casual
and temporary employment make it more difficult for trade unions to
organise themselves, so again wage levels (and hence multipliers) are not as
high as they might otherwise be. But there are caveats even to this statement. In circumstances where the tourist industry is a major employer, and
a significant contributor to overall economic growth, it escapes from being
marginal and becomes part of the main economic processes. Under these
circumstances, it becomes possible for labour to command higher wage
levels, given perhaps exceptional circumstances. An example of this
occurred in Spain in the period after the death of Franco and the democratisation of the Spanish Constitution. The recognition of trade unions and the
popularity and enthusiasm for democratic action led to the Spanish Unions
being able to increase wage levels in the hotels that were trading on the
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Spanish Costas. Also, given the prevailing demographic trends described

previously, it can be anticipated that earnings will need to increase in order
to attract labour.
To argue that wage levels are low, that labour is comparatively unskilled,
and that employment may be at best seasonal may partly explain low
multiplier values. But it is not in itself an argument that attempts to
improve local economies might be better undertaken by means other than
encouraging tourism. In many cases, whether in the Third World or in areas
within advanced economies where unemployment is higher than the
national averages, the support structures for any industry tend to be weak.
Consequently weak multipliers from tourism may be no more than a reflection of deficiencies in such economic systems. If labour is comparatively
unskilled, if there are shortages of assets and infrastructure, then almost by
definition any economic activity will suffer, not just tourism. Evidence for
this comes from work undertaken by the Tourism and Recreation Research
Unit at Edinburgh University. In 1976 Brownrigg and Greig were arguing
the then conventional wisdom that the benefits from tourism expenditure
are more apparent than real it involves a lot of noise and activity but, at the
end of the day, locals have surprisingly little to show for it (Brownrigg &
Greig, 1976). By 1981, on the basis of work undertaken in the Exmoor
National Park, the Unit was reporting that, whilst the multiplier from
hotels was but 0.22, this actually compared well with the norm of 0.26 for
mixed farming and livestock activities. Moreover, it was actually higher
than the 0.13 found in manufacturing processes taking place in the region.
The highest multiplier of 0.70 related to bed-and-breakfast accommodation. Certainly in the case of rural economies, tourism is actually attracted
to those regions by the very fact that they are underdeveloped. From this
viewpoint, tourism does generate flows of income that would not otherwise be forthcoming, although the social and environmental impacts of
mass tourism in such areas might arguably create urban-style problems
(and costs) in areas still without the infrastructure of cities and towns.
In the above discussion, the assumption has been made that multiplier
processes are positive in nature, that they create additional incomes. But
they may also create additional costs. Hanna (1976) makes this point:
For many practical purposes, it is crucial to appreciate that the local
multiplier studies of economic gains are just that, and no more. They
leave three questions unanswered. First, what are the costs? ... But a
more important question arises from the intensely narrow viewpoint
of local economic analyses, whether for tourism or any other activity.
The local multipliers measure the gains locally; so what will be the
gains nationally? ... Rational planning must take account of the whole
benefit, not just the local benefit. The third question arises as the
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obverse of the second; what about the gains to an area through the
secondary economic effects of tourism in other areas? Just as tourism in
a small area leaks benefits to other areas outside, so each small area
gains the indirect benefit of leaks from other areas. (Hanna, 1976: 9)
In any assessment of the economic impact of tourism, it must be recognised that the resources allocated to tourism are thus denied to other means
of development, and so the opportunity cost of tourism should be taken
into account. For example, in a study on the possible extension of a runway
for Rotoruas airport, Ryan and Rippey (2000) ask whether the opportunity
cost involved for the Rotorua Council had been considered, and what alternative investments had been appraised.
One might say that such considerations should be considered because it
is valid to ask whether or not finances ploughed into a tourism development
might not have generated a higher economic return if invested into other
commercial or social enterprises. However, calculating such a process might
be even more complex in terms of data requirements than attempting to
calculate the multiplier! Certainly there is evidence that tourism may have
unlooked-for costs. Many of these are social and environmental in nature, as
discussed in Chapters 8 and 9, but it is possible to provide a few examples
here. In July 1987 the Dutch company, Sports Huis opened its leisure centre in
Sherwood Forest in the UK with, as it central feature, a dome containing
water amenities facilities in a constant temperature of about 80F set in parkland with other sports facilities. In 1988 Councillor Carol Turner, Chair of
Central Nottinghamshire Community Health Council, speaking about her
Health Authoritys report that in the 12 months since Center Parcs opened
nearly 400 people from the complex attended Mansfield General Hospitals
Accident and Emergency Department, stated:
The County and the Districts are all pushing for tourism and Central
Notts is one of the main areas because of Sherwood Forest. But they
ought to be considering the likely impact. If you bring more people in,
even if it is only on a daily basis, its going to create extra demand on
health services. (Carol Turner, 1988, cited in Ryan, 1991a)
Murphy (1985) quotes the circumstances surrounding the building of
Floridas Disney World where unskilled construction workers were
attracted to the site. The result was that the local Salvation Army was forced
into an appeal for $400,000 to build a new shelter, and the City had to
employ 150 more police and build a new $6 million police station to deal
with the problems of prostitution, drugs, hippies and migrants attracted to
the site. On the other hand, it should be noted that such apparent blindness
to the nature of economic accounting based on market transactions and
failure to account of the social costs is not unique to tourism. For example,
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Waring (1988) criticises the composition of National Income Accounting as

totally underestimating the contribution that women make to the economy
simply because there is no estimate of the value of their labour in the home.
Tourism Expenditure Modelling

Because of the problems of estimating multipliers at regional and subregional levels, and the need for detailed inter-sector economic data, some
studies have simply sought to better understand tourist expenditure and to
estimate economic impacts from these calculations alone. For example,
Ryan (1996b) argues that, when assessing the economic impact of events,
the key variables are simple to identify, and include the numbers of out-ofregion visitors that are attracted to the event, the duration of their stay, the
main types of accommodation used and the spending on such accommodation. To these can be added expenditure on food and drink. An estimate of
these main variables will account for much of the first-round impact of
tourist spending. Given that, in the short term, the determinants of the
multiplier will be fixed, then the first-round expenditure flows will be the
major determinants of economic impact. Aguil Perez and Juaneda Sampol
(2000) adopt a similar argument with reference to mass package holiday
destinations such as the Balearic Islands. They note that in such cases much
of the tourist expenditure is initially paid in the tourist-generating country
and as a result only pocket money expenditures occur outside of the
accommodation in the tourist-receiving country. In their view it thus
becomes important to disaggregate tourist spending to estimate tourist
income at a destination. Accordingly, having surveyed 5,500 tourists at
Balearic Island airports, they propose a regression model within which the
key variables are the duration of stay and the numbers of people in declared
expenditures that comprise two components, expenditure in the country of
origin and spending at the destination. These data are associated with other
data derived from the survey, including nationality, age, profession, type of
accommodation used, type of booking and some attitudinal measures.
From these figures Aguil Perez and Juaneda Sampol (2000) were able to
derive spending per type of tourist. One implication of this approach is
that, by applying these expenditure figures to the total profile of Balearic
island visitors, it is easy to assess total economic impact.
One of the implications of the growing use of expenditure-based modelling of tourism impacts is the growth in the number of studies that are very
location- and time-specific. While arguably these studies are primarily of
interest to those responsible for tourism promotion and planning in those
areas, on occasion such studies make an additional contribution to conceptual or methodological thinking. In some instances the researchers might
do little more than identify problems that might be of note to others under-
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taking similar work. For example Ryan and Evans (2002) note the problems
of estimating economic impacts in regions of secondary importance in
tourism, but which straddle transport routes that connect two or more
primary tourism regions. In their study of the Rangitikei region in New
Zealand, in one estimate of economic impacts they exclude much of the outof-region visitor spending in cafes, restaurants and petrol stations in the
region as not being attributable to the tourist attractions in the Rangitikei
region. Instead they argue that the impacts are due to the tourist flow on
State Highway One that arises from movements to the ski-fields of
Tongariro, or from the flow of tourists to and from the tourist regions of
Taupo and Wellington. In short, in this instance visitor expenditure is
derived from other regions and their attractiveness and so might be categorised as indirect economic impact. For their part Walpole and Goodwin
(2000) indicate the nature of leakages when studying the impacts of tourism
on Komodo National Park, Indonesia. It is evident that the main economic
benefits are unequally distributed over the communities near the park,
with Labuan Bajo receiving almost all the visitor spending on accommodation owing to its near monopoly of hotel provision during the study period.
Walpole and Goodwin note that only about 1% of visitor spending accrues
to those actually resident in the park, while 5060% of tourist expenditure
leaks out of the region owing to the import of goods and services and nonlocal ownership of businesses in the region. Additional factors that reduced
the level of economic impact were again a lack of local capital and the low
levels of wages being paid.
InputOutput analysis
One of the means of assessing the impact of tourist expenditure on other
areas of the economic system is the use of inputoutput analysis. Essentially this technique attempts to show the flow of economic transactions
through the economy within a given time span, usually a year. It is a further
refinement of the basic multiplier processes in that it seeks to show the
inter-relationship between defined sectors of the economic system. Traditionally undertaken with industrial sectors, its transference to service
sectors (and in particular to tourism sectors) is partly handicapped by the
lack of definition of what exactly is the tourism industry. Whilst it may be
defined as a series of consumer experiences relating to leisure and recreation requiring trips away from home, in terms of a supply-led definition
there is a problem from the statistical viewpoint in that formally there is no
standard industrial classification. S.L.J. Smith (1989) highlights the problem
thus:
Tourism often lacks credibility in the eyes of policy analysts and decision-makers because the field is poorly defined and because the data
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used to substantiate many of the claims concerning the size and importance of the industry are inadequate ... A data-collection problem even
more frustrating than double-counting is the omission of data. (Smith,
1989: 9)
Within many countries there is no Standard Industrial Classification
(SIC) code for the tourism industry. Thus attempts to show the pattern of
flows of expenditure between economic sectors often require the researcher
to utilise subcategories, to estimate proportions of a sector or subsector that
tourism might account for, or even to ignore some activities. For example,
for a restaurant located in a city, how much of its lunchtime trade might be
trade to local office workers, and how much to tourists who are visiting the
city?
In spite of the difficulties, some attempts have been made to undertake
such an analysis. One of the first was that of Richards (1972), who
constructed a matrix covering 27 UK industrial sectors. This type of
approach was adopted in early work on economic impacts and multipliers
in the 1970s for Anglesey and other parts of Wales and was developed by a
team initially based at Bangor University. This pioneering work is reported
by Archer and Owen (1971) and Archer (1977, 1980, 1984). The approach
permits estimates of the impact of tourism on other sectors of the economy,
for example the employment that tourism generates. For example Richards
(1972) calculated that tourism accounted for 12.61% of employment in the
rail transport industry, and for 1.13% in the chemicals industry. It cannot,
however, be emphasised too much just how difficult it is to undertake such
estimates. Archer (1976), Murphy (1983a), Mathieson and Wall (1982), and
S.L.J. Smith (1989) all indicate the difficulties associated with such techniques. Yet there are many instances where, in spite of these difficulties,
researchers have utilised findings from one area and applied them to
another. Vaughan (1986) indicates the types of assumptions that researchers
are thus making as:
This method, therefore, assumes that the pattern of spending, and in
some cases the total amount, in the area in which the original study was
conducted is the same as in the area for which the estimates are being
made. It also assumes that the combinations of business types are the
same. (Vaughan, 1986: 3)
Another factor relating to such studies is the size of the region being
considered. It is becoming more common for inputoutput analysis to be
conducted at regional as well as national levels because of the improvement
of statistical series at regional level owing to the greater use of computers to
extract regional statistics from national data. However, it should be noted
that such regions are generally based on administrative zones rather than
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on tourist flows in short it is the availability of the data that drives the
calculation rather than the actual patterns of tourist trips. One such
example is the work of Wagner (1997) in Guaraqueaba, Brazil. However,
Wagner departs from a conventional inputoutput matrix by developing
what is termed a social accounting matrix (SAM). It is suggested that three
advantages accrue from the matrix. First, it describes the economic links
between production, income distribution and demand. Second, the presentation of the data is a synthesis of different forms of data collected for
differing administrative purposes. Third, it permits the calculation of
regional multipliers. Indeed Wagner (1997: 593) goes so far as to suggest
that While an I/O model can do similar analyses as a SAM, the latter is a
more thorough methodology. In fact, an I/O model is a subset of a SAM.
Consequently the matrix consists of the datasets shown in Table 7.2, which
represents but a summary for in the original some of the cells were further
sub-divided (for example the Households sector is divided into different
income groups). The blank cells are in fact completed with the appropriate
values derived from the statistics of inter-related economic flows based on
expenditures (listed in the columns) and receipts (listed in the rows). The
matrix works on the assumptions that expenditures equal receipts; therefore, as an example, household incomes would be the receipts resulting
from expenditures by institutions. (For a fuller description and description
of inputoutput analysis, see Sohn, 1986). Although this is not stated by
Wagner, it is evident that some of the data can only be best estimates as, for
example, the detail provided in the notes explain that food manufacturing
describes the process of legally and illegally palmito (Wagner, 1997: 595).
This implies a further problem with such approaches that are based on
formal statistical series, and that is the degree to which a black economy
exists. There is little doubt that, particularly in marginal economies where
tourism is often being promoted, the black or informal economy can be very
important. In consequence it will be difficult to assess the true importance
of tourism as an economic activity.
Wagner (1997) then calculates the output and employment multipliers,
which are found to possess values between 1.0 and 2.0. From the description it is obvious that a number of problems exist with this approach, as
with others. For example, it is assumed that the coefficients between the
different industry sectors remain a constant. For example, it might be stated
that within a regional economy tourism accounts continually for 0.6 (or
60%) of the expenditure on road construction and maintenance, or that the
ratio between hotel expenditures and wage costs is continually 0.4 (or, to
express it another way, wage costs account for 40% of hotel costs). It has
been questioned whether such assumptions are valid even in the short
term, much less over a longer term. For example if, as a response to a major
event, hotel employers respond either by employing more people, or by
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Table 7.2 A social-accounting matrix

Receipts
Activity
Factor
Institutions
Exports
Totals
Activities
Rural farms
Rural business
Construction
Manufacturing
Commerce
Services
Transportation
Government
enterprise
Factors
Indirect
business taxes
Capital rent
Labour income
Institutions
Households
Capital
investment
Enterprises
Government
Imports
Totals
After Wagner (1997)
paying overtime rates, then the ratio between labour cost and hotel revenue
changes. Again, over the longer run, more competition for labour might
occur, thereby increasing labour costs. One implication of this is that the
application of any method of calculating economic impacts requires a
process of continuous monitoring, otherwise one is simply left with snapshots that might be less applicable over time. It can also be observed that
concentration on economic transactions is only a partial view, as the
increase in visitor numbers may be having longer-term environmental or
social costs that are slow to become apparent in market transactions. For
example, the governmenthousehold sector might be subject to ratchet
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effects where, after a growing social problem, a government might respond

by significantly increasing expenditure on, say, law enforcement, thereby
affecting both employment and tax flows. In short, market transactions
become reactive to real changes and have failed to measure the actual
process of those changes.
Nonetheless, before concluding that inputoutput analysis may be
fundamentally flawed for these reasons, it is still possible to argue that the
technique possesses many advantages. For example an interesting attempt
to combine inputoutput analysis with a study of the impacts of tourism at
a regional level is provided by Freeman and Sultan (1997). In a study of the
impact of tourism on the Israeli economy, they identified not only different
economic sectors, but also six districts within Israel in order to identify the
inter- and intra-regional effects of tourism. They also estimated the multiplier effects from domestic and international tourism in each of these six
regions. As might be expected, a range of multiplier values emanated that
depended on the type of tourism and the economic structure of each of the
regions, with a key component being the visitor/employee ratio. While this
study possesses interest, it also reveals some of the weaknesses involved in
such studies. First, it assumes that the inter-sector coefficients remain
constant and do not change in response to changing prices, although the
authors argue that this is justifiable on the premise of short-term rigidities
in the system. Second, the data requirements are large and are inevitably
derived from a number of different sources, some of which were collected
over different periods. For example the data include: a survey of 1000
respondents about domestic tourism collected over a period from 1991 to
1994, a 1993 survey of various service providers including restaurants and
car rental companies, inputoutput coefficients for 1988, and other
different sources. The study therefore reveals, in part, issues about the
nature of tourism statistical series and their relationships with other sets of
statistics.
In another study of inter-regional movements, Smale and Nykiforuk
(2001) utilised data based on the 25 Canadian major census areas to develop
a series of location quotients of tourist movements, noting the dynamic
nature of changes in the creation of these location quotients. But, as
S.L.J. Smith (1989) pointed out in his use of spatial modelling of Canadian
tourism flows, such techniques may be pertinent to a country like Canada,
where much of the movement of visitors is tied to VFR and hence metropolitan zones dominate tourist flows because of their population densities.
Nonetheless, this study provides further illustration of the means by which
economic data can be related to spatial distribution and movement.
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Satellite Tourism Accounts

It was partly this issue of statistical series that accounted for the development of satellite accounts. Satellite tourism accounts are fairly well known
in principle, but comparatively new in implementation. The purposes of
satellite accounts are:
(1) To make tourism definitions and classifications compatible and
consistent with those of other industries within the purview of
national income accounting.
(2) To integrate tourism into the framework of the national accounts.
(WTO, 2001b)
The term, satellite therefore implies a derivation of statistics from
national accounting procedures. The French were among the first to establish and calculate statistics based on these premises (Soisson, 1979), and in
1982 the General Assembly of the World Tourism Organisation considered
a report by its Secretary General on the use of such accounting methods
(WTO, 1982). The adoption of satellite accounting by the WTO led to
renewed interest, and in 1991 Canada proposed a methodology and calculations (Wells, 1991) that were to become the model for many of the initiatives that occurred in the last decade of the twentieth century. Indeed it is a
policy among WTO members and other countries such as New Zealand to
produce such accounts, and by 2002 satellite accounts had been produced
by countries such as Canada, the Scandinavian countries, Australia and
New Zealand.
The calculation of satellite accounts depends on three categories of
economic activity, these being:
(1) characteristic tourism commodities;
(2) tourism-related commodities;
(3) non-tourism commodities.
Soisson (1979) indicated the nature of the relationship, as shown in
Figure 7.2. The application of this methodology is shown in Figure 7.3,
which is derived from the New Zealand Satellite Accounts for the year 2000
(Statistics New Zealand, 2001) although the data are derived from 1996.
Satellite accounts are gaining acceptance because of their relationships
to national accounting and their ability to incorporate generally-accepted
sources of statistics. One of the problems associated with other methods of
data are that, particularly in tourism expenditure modelling, the sample
sets may be comparatively small and subject to unknown degrees of error.
Even when discussing such basic data sets as the numbers of overseas visitors, the data may not be based on an examination of every landing card
completed by arrivals, but on a sample of such cards. Consequently while
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10 April 2003 11:32:16
Figure 7.2 Tourism account: Methodologies
190
CONNECTED GOODS AND SERVICES
Goods and services

whose production would
be on a different level if
there were no tourism
Goods and services that

would not be produced in
the absence of tourism
Production in nontourism communities
Production in
tourism communities
Activities producing
these goods and
services
Associated functions
(promotion, training,
control, hospitality)
Activities
producing
these goods
and services
for tourists
and nontourists
A
C
T
I
V
I
T
Y
C
H
A
R
A
C
T
E
R
I
S
T
I
C
186
Standard consumption
Consumption linked with

movement of tourists
Tourism consumption
Tourism functions
Definition of the term tourist


187
the total number of arrivals is known, the countries from which they arrive,
data on the purpose of the trip and the possible duration of the stay will be
derived from sampling the total numbers of cards. Immigration authorities
around the world are increasingly setting up computer systems that will
directly record each arrival and indeed, for security reasons, are examining
methods based on techniques such as retina examination that will both
speed up arrival immigration clearance times and present higher levels of
Tourism expenditure ($9,109 million)
Direct tourism
demand
$6,589 million
Purchase cost of retail goods

on-sold to tourists
$1,670 million
analysed as
GST
$850 million
included in
Commodities
Characteristic tourism commodities
$5,970 million
Tourism-related commodities
$629 million
Commodities
All other goods and services
produced in New Zealand
$170,195 million
Produced by
Characteristic tourism
industries
$22,988 million
All other
industries
$153,796 million
Value added
Non-tourism
commodities
$8,798 million
Value added
Tourism
commodities
$2,591 million
Tourism
commodities
$348 million
Value added from

tourism commodities
$2,939 million
Figure 7.3 The 2000 New Zealand satellite accounts

Based on 1996 data (Tourism Research Council, 2001)
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10 April 2003 11:46:42
Non-tourism
commodities
$68,236 million

188
security. Again, estimates of visitor expenditure based on surveys are still

subject to the problem of respondent recall of that expenditure. On the other
hand satellite accounts are derived from such sources as taxation records
and census data and thus possess higher degrees of stability and probably
accuracy.
This is not to say that there have not been critics of the methods. Smith
and Wilton (1997), for example, queried the accounting procedures being
suggested by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and indicated
discrepancies between those methods and the guidelines issued by the
World Tourism Organisation (WTO). Of concern to Smith and Wilton is that
the WTTC methodology seems to have over-estimated the impact of
tourism in Canada by perhaps as much as three times. The WTTC (1997)
also acknowledged that its own estimates for the Danish economy were
much larger than those calculated by Hansen and Jensen (1996) in a report
commissioned by the Danish Tourist Board. Examination of the debate
reveals a dispute over definitions and the arbitrary nature of some of those
definitions. Indeed, the very definition of a tourist trip is in dispute as definitions of domestic tourism trips vary. For example (Smith, 1995), is a shopping trip by car in North America that extends over a distance of 58.5 miles
or more a tourist trip? For their part the WTTC would allocate jobs involved
in the manufacture of caravans. not to the manufacturing sector, but to the
tourism-related sector. Another problem is that sometimes the data did not
permit the fine distinctions required by the methodology. For example, in
the first set of satellite accounts for New Zealand, day-trip expenditure estimates were based on surveys of Australian in-state trips (this was subsequently corrected when the findings of the New Zealand domestic visitors
survey became available). In both the 2000 and 2001 accounts, airline
freight revenues were attributed to tourism but, in capital expenditures,
while hotel construction was attributed to tourism, airport construction
was not. In short, there remain practical decisions as to what is, and what is
not, a tourism-characteristic activity or service even before finding out
what data actually exist.
Do such problems invalidate the attempt? In the early 2000s the state of
satellite accounting is still embryonic and there is no better way of understanding the nature of the problems than by attempting the calculations
and comparing results and methodologies across different countries.
Recognising this, in September, 1999, the WTO-OECD-Eurostat InterSecretariat Working Group was established to develop a series of technical
documents. Throughout 2001 the WTO published a series of such papers
dealing specifically with definitions and practices, and some of this material is available through the Internet. At the end of the day, it can be argued
that no mode of calculation will be entirely beyond criticism because to
some extent there will be an arbitrary component in the definition of any
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activity; but a commonality in definitions is emerging. One advantage of

such commonality is that the definition drives the nature of the data collection. However, from the authors own experience of being involved in New
Zealands consideration of its own tourism statistics, an important relationship exists between data collection, statistical generation and the uses to
which the statistics can be put. One aspect that emerged very clearly from
the discussions of the New Zealand Tourism Research Council Working
Group on tourism statistics in 2002 is that what might be sufficient for
national bodies (including government) is not always sufficient for those
responsible for tourism planning at regional level. This is particularly true
when it comes to advising entrepreneurs on capital investment or advising
local authorities on the implications of local taxation policies. Consequently, progress on the development of satellite accounts is seemingly
being accompanied by a resurgence of interest in regional and local
economic impact studies as those concerned with site specific and local
tourism flows and investments seek to better understand their relationship
with the national economy. Accompanying this movement are advances in
computing that permit much better analysis of such issues at subregional
level, although in some administrations the costs of such information derivation still impede some advances. Some of these issues are again referred
to in Chapter 9.
Tourism and the Balance of Payments

There is at least one further impact of tourism that requires some consideration, and that is its impact on the balance of payments. In the case of
developing countries, one rationale for tourism is that it is a means of
earning foreign (hard) currencies, and indeed it may be one of the only few
means for such economies to earn export revenue. This becomes especially
important at times when world prices for raw commodities such as sugar,
rubber and minerals may not be high. In the case of developing countries,
however, the expected earnings from tourism may not be as high as initially
hoped for, especially if they depend on tour operators and airlines that are
based in the tourist-generating countries. In the case of package holidays,
approximately 3740% of the cost paid by the tourist will relate to travel to
the tourist-receiving country, and that is usually paid to the airline within
the tourist-generating country an airline that may itself be a subsidiary of
the tour operator (Flook, 2001). An approximation of the tour operators
cost structure indicates how little of the tourists expenditure actually
reaches the tourist-receiving country. Indeed, it may be as little as one-third
of the package holiday price paid by the tourist. Consequently, the expenditure by the tourist at the holiday destination on souvenirs and other
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elements of the holiday can be seen as being important in terms of generating income for the host society.
In terms of payment to the hotelier, much of this is in turn used by the
hotelier for the purchase of imports. Evidence for this comes from studies
undertaken by the Caribbean Tourism Research and Development Centre
(1984) in its study of the links between tourism and local agriculture. In the
case of St Lucia in 1983, an estimated 58% of the food consumed by tourists
was imported. In particular 82% of the meat eaten by tourists was
imported. Henshall-Momsen (1986) notes that in many cases hotels in the
initial stages of tourism attempt to provide tourists with the diet that
reflects the eating patterns of the tourist-generating country, and only later
introduce more local foods cooked in the local manner. (To the imports of
food, must also be added the imports of furniture, equipment and perhaps
even significant parts of the very hotel itself.) However, increasingly tourists will adopt the cuisine of the host country, and indeed some types of
tourists will actively seek an authentic experience. The Caribbean again
provides an example of this with the development, since 1978, of the
SuperClub hotels, which are owned by Jamaican businessmen. One of
their hotels, Jamaica Jamaica specifically seeks to reproduce a Jamaican
experience rather than an international one.
The developing country, in its attempts to build up tourism, generally
needs to import many other commodities. In his study of the role played by
the establishment of National Parks in Africa as a tourist-generating asset,
Marsh (1986) notes that Park Lodges are often constructed with imported
materials and have foreign staff; park agency vehicles such as Land Rovers
are imported, and National Park tours are organised by foreign companies
that repatriate the profits. The host country is further disadvantaged by the
fact that it may not have well-established banking facilities in the touristgenerating country. Tourists buy their travellers cheques in the country of
trip origin, and it is their banks that obtain the first round of commission. It
is the banks in the tourist-receiving country that sustain the costs of remitting the cheques back to the original issuer. If tourists use their credit cards,
it is the retailer in the tourist-receiving area who pays the fee to the card
issuer, whilst the bank in the issuing country receives the interest on any
loan that is made.
The great propensities to import, and the high percentage of the tourists
expenditure that actually never leaves the shores of the tourist-generating
country, thus means that the net gains to the tourist-receiving country are
less than might otherwise be expected. In the case of the Caribbean area, the
Caribbean Tourism Research and Development Centre estimated that in
1979 out of total earnings of $US3.3 billion just over one-third was retained.
Lea (1988) quotes the example of Fiji where approximately only 20% of
tourist earnings are retained.
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Whilst the developing tourist-receiving countries may not gain as much

as might at first sight seem possible, it is nonetheless important to retain the
fact that such countries do actually receive a surplus on their tourism
balance of payments. This is not the case for many developed countries,
which as the tourist generators actually sustain deficits on their balance of
payments from the tourism account. As such these deficits can be regarded
as not simply leakages within their own economies, but, possibly optimistically, a means by which monies are transferred from the richer nations to
the poorer. Whether the social costs associated with such earnings are
worth the revenue is, however, a question that needs to be considered. Nor
must it be seen as axiomatic that richer nations sustain deficits on their
tourism balance of payments. For example Britain has often sustained a
surplus on its tourism invisibles.
Determinants of the Local Impact of Tourism

The economic impacts of tourism are thus complex to assess. From the
above it is, however, possible to begin to identify some of the variables that
will determine the value of the impact. These can be summarised as being:
(1) The nature of the tourist facilities and their attractions. The size of the
tourist destination and its context is important. Can the tourist destination absorb large numbers of tourists and does it have the necessary
infrastructure, both physically and economic not only to support any
given number of tourists but to also retain tourist expenditures within
its own area?
(2) The volume, and nature of the tourists and their spending patterns. Can the
area sustain tourists who require overnight stays, or is it simply
meeting a need for day visits? What are the forms of accommodation
that are available? Are the tourists visiting all the year round, or
simply at certain times of the year? Do they tend to patronise local
businesses? Do they require resources from outside the host community?
(3) The skills of the host community and the levels of, and numbers of jobs held by
them. Do tourist organisations import labour of all types, or can the
local labour force meet the requirement of the tourist enterprises?
What impact does tourism have on wage levels, and is tourism
competing with other occupations for labour? Does tourism attract
labour that might otherwise enter other professions that might not pay
so well but which have social significance (e.g. teaching, nursing)?
(4) The facilities themselves. Are local tourist facilities owned by members
of the host community? What are the sizes of these businesses? To
what extent are they locally financed?
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Mules (2000) notes that economic impacts have to be interpreted far more
widely than in the past. First, he argues that economic impacts were traditionally restricted to the positive, and not to the negative. Secondly, not all
positive impact are measured, and Mules cites the business deals done in
hospitality tents at events as being potentially important, but not being
measured. However, the traditional methods of economic impact assessment have, at times, been driven by data availability, or by the nature of the
economic model being adopted, and to some extent therefore, the estimate
contains somewhat arbitrary. Fourth, economists have been slow to adopt
feedback mechanisms within their models. For example, in the short term
the demand generated by tourists might increase land values. But if these
increased land values subsequently make it difficult for a local labour force to
purchase homes, or if increased land prices deter some investments, then the
consequences of short-term gain will not have been incorporated into the
economic modelling process. In part, this argument is a subset of those arguments that note the problems of assuming fixed coefficients between the
factors of production. Consequently Mules (2000) notes the advantages of
more general equilibrium models that incorporate the effects of things such
as changing exchange rates, changing government responses to changed
revenue sources (such as tourist spending on non-refundable goods and
services or value added taxes), and wage and employment levels. Unfortunately, it has been a common refrain in this chapter that the economic modelling of tourism requires considerable volumes of data, and computable
general equilibrium models probably require even more than those needed
by multiplier or inputoutput analysis.
Theoretically general equilibrium models effectively incorporate opportunity costs, and thereby can generate surprising results. A controversial
finding in Australia was that tourism was effectively reducing the Gross
State Product of Queensland, where tourism is one of the major drivers of
the economy. Adams and Parmenter (1995) concluded, however, that the
growth of tourism was creating an overall negative impact on the
Queensland economy as compared with Victoria. One of the reasons for
their finding was the less productive use that the tourism sector was
making of assets when compared to other industries, plus the fact that
many of the head offices of the hotels and airlines operating in Queensland
were actually located elsewhere. There are, however, significant problems
with this approach, and much of it relates to the basis of comparison and the
nature of the assumptions being made. For example, could it be argued that
slower growth rates in tourism would have released economic resources
for use by other industry sectors? And would those industry sectors have
been run by Queensland-based business organisations?
In 2001 the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) commissioned a
study to examine more carefully the use of general equilibrium modelling
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and its links to tourism satellite accounts in order to better understand the
real-time implications of tourism and its impacts. Richard Miller, Vice
President of the WTTC justified this interest on the premise that:
CGE (computable general equilibrium) models have advantages over a
pure TSA/inputoutput analysis in guiding government policy and
can be very useful for addressing particular questions. So, for example,
economists working in the UK Treasury use CGE modelling techniques on the economic implications of changes in indirect taxes
WTTC believes that recent events in the UK (foot-and-mouth) and the
USA (the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC) have
highlighted the vital importance of real-time economic information on
travel and tourism and raised the value and urgency of this new
research. (Miller, 2002: 5)
Consequently Cooper and Wilson (2002) used satellite accounting and
inputoutput data relating to the UK to estimate the impact of shocks to
travel and tourism in the UK. These shocks were assumed to be a permanent
change, and included changes such as a 10% increase in travel and tourism
demand, and a 10% increase in travel and tourism prices relative to all other
prices. This latter might occur because of increases in fuel costs, taxation
changes aimed at conservation of energy, or other similar policies. Cooper
and Wilson concluded that a short run 0.5% decline in UK GDP would result
and GDP would continue to be lower than would otherwise be the case.
Among the rationalisations provided for this type of modelling is the observation that, as travel and tourism become increasingly important in GDP
formation, so too the importance of shocks to tourism are translated into
significant implications for the wider economy. Finally, it is of interest to note
the concluding comments of Dwyer et al. (in press), who argue that CGE
models emphasise the importance of the structure of tourism industries and
that a state of market share maintenance might well actually hide losses of
GDP in that part of the economy relating to tourism. These losses are not
being revealed in GDP data because of growth in other sectors. Dwyer et al.
also conclude that the whole area of tourism economic forecasting and
impact assessment is about to enter an interesting phase. Certainly it can be
concluded that there is a significantly better understanding of the nature of
tourism impacts than existed only a decade ago, but equally it appears that
the same problems surface with recurring frequency. To some extent any
modelling process is going to be constrained by the nature of the parameters
thought to be important, the available data and the time and destination
zones being analysed. Much of the progress of the last decade is based on
computerisation making various datasets more available to economists, and
on the ability of desktops to utilise new computer-based econometric and
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statistical modelling programs. In one sense there remains one other persistent problem not discussed in the chapter, and that is whether there is a
growing gap between those producing the forecasts and assessments, and
those who are supposed to use them. Do the latter appreciate the nature of
the work undertaken by the former? To what extent do the assessments
appear as if by magic from a computerised box? In short, is there a further
power differential based on knowledge and understanding that has yet to be
considered within the political processes that surround tourism policies and
their implementation?
Appendix
Archers Tourist Expenditure Model for estimating the multiplier effects
for tourist expenditure is as follows.
N
1+
j =1
where
j
I
Q
K
V
Z
1
Q j K ij Vi
n
i =1
1 L X Z V
i
i i
i =1
n
= types of tourist accommodation, 1 ... N

= types of consumer outlet, 1 ... n
= the proportions spent on each type of accommodation
= the proportions spent on each type of consumer outlet
= the income generation in each category of expenditure
= the proportion of income spent within the region by the
= inhabitants.
The above gives an aggregated model for tourist expenditure, but what
is important is to disaggregate data in order to assess the multiplier values
associated with different types of accommodation and tourist activity.
Archer and Owen (1971) suggest the following form.
The multiplier for a given category of accommodation is:
1
1 + K i Vi
n
i =1
1 L X Z V
i
i i
i =1
n
where Ki
Vi
L
Xi
Z
= the proportion spent on each type of consumer outlet

= the income generation in each category of accommodation
= the propensity to consume
= the pattern of consumer spending
= the proportion of income spent within the region by the
= inhabitants.
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Wheeller in his study undertaken for the Wales Tourist Board (cited in
Ryan, 1991a) comments that the estimation procedure thereby falls into two
parts: first, the income generation associated with each item of tourist
expenditure (the direct effect), and second, the multiplier effect of the
spending of this income within the local area by residents. To assess the
income each activity needs to be separately identified, and Archer and
Owen (1971) identified separate values for:
(1) tourist expenditure on hotel and guest house accommodation;
(2) income generated by tourist expenditure in hiring stationary
caravans;
(3) income generated by tourist expenditure in farmhouses and
bed-and-breakfast houses;
(4) income generated by of tourist expenditure on camping;
(5) income generated by tourist expenditure in shops;
(6) income generated by tourist expenditure in garages;
(7) income generation from money circulating into rates and building.
In seeking to calculate the value of the multiplier, technically the calculations need to take into account the proportion of expenditure that arises
from additions to income that results from tourism. In practice it is simpler
to use the average propensity to consume, rather than the marginal propensity to consume. Arguably, within the short term, if spending patterns by
the recipients of tourism expenditure are consistent, then by definition the
average propensity to consume (APC) is equal to the marginal propensity
to consume (MPC). Practically the APC is a much easier figure to collect
from respondents.
One of the major problems is evident, and that is the information
requirements. Without surveys, there is usually little regional data that can
be used. Thus for example, in the original study undertaken on Anglesey,
Archer and Owen (1971) had to use an estimated APC drawn from national
data of 0.9. This was itself an estimate where the Family Expenditure
Survey indicated a value of 0.84 for Rural Households, whilst National
Income Tables gave a value of 0.93. Another practical problem that Ryan
and Connor (1981) came across was in estimating proportions of retail
expenditure in areas where tourism is still developing, as retailers have
difficulty in assessing the proportion of sales that are accounted for by visitors, whilst the nature of the retail mix is also important. In practice many
multiplier studies do not go beyond the first couple of rounds of the
process. It is also difficult to check the results that are obtained, although
one method is to utilise inputoutput analysis, but again the feasibility of
this will be constrained by the availability of the required data. If a multiplier study is being considered, it is also important to be able to identify the
nature of the activities undertaken by tourists, and their comparative
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Table 7.3 Employment directly and indirectly due to tourism in the UK

economy
Industry Group
% of Employment due to Tourism
Agriculture
0.22
Extractive
1.86
Food, drink, and tobacco
0.48
Chemicals and allied industries
1.13
Metals, engineering and vehicles
1.26
Textiles, Leather and clothing
0.26
Other manufacturing
2.53
Construction
0.36
Gas, electricity and water
1.41
Road transport
6.89
Rail transport
12.61
Other transport
9.46
Communications
8.13
Distributive trades
2.47
Other services
9.58
Source: Richards (1972)
importance. Thus, for example within a Canadian context, the role of the
outfitters will be of importance; within the UK, day-trip activity will be
important; within an Australian context, beach use is important. The nature
of the tourist destination zone is a significant variable, and is thus another
reason why the non-survey techniques described by Vaughan (1986) are of
limited usefulness.
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Chapter 8
Tourism Impacts on the Environment

The tourism literature is rich in examples of tourism impacts on the natural
environment and the various species that depend on those environments.
The concern of this chapter is to examine, by giving examples, the types of
conflicts that have arisen and then to argue that even while tourism may, in
places, threaten the environment, equally, those factors that cause adverse
changes in our biosystems also adversely affect the quality of the tourist
experience. Finally, the chapter looks at some of the ways in which the negative impacts of tourism might be minimised.
Tourism as a Threat to the Environment

It is not difficult to make the case that tourism is damaging to the environment. One example of significant impact can be found in the Alps.
Approximately 4050 million people visit the Alps every year, and these
tourists are supported by an infrastructure of more than 40,000 ski runs and
12,000 ski lifts and cable railways. Mader (1988) notes that previouslyunvisited areas are continually being made accessible. Bulldozers reshape
the mountains, and trees are felled. The result is that the drainage patterns
are continually being altered. Trees no longer halt the rush of melting
waters; the roads, trails and hardened soil become ducts by which waters
are carried further than before. In 1983, the area around Axamer Lizum in
Austria, which had been developed for the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics,
suffered from mudslides caused, according to environmental conservationists, by the bulldozing of the area to create 68 hectares of ski runs. It
would appear that landslides are becoming more common, and, in 1987, 23
people were killed in a landslide at the camping site near Annecy in the
French Alps, while 3 villages were buried in a landslide at Valtellina in the
Italian Alps. Mader (1988) further comments that, on any Sunday when the
weather is fine, 6,000 cars drive to Grindelwald, and in doing so consume
80,000 litres of petrol to produce 9 tons of carbon monoxide, 1.3 tons of
hydrocarbon, 1.7 litres of nitrogen and 24 pounds of lead. Such emissions
are also accumulatively damaging to the environment.
In the Himalayas, the trek to Everest is now so well established as a
tourist path that, in 1989, a special expedition was mounted to clean up the
litter that lay around base camp. It was estimated that, between 1953 and
the early 1990s, more than 50 tons of plastic, glass and metal had been
197
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dumped in what was termed the worlds highest junkyard. Subsequent

expeditions have been necessary to clean up the area and other parts of the
mountain chain. For example, clean-up operations were launched in 2001
and 2002 under the auspices of Dhauli Guri to undertake further cleaning
on the worlds seventh highest peak, that of Mount Dhaulagiri (http://
www.dhaulagueri.com, 2002). In the month of May, 2001, alone, 40 people
reached the peak of Everest. This number, repeated subsequently, is due to
the advent of guided tours to the Himalayas. In August, 2001, the BBC ran,
on its web pages, a debate about over use of Everest and the dumping of
rubbish. A wide range of international opinions was elicited, and opposing
views discussed. However, there appeared to be considerable support for
imposing extra fees for removing rubbish from this highest of all tourist
locations. Elsewhere in the Himalayas, where trekking holiday companies
operate, a continuing history of other tourism impacts has been recorded
since the 1960s. Tuting (1989), for example, noted the use of wood to heat
water to meet the needs of tourists for a wash and shower after their days
trek. It has been estimated that the trekking tourist burns about 14 pounds
of wood per day, leading to further deforestation (Mader 1988), resulting in
damage to the water drainage patterns. The Nepalese government has had
to develop schemes of afforestation, whilst stopping local people from
using wood for heating, a practice carried out from time immemorial. The
costs of tourism thus include afforestation, and the starting of hydroelectric
and other electrification schemes (Cullen, 1986).
Just as the physical environment is threatened, so too is the flora and
fauna of different tourist locations. Renton (1989) describes the impact of
tourism on the breeding habits of the loggerhead turtle on the Greek island
of Zakynthos thus:
A female, on average, lays five nests a summer, and can hope that two
or three of her hatchlings will survive natural predators at sea and hope
to make it to adulthood. But these statistics are thrown awry on beaches
where man plays. The first hazard the mother turtle faces is from motor
boats and jet-skis as she approaches her ancestral breeding ground; the
noise can send her back to sea ... Then, on the beach, plastic bags get
mistaken for jellyfish, and are eaten with fatal mistakes. Should she
manage to lay her eggs undisturbed, they are then at the mercy of sandcastle diggers, cars and motorbikes or even people planting beach
umbrellas. But the most dangerous time is at hatching. As the young
turtles scuttle to the surf, any light or noise can disorientate them. Then
they can wander off to eventually die of dehydration and heat
exhaustion. (Renton, 1989: 39)
The example of Zakynthos represents, in a small way, the nature of the
conflict between tourism and the environment. Until 1977 the beach at
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Laganas was comparatively under-developed, but in 1982 it was necessary

for the Greek authorities to impose a ban on building. Even so, it has been
estimated that about 50% of all Zakynthos tourist facilities are to be found
in the Bay of Laganas (Katselidis & Dimopoulos, 2000). Consequently the
use of the beach by holidaymakers clashed with the nesting needs of the
turtles. In 1983 the Sea Turtle Protection Society was formed, and in 1986 an
EC-funded monitoring project was commenced with support from the
World Wildlife fund. By 1987 it became necessary to impose bans on beach
use between dawn and dusk and bans were also imposed on the use of
speed boats. For those local people attracted to the tourism industry from
the rural hinterland, and who invested family savings in the paraphernalia
of the modern beach tourism industry, the turtles became a threat to their
livelihood. Initially occupancy rates in the hotels fell as the foreign tour
operators moved their business elsewhere in response to the growing
tension between local people and conservation groups. The landowners at
Yerakas, who hoped to take advantage of the tourist, were afraid that their
hopes to cash in on tourism would be thwarted even while tourism development was permitted elsewhere on the island and, in short, local people
expressed fears that their own economic development would be frustrated.
Early in 1991 proposals were mooted for the development of a marine
reserve and the creation of a new form of tourism, where no motor boats
would be permitted. There was considerable local opposition to this with,
among other things, expressions of considerable concern about a loss of
fishing rights as well as a loss of income from tourism. The environmental
lobby found that it had to address these issues; that it was not enough to
simply appeal to altruistic concerns about animal welfare, and long negotiations were commenced in order to arrive at a satisfactory solution. It was
not until 1999 that the marine reserve was finally declared by the Greek
Government. The promise, of course, was that tourism based on ecotourism and conservation values was more than possible, and that the
turtles possessed economic value beyond the food that might be derived
from their eggs. In short, an attempt has been made to modify tourism,
create an attraction from the turtles that both generates economic value and
complements existing tourism, and thereby sustain both the wellbeing of
the turtles and local people.
Yet, in spite of the perspective that animals left in the natural state are
assets and should be protected, evidence persists that tourism might still
threaten the wildlife that tourists come to see (Myers, 1972; Reusberger,
1977; Rivers, 1974a). For example, the lions of the National Parks of Africa
may have their feeding and breeding activities interrupted as tourist-laden
Land Rovers surround them so that tourists can take photographs
(Shackley, 1996). Predator/prey and migratory behaviour may be disrupted (Carbyn, 1974; WTO, 1983). West, a gorilla expert based at Bristol
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Zoo, in 1988, expressed concern that tourism, whilst offering opportunities

to save the gorillas of Rwanda, might also threaten them. He stated:
Too many visits from tourists could prevent gorillas from breeding.
They live in a fragile habitat, and the damaging of footpaths and the
lighting of camp fires, will stop them from living their normal lives. We
have to regard the gorilla population in Rwanda as one that is going
extinct. [As gorillas are closely linked to humans] they can pick up
human ailments such as colds, flu, pneumonia and measles a disease
like measles can kill a gorilla. Before tourists get close to gorillas they
ought to be screened for infection. (West, 1988, cited by Ryan, 1991a: 98)
There exists evidence that these worst fears were fulfilled. Butynski and
Kalina (1998) record how, in the Kahuzi-Beiga National Park in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, 6 gorillas died of respiratory diseases,
and 27 needed to be treated with antibiotics. In 1990, a bronchopneumonia
outbreak in a group of 35 gorillas visited by tourists affected 26 animals,
two of which died. Vaccination programmes now have to be carried out
among the gorilla groups, although, in the light of the violence that
subsequently occurred in Rwanda, such concerns might now seem
comparatively minor (Shackley, 2001a). Nonetheless concerns about
humananimal interaction continue to be identified in new locations. Lunn
(2001) describes the advent from the 1970s of polar bear tourism within the
Canadian Arctic, based at Churchill. Specialised forms of transport
(including helicopters) are used to view the bears, and other forms of intrusion duly resulted. By the mid-1980s there was a fear that unregulated polar
bear viewing would threaten the species, and in 1996 the Wapusk National
Park was created to help regulate visits through a permit system. Elsewhere
some of the fears about the overloading of natural environments by tourist
actions seem to have been been well founded. In New Zealand, in 2001, a
period of several weeks went by without Whale Watch Kaikoura spotting a
sperm whale. A report in 2002 (NZPA, 2002) noted that at least 11 dead
whales had been washed up in the area since 1993. This was in excess of
those found in earlier periods, although Coventry (2002) notes that in the
period 1993 to 2002 a total of 11 dead sperm whales had been found on the
New Zealand coast. Combined with evidence of changes to the movements
of whales and their feeding grounds, there is some concern that the intrusion
effects from boats, helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft are having an adverse
effect on the whales behaviour, and the Department of Conservation has
declined to offer more permits for whale-watching tourism operations.
Concerns have been expressed about the impacts of commercial dolphin
watch companies on pods of dolphins, and a growing number of studies are
raising both concerns and ethical questions about the use of wildlife for
commercial gain (e.g. see Dunn & Goldsworthy, 1997, 1998, 2000).
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201
One of the emergent themes of ecotourism operations based on wildlife

is that the commercialisation of wildlife requires management of the sites
and increasing human intervention in the care of the species that are the
attraction. The example of vaccination of gorillas has been noted. Higham
(2001), in the case of the albatross colony near Dunedin in New Zealand,
commented that one impact of the movement of birds nesting sites away
from the viewing spot to less-optimal nesting sites has been that a quarter of
the birds are now dependent on assistance with hatching and supplementary feeding. There is some concern that practices relating to the feeding of
animals, whether by tourists or by operators to attract species so that they
are more easily observable, might have longer-term impacts on mating,
hunting and territory sizes (see, for example, Ryan, 2001b; Morgan, 2001;
Newsome et al., 2001).
Nor are the examples of tourism damage restricted to exotic locations.
Within Britain, the National Parks are under considerable stress. In 1979
there were approximately 90 million visits a year to the National Parks. A
decade later there were 100 million, and the Brecon Beacons, Dartmoor, the
Lake District, North York Moors, the Peak District, Snowdonia and the
Yorkshire Dales were all reporting problems of footpath erosion. The
upland environments, with their slow plant growth, are vulnerable to
damage, and the usual problem is that people tread the top surface away.
The grass becomes worn, is unable to grow, and the result is a muddy path.
The trail then becomes wider as people make a detour from the muddy
morass (or, in dry weather, the rutted uneven path) and use the grass
borders of the path. This in turn becomes eroded, and thus the path
becomes wider over time. In 1987 a survey of National Trust coast line
sought to record the patterns of use and the ecological damage arising from
recreational and tourism activities. Edwards (1987) then analysed the sensitivity of land types to recreational usage, and found that, in effect, the
damage depended on the nature and intensity of the activity and the nature
of the soil. In addition, however, the environmental impacts of tourism
were both direct and indirect. Thus, for example, there would be direct
damage from wheeled traffic on grassy areas, whilst there would be indirect damage resulting from disturbance effects. Further, this is damage that
relates solely to normal patterns of use, and does not take into account the
problems that can arise from litter, vandalism or other irresponsible behaviour. Edwardss results are summarised in Table 8.1.
On other occasions the threat posed is primarily an aesthetic one. In 1989,
as part of its campaign for stronger controls on new housing in the unspoilt
areas of the highlands and islands, the Scottish Scenic Trust prepared a list
of housing developments, which included a group of chalets on the island
of Mull. In many such locations, housing development is for holiday homes
or the building of timeshare complexes, as has happened in the Lake
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202
Quarries
Rocky
shores
Shingle
Salt
marshes
Mud
Reed beds
Woodland
Off-road
vehicles
++
$
+++
+++
$
++
$
Camping
cravans
+++
$
++
$
+++
$
+++
$
Trampling
++
$
+
$
++
$
+++
$
+
$
Path erosion
+++
$
++
$
+++
$
+
$
Horse riding
+
$
+
$
++
+++
$
+
$
++
$
Canoeing
+*
+*
Powerboating
+*
+*
Sailing
+*
+*
+*
++*
++*
$
+
$
++*
++*
++
++
$
+
$
+*
$
+
$
+
$
+*
$
Diving
Windsurfing
Rockclimbing
Wildfowling
Fishing and
bait digging
National
history
interest
Sand dune
Cliff tops
Table 8.1 The sensitivity of, and ecological damage due to, recreation and
tourism
little or no sensitivity
+ slightly sensitive
++ moderately sensitive
+++ highly sensitive
* effect due to disturbance
$ recorded damage within heritage coasts
Source: Edwards (1987)
Key
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District. The Lake District, Britains largest National Park, in spite of its
undoubted beauty and literary connotations with Wordsworth and the
other Lake District poets, failed to achieve the status of a World Heritage
Site. This was in part due to the stresses caused on the road systems and the
levels of congestion. In other cases the sheer volume of tourism development causes a total change in landscape. Barrett (1989) compares the development of the Algarve with the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution in
the valleys of South Wales in these terms:
This frenzied activity is how it must have been in the South Wales
valleys at the start of the Industrial Revolution: endless digging,
building and labouring. In those days the commodities were coal, iron
and steel. In the Algarve today they labour for tourism. But the results
are similar. Cliff top by cliff top, beach by beach, valley by valley the
natural beauty of the countryside is being eroded. No dark satanic
mills or slag heaps, perhaps, but the landscape here is being disfigured
just as badly by tower blocks of hotels and apartments. (Barrett, 1989)
The quality of development in such resort areas is often questionable.
There may be a concern with quantity rather than quality in the rush to
ensure that the new crop of the post-industrial world, the tourist, is housed
and fed. The result of such developments is often a tourist complex that
could be located on any part of the Mediterranean coastline, so indistinguishable is it from its counterparts. Even the signposts, in a mixture of
Northern European languages, are the same.
Nor must it be thought that the damaging effects of tourism are
restricted to the large scale. Small-scale examples can be found in almost
any location where visitors come to stare. At the site of Gabriel Dumonts
grave at Batoche National Historic Park, the site of the 1885 rebellion in
Canada, the effects of trampling on the grass before the grave can be
observed, for the grass is worn away. Areas with comparatively little
tourism might also feel the effects of tourism, albeit perhaps as just one
more component of environmental change which threatens the status quo
of the existing habitat. For example, in the lakes of northern Canada
increasingly strict limits are being imposed on the amount of fish that can
be caught, or game that can be shot, as the tourist hunter adds to the problems being caused by wider environmental change. In 1989, the limits on
fishing in the Prince Albert National Park had once again to be reduced
because of a diminishing stock of fish. In 2002 the draft plan for the Park
recognised that there was a need to designate specific recreational fishing
lakes and to monitor impacts as a means of limiting damage to fish stocks.
This apparently sorry story of negative impacts has perhaps two underlying themes. The first is that tourism brings not only clients to the unspoilt
area, but currently also brings much of the support structure that the clients
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are used to in their home environment. The beauty of the unspoilt area is to
be enjoyed along with all the comforts of home, modern sanitation, and hot
and cold running water, as well as the luxury of being on holiday. The
problem then becomes intensified by the very numbers of visitors. Sax
(1980) describes this process thus:
Tourism in parks today ... is often little more than an extension of the
city and its lifestyle transposed onto a scenic background. At its
extreme in Yosemite Valley or at the south rim of the Grand Canyon,
for example, one finds all the artefacts of urban life: traffic jams, long
lines waiting in restaurants, supermarkets, taverns, fashionable shops,
night life, prepared entertainments, and the unending drone of motors.
(cited by Ryan, 1991a: 101)
Sessa (1988) refers to this process as the development of urban tourist
poles, and perceives it to be an important part in the development of the
econo-tourism system. But there is yet a further added twist to this
process, and that is that the imported lifestyle is not necessarily that of the
host community. English owned and managed bars dominate the southern
Spanish coastline, and Japanese signs and businesses are abundant in Banff
National Park in Canada. Searle (1989: 9) traces the growth of the Cineplex
with 40,000 square feet of retail space soon to open, the 16 luxury condominiums available soon at Banff, and the expansion of the township to
over 10,000 permanent residents within the National Park. Today the Lux
Cinema Centre can be accessed on the net by the enquiring tourist looking
for an alternative to skiing.
Tourism as the Ally of the Environment

But there is a second important issue. Tourism is not the sole cause of
environmental change. Nor is it simply an agent of negative or detrimental
change to the environment. It, too, is adversely affected by the threats to the
environment caused by pollution. Again the evidence is easy to find in
reports that come from around the world. It is, for example, well known
that Bondi Beach is not the paradise that it has been painted to be. In
January 1989 a clean-up operation, in which 20,000 Sydneysiders participated, produced 3000 tons of rubbish, amongst which there were 5 cars,
3000 hypodermic needles, 1000 used condoms, tyres, shopping trolleys,
mattresses and the body of a dead man, believed to be that of a missing
Sydney fisherman (Milliken, 1989). Even in 2002, a report of the annual
Clean Up Australia Day noted that below Bondis sand lurked 700,000 cigarette butts with an estimated 110 butts in each 10 square metre of sand
(Jamal, 2002). However, a growing consciousness of the need both to generally protect the environment and to safeguard the health of visitors and
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beach users has produced some improvements. For many years Bondi was
known not only for its beach, but for the pollution of its waters caused by
three sewage outfalls. Often surfers were advised not to enter the waters
after heavy rainfall because of the leakage from both the sewage and stormwater pipes. Perhaps because of the use of Sydney Harbour and Bondi
Beach during the Sydney Olympics, various improvements began to be put
in place. Stormwater control devices were installed at Bondi, and slowly the
waters are beginning to improve, even though there are still deepwater
discharges of sewage (Waverley Council, 1999).
A combination of environmental and user pressure groups has slowly
been effective in improving water quality in many parts of the world. In
1988 Jackman (1988) described the north beach of Scarborough, where the
resident population of 52,000 doubles in the summer, as one where:
Bacteria lie in wait capable of causing diarrhoea, vomiting, salmonella, enteritis, hepatitis, cystitis, skin rashes, infections of the nose, ear
and throat and, for unvaccinated swimmers, even typhoid and polio.
(Jackman, 1988)
Consequently, in 1989, a 12 million scheme, which included a sewage
treatment plant, was commenced by the resort in an attempt to overcome the
possible impacts of such sewage on its tourism trade. Surfers Against
Sewage, a UK-based environmental lobby group, has waged a long
campaign for the improvement of water quality and a tightening of legislation that permitted sewage discharge during the winter months in South
West England. The groups web page (www.sas.org.uk) lists summaries of
research papers relating to the issues of polluted waters and the various
responses by water bodies and the UK government. Among the papers it is
noted that some authorities have recognised that claims to clean beaches and
water can help generate additional revenue only from tourists who are sensitive to such claims. For example the Island of Jersey has installed disinfection
systems in its sewage treatment plant, so complying with the tightest standards on water discharge into the sea. Such a policy helps to sustain the
islands claims to having the cleanest water in Europe. Welsh Water, Wessex
Water and Yorkshire Water have all followed suit. In March 2002 the UK
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced that 180
additional coastal areas were declared as sensitive areas (bathing waters)
under the Urban Waste Treatment Directive, which meant that such areas
will receive tertiary UV treatment to reduce pathogens in sewage discharges.
The improvement in bathing water quality has been one of the success
stories of environmental improvement. In 1988 only 60.5% of English and
Welsh beaches complied with the EC Bathing Waters Directive, but by 2000
95% of 480 sampled sites met the requirements. However, for various
pressure groups there still exist concerns that the standards being adhered to
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are not as rigorous as they would wish. First, as the European Union admits
in the document, Developing a New Bathing Water Policy (European Commission, 2000a), the current guidelines were drawn up in 1975, and since then
technology has substantially changed. The UKs Environment Agency
(UKEA, 2001: OConnell, 2002), while pleased to record the continuing
improvement in Britains bathing water quality, also noted that compliance
was against two standards. The mandatory standard is the more lax of the
two and, as might be expected, environmental groups would prefer the
higher guideline standard to be achieved. Briefly the two standards are:
The mandatory standard, which should not be exceeded. It requires that
95% of the samples should contain not more than 10,000 total coliforms per 100 ml of water, or 2000 faecal coliforms per 100 ml of water.
The guideline standard, which should be achieved wherever possible.
This standard requires 80% of the samples to have no more than 500
total coliforms per 100 ml of water, or 100 faecal coliforms per 100 ml
of water. In addition to this, 90% of samples should have no more than
100 faecal streptococci per 100 ml of water. The EC derivation does not
necessitate the monitoring of faecal streptococci.
These issues are further discussed later in the chapter.
As tourists increasingly access the previously inaccessible, so too the
expectation that there exists a pristine environment as yet unspoilt by
human activities proves to be unfounded. The debris of the modern world
is found in the most inaccessible spots of the world. In 1988 it was reported
that even on the uninhabited island of Amchitka in the Aleutians off
Alaska, the US National Marine Fisheries Service found 1375 pounds of
plastic litter on a beach just a mile long (Smith, 1988). In a world of linked
ecological chains the potential cause for disaster may be found many miles
away from the tourist resort area. Because of such findings, concern is being
expressed over the growth of tourism to Antarctica. Thus far this is among
the least affected areas of the world. Today scientists working at the various
sites take far more care than their predecessors over minimising their
impacts. For example the Australian Antarctica Division requires an
environmental impact assessment to be completed before any activity
occurs within its territory. These requirements are also enforceable in the
case of touristic activities, so operators offering tours to Antarctica formed
the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO).
IAATOs 46 member companies (in 2002) agreed to a set of objectives, the
purpose of which is to sustain appropriate, safe and environmentallysound private-sector travel to the continent. In May 2001 IAATO reported
on research relating to the possible transmission of pathogens by visitors.
Although the evidence was not conclusive, some evidence was found that
there was some substance to concerns (McFeters et al., 1993; IUCN, 1998).
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Accordingly, in 2002, there was the adoption of procedures that require

passengers landing on Antarctica to have to pass through troughs
containing disinfectant on both disembarkation and embarkation.
One of the threats to tourist locations comes from modern agricultural
practices and the heavy use of herbicides and pesticides. In 1989 the tourist
trade of the Italian Adriatic was adversely affected by a mysterious alga
that bloomed in the sun on the waters of the Mediterranean. Following television pictures around the world of deserted beaches edged by an
unsightly scum, hotel occupancies fell as British and German holidaymakers switched to alternative destinations. The toxicity of the algae was
such that it was thought to be harmless, but sun, sea and beach
holidaymakers are not ones to take risks, and hence the Italian tourism
industry suffered. The cause was unknown, but one theory was that it was
related to the fertilisers and pesticides being used by the farmers of the
North Italian plains; others blamed industrial pollution, and yet others
blamed a mild winter (Hallenstein, 1989; Sheridan, 1989). Tourism thus also
suffers from the pollution of the environment that is caused by patterns of
modern life and production methods. The acid rain that kills the forests of
Germany, or those of Scandinavia, also indirectly threatens the tourism
interests of those areas. In theory therefore, the tourism industry can
become an ally of environmental conservationist groups, as there is a
common cause in preserving the quality of the landscape. Examples exist
where tourist business organisations have appreciated the need to enhance
landscapes so as to simultaneously enhance the quality of the tourist experience. Perhaps the most successful of these partnerships have been within
the urban landscape, as property developers, local government authorities,
hotel groups and others respond to a growth both of interest in industrial
heritage and of recreational time. This has led to the re-development of
previously derelict waterfronts, old areas of warehousing and factory
plant, and also to attempts to enhance central business districts in towns to
combat the move to the suburbs. An example of this type of process is
provided by Salford docks on the Manchester Ship Canal, in England. In
1980 Salford Council began a long process of renewal of the 150 acres of
land and water that was characterised by rusting wrecks of old machinery
and desolate waste land inhabited by a large population of rats. The councils initial attempts came to naught, but in 1982 it allocated 30 acres to a
local businessman, Ted Hagan, with the mandate that he could retain the
freehold on the 30 acres if in turn he could generate 9 million of investment
within three years. With council cooperation, this target was achieved, and
within five years a complex of residential homes, hotels, retail outlets and
offices and workshops had replaced the devastated area. Similar examples
can be found the world over. Harbourplace in Baltimore attracts 20 million
visitors each year and has become a model for other developments. Toronto
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has changed 100 acres of under-used, derelict waterfront into an urban

park. Sydney has created for itself a new asset in the Darling Harbour,
which has not only transformed what was formerly known as the City
Sink into attractive surroundings, but has also generated 10,000 permanent jobs (Collinge, 1988). Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco today plays
host to street theatre both for its residents and for 14 million tourists, whilst
Faneuil Hall has become an inherent part of Boston.
In addition, examples can be found where tourist organisations have
sought to develop tourist complexes in harmony with their surroundings,
and indeed to improve on the existing scenery. Center Parcs, in
Nottinghamshire, developed a site within Sherwood Forest that featured
the planting of several thousands of trees, the creation of a 15-acre lake, a
nature reserve, a deer sanctuary and improvements to existing drainage
patterns. In addition they planned not only an existing pattern of footpaths
through the forest, but also future routes, so as to avoid the problems associated with over-trampling. All this was done in what was previously
400 monotonous acres of commercial Corsican Pine (Phillips, 1988). There
are many schemes that attempt to develop networks of paths that permit
exploration of an area without threatening wildlife, and the use of cork
chips, wooden boardwalks and other techniques can minimise path
erosion problems. But all too often such schemes are restricted to publicfunded bodies or their like or, if in the commercial sector, relate to the
immediate environment of the commercial organisation concerned. In the
case of the package holiday, the tour operator and the travel agent usually
undertake little direct investment in the areas where they take tourists.
Often it is argued that they will comply with local laws and regulations, and
will use only those institutions and organisations that concur with legal
requirements. Until comparatively recently there was little evidence that
tour operators questioned the validity of local laws, whether they related to
aspects such as the fire regulations of hotels, or to the fact that tourist
complexes are being built in areas of ecological value. Pffflin (1987) quoted
one speaker from the tour operator industry at the Third World Ecumenical
European Conference (ECTWT, 1986) as stating Development aid is not
our task. Our aim is profit. Today, however, some companies, particularly
smaller tour operators but also including some of the bigger names, warn
their clients about fragile ecosystems, and are seeking to improve matters,
either by direct action or by financial support of conservationist and scientific groups. For example several tour operators pay a premium to bodies
such as Worldwide Fund for Nature. There is a much higher level of awareness about the need to develop sustainable tourism and this is evidenced
by the industry adoption of the Green Globe 21 initiative and certification,
which is discussed below.
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The Measurement of Impacts

Thus far the chapter has described, with reference to various studies, the
possible impacts that tourism might have on natural and built environments. Is it possible to discern any trends, identify any indices that might
help measure the nature of these impacts, identify what needs to be
measured, and indicate any management policies that might help to
mitigate the worst of these impacts? Among the variables thought to be of
importance in determining the impacts of tourism are:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
the numbers of tourists;

the nature of the activities in which tourists partake;
the infrastructure provided by tourist planners at the site;
the nature of the information provided to tourists for example are
guidelines for appropriate behaviours issued to tourists;
(5) what have tourists been told to expect what promotional promises
have been made in any site advertising?
(6) what levels of fragility exist within the natural or built environments
that host the tourists?
This list suggests the types of measures required. First, records need to
be kept about tourist numbers and the behaviours of animal species, rates
of erosion or other measures of environment in order to assess the correlation between visitation rates and impacts. The intervening variables are
those of management policies and infrastructure of place. Therefore the
remainder of this chapter will concentrate on these issues.
It is not uncommon for researchers to develop various categorisations
within which to define the problem and thereby determine the modes of
measurement that can be applied. For example the Batelle Environmental
Evaluation System identifies four components of the natural environment:
ecology, pollution, aesthetics and human interest. It allocates a points
system to each of these classifications, and to subsystems within the categories. For example, it attributes a weighting to impacts on water fowl, fisheries, air quality, visual quality and the like. While it has the advantage of
adopting a holistic approach, one problem is that it is very much a case of
one model fits all circumstances; and therefore, arguably, it ignores the
issues of those things that have specific importance in given contexts. In
practice, most research has applied similar and well-proven methodologies
to specific locations in a pragmatic manner. This section will examine some
of the practical ways in which researchers have sought to examine the
impacts of tourists with reference to flora, fauna, water quality and air
pollution. Some of the impacts are listed in Table 8.2
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Table 8.2 Possible impacts on the environment arising from tourist

behaviours
Activity
Nature of impact
Transport and travel
Pollution from burning of fossil fuels.

Disturbance of species, displacement from nesting,
feeding sites, hunting sites, migration flows,
movement to sub-optimal locations.
Recreational nature
based pursuits
Trail erosion, trampling effects, soil compaction,

insect dispersal, disturbance of nesting sites,
biodiversity adversely affected. Introduction of new
species, viruses and bacteria to sites.
Souvenir purchases
Threat to wildlife numbers, disruption of natural

processes.
Infrastructure changes
Alter natural environments, create different microclimates change balance of species, remove
nesting/breeding/hunting sites. Can enhance built
environments, create more profitable and
productive use of land in areas of urban decay.
Feeding wildlife
Behaviour changes, change in diet and nutrition,

increase densities of population beyond normal,
change territorial patterns
Litter and noise
Disturb breeding patterns, aesthetically not

acceptable, hazard to animals
Untreated waste
Lowers water quality, increases turbidity, nitrates in

water, etc.
Improper dumping of
waste
Possible sites for animal feeding, injurious to health,

spillovers into water supplies and degradation of
downstream waters.
Use of firewood,
harvesting timber
Changing ratios of naturally dying debris ill effects

on insect life, ever-widening trampling effects in
wood collection for fires, reduction of tree cover,
habitat modification, erosion, ecological change.
Snorkeling and diving
Impacts on coral, removal of organisms, ill effect on

fish scales, sea mammal skins
Trampling
Trampling effects are often a major concern. The scarring of hillsides, the
widening of tracks and erosion of marginal vegetation from tramping, or
from other activities such as skiing, are very evident in many parts of the
world. In the case of informal and formal tracks used for walking, rambling
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or tramping, path widening occurs when walkers begin to avoid the original beaten or marked path and walk at its edges, often because of poor
weather and its effects on unprotected soils. Paths become muddy and
possibly slippery underfoot, and so tourists will want to avoid such areas.
As wet and muddy footpaths sometimes freeze over, the path becomes
rutted and uneven, and thus even when it dries out walkers will tend to
avoid such areas. Therefore, informal tracks, given usage over time, will
become wider to the detriment of the natural environment. This occurs in
many sorts of terrain, as is demonstrated by the photographs taken by
Ward et al. (2000) in a study of geothermal active areas around Rotorua in
New Zealand (see Figure 8.1).
The impact of tramping has been well established in the literature, even
to the extent of measuring the pressure imposed by a walking boot. For
example, to measure the pressure asserted by walking boots with Vibram
soles in park areas, Holmes and Dobson (1976) derived the formula:
(M%)(Mw) + (F%)(Fw) + (BCw)
(M%)(Bootm) + (F%)(Bootf)
where M%
Mw
F%
Fw
Bcw
Bootm
Bootw
average weight
average boot area
weighted
average
pressure
= percentage of males in group

= average male weight
= percentage of females in group
= average female weight
= weight of boots and clothes
= male boot area in cm2
= female boot area in cm2.
Liddle (1997: 1011) presents a table that lists total weights, ground
contact area pressure and calculated ground pressure associated with
various outdoor activities, vehicles and animals. Table 8.3 shows just a
small proportion of this table.For comparison Liddle (1997) also includes
similar results for animals, and his work shows that a sheep has an average
total weight of 80,000g resulting in pressure of 941g/cm2.
The consequences of trampling are quite well known, and Liddle (1997)
provides many examples of the impacts and the sensitivity of different
terrains and flora to trampling by recreationists and tourists walking
through the countryside, the outback or other landscapes. One summary of
the impacts is provided by Landals and Scotter (1974), and is shown in
Figure 8.1. This diagram indicates how, with increased trampling effects,
the vegetation cover is reduced, and areas of bare ground and dead vegetation increasee. The evidence is that for some types of flora negative impacts
can occur very quickly. For example, alpine meadows are very susceptible
to trampling effects, and as few as 510 people per week can reduce species
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100
Vegetative
cover
75
Percent
Dead
vegetation
50
25
Bare
ground
0
0
25 50
100
200
Number of tramples
Before trampling
400
After 500 passes
Figure 8.1 Patterns of trampling

Diagram: Landals & Scotter (1974); Photographs: Ward et al. (2000)
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Table 8.3 Impacts on ground of touristic/recreational activities

Static ground pressure
Average
Ground
of total
contact
weight (g) area (cm2)
Pressure Source
2
(g/cm )
Human bare foot on

hard ground
73,000
262
297
Liddle, 1997
Human on snow skies
75,000
2,660
28
Liddle, 1997
Trail bike
229,000
114
2,008
Eckert et al.,
1979
Four wheel Drive Toyota

loaded with 4 people
and gear on hard ground
2,500,000
1,483
1,686
Liddle, 1979
Hovercraft SK5
air-cushion vehicle
7,264,000
484,266
15
Rickard &
Brown, 1974
diversity by up to 10%, increase the amount of bare ground by 1020%, and

increase the density of the soil by anything from 10 to 40% (Hartley, 1976).
The reasons for this type of negative environmental impact are generally
well understood. The increased pressure on the soil means that the soil
becomes more compacted and more dense, and the macro pore cavities are
consequently squeezed. All of this increases the resistance of soil to root
penetration, thereby making it more difficult for plants to grow. Root structures take longer to become established and are smaller than might otherwise be the case, and so the plant is less able to derive nutrients from the
soil. Other related issues occur. The greater density of the soil makes it more
difficult for water to penetrate, and indeed over small areas of heavily
compacted soil local and micro drainage patterns can be changed. During
late summer, when plants might be trying to seed, a series of results can
occur, all of which reduce biodiversity and plant cover. Seeds may land on
dense, compacted soils where they are unable to establish themselves. They
may become desiccated in the higher temperatures associated with hard
ground. They may be washed away by rainfall. They become more susceptible to frost damage. Trampling certainly affects soil porosity and hence the
moistureroot relationships. The relative lack of water percolating through
the soil can result in nutrient-deficient soil. Thus a combined result of wear
and tear on plants and these other effects leads to a reduction in
biodiversity of species and, if bare ground is averted, it is because more
hardy, durable plants (often grasses) succeed where other plants fail to
establish themselves. Hence trampling also changes the natural balance
between different plant species. These factors are taken into account by
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Leung and Marion (1996), who construct a model of trail degradation. Their
model adds factors such as climate, user types and intensity of use, as well
as soil and plant types. The same authors (Leung & Marion, 1999a) subsequently concluded that these problems are a growing world problem, and
trail erosion as a result of increasing numbers of trampers has become one
of the major problems facing park authorities. Additionally, the problems
are not restricted to trampers, but are caused by mountain bikers,
horseriding, sand dune buggies, cross-country bikes and other forms of
transport (Newsome et al., 2001). Studies of horse riding have also been
undertaken. For example, Beeton (1999) examined the social interaction
between horseback riders and other users of trails. From an environmental
perspective, Lull (1959) reported that a horse can exert pressures of up to 2.8
kg/cm2 compared to 0.8 kg/cm2 for hikers. It has also been observed that
horses effectively spread weeds that germinate in the faeces of horses,
which are rich in nutrients (Newsome et al., 2001).
While the principles of trampling are easy to describe, specific location
predictions are less easy, for a number of reasons. Seasonal and temporal
factors have a role. Trampling during early spring may have more deleterious results than at other times of the year because this is a time of early
growth. On the other hand, hiking later in the year during periods of seed
dispersal can be just as harmful. Therefore, as noted, site management
becomes very important. Without management of paths and walkways,
trampling can quickly have a negative impact on an otherwise-pristine
environment, or at least change its composition of plants and biodiversity.
This can have subsequent effects because changes in plant composition can
lead to changes in insect populations, and possibly, over time, changes to
bird and native mammals.
The method of trampling measurement is well established, and basically
quite simple. It requires the identification of formal and informal paths and
the pegging out of the sample path area. Measurements of soil density,
numbers and distribution of species within the zone are taken at a number
of points within the zone, to the side of the zone and generally at about 1
and 5 metres away from the path. A number of tramples are then recorded
over specific periods of time, with continuous measurements being taken
of not only soil density and species, but also plant recovery rate (e.g. how
quickly trodden-down stems resume erect positions). To take account of
changes in rainfall, temperature, etc. the path data are compared with those
of the points away from the path. Generally such studies initially show a
change in biodiversity as the more resistant plants take over the soil space
from the more fragile ones. But with increasing time and more tramples,
the amount of bare ground and dead vegetation increases (see Figure 8.1).
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Fauna
This section will consider only non-consumptive wildlife tourism in
which wildlife is sought for purposes of spectating, photography, perhaps
painting or study, but the animals or birds are not captured or killed. One
implication of this, discussed by Ryan, Hughes and Chirgwin (2000), is the
elevation of the spectacle above other aspects of nature tourism, including
study. In an analysis of an area in the Northern Territory of Australia, they
discuss how the abundant bird life dominates the tourist gaze to the almost
total exclusion of other natural attributes of the study area, Fogg Dam. The
fact that Fogg Dam has a very dense, rich biomass that includes not only
flora but dusky rats, snakes and other reptiles and mammals, is almost
wholly ignored as the tourists are directed to the birds from specially
constructed platforms. These platforms not only provide better views of
key waterholes, but also provide shelter from the sun, catch the breeze, and
to some extent provide a limited protection from mosquitoes and other
insects. Hence, while the tourists tended to term themselves as ecotourists, and spoke of enjoying and feeling at one with nature, the nature
with which they identified was a manipulated nature the climate of that
area being hot, humid and associated with a rich insect life. Indeed, walks
in the nearby freshwater mangrove zones (mangroves themselves are a
significant and threatened species) had signs warning visitors to carry
water and to use insect spray. On the other hand, it can be argued that such
site management is actually achieving its purpose of generating highly
satisfactory experiences. It permits visitors to enjoy and value natural landscapes, while at the same time it reduces potential damage to the areas of
greater ecological value, namely the mangrove swamps.
In consequence, it has been suggested that nature tourism is orientated
toward some species and away from others. Shackley (1996) presents
evidence that in the African game parks some species account for a significantly higher proportion of animalhuman interactions than others. It
appears that almost all visitors wish to see lions, few wish to see warthogs.
Ryan and Harvey (2000) suggest a possible classification of animals based
on perceived levels of likeness to certain human traits (dolphins, for
example, are seen as intelligent, fun and caring of their young, while crocodiles are reptilian but can evoke respect, perhaps fear) and thus some
species tend to attract more visitors than others. Whatever the reason, visitors wish to see animals in natural habitats. However, even in those
instances where the main objective of travelling through natural environments is not to gaze at animal or bird life, the very presence and movement
of humans can have a disturbance effect on wildlife. Liddle (1997) identifies
three types of disturbance of wildlife, these being:
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Disturbance type 1: awareness of human presence, but there is no contact;

Disturbance type 2: changes in habitat due to clearance, building,
food provision etc;
Disturbance type 3: extreme disturbance where there is direct and
damaging contact with the animal.
It can be argued that disturbance type 1 can be extended into situations
where there is contact or at least potential contact. Indeed a series of situations can be identified, which may be listed as:
Situation 1: awareness of human presence, but no immediate change in
behaviour;
Situation 2: awareness evokes withdrawal of the animal or bird. If the
human presence is passing, the wildlife may return to the
original site and continue past behaviour, and thus it might be
said the impact is minimal;
Situation 3: awareness may lead to warning the animal or bird begins to
display warning behaviours;
Situation 4: attack behaviour;
Situation 5: retreat behaviour the wildlife may eventually move to a new
site;
Situation 6: habituation behaviour the wildlife may come to accept the
intrusion of humans as part of its normal context, and continue
its past behaviours;
Situation 7: habituation and behaviour modification wildlife accepts
human intrusion, but has now its modified behaviour in some
way, such as through new modes of feeding.
This listing begins to indicate the actual measures that might be
adopted by researchers to gauge the impact that humans might be having.
These measures include:
measuring approach distance, i.e. just how near can humans approach before animals or birds begin to display any form of behaviour
modification. Examples of such behaviours might be animals stopping activities to view humans;
identifying these types of wildlife behaviour and measuring its duration;
measuring the distance the species move from their original spot;
timing how quickly re-grouping and the re-adoption of former
behaviour occurs.
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Table 8.4 Measurement of seal behaviours resulting from human contact

Responses
Identifying behaviours
Contact response
Fur seal aware has eyes open
Tracking response
Fur seal tracks response follows by turning head.
Alert response
Seal prepares to take action shows signs of being

alert.
Threat response
Seal defends territory ritual threat posture, vocal

open mouth threat, mock lunge.
Attack response
Seal defends territory makes physical movement and

attacks.
Moving away from

stimulus
Seal escape response orientates body towards the sea

and moves away.
Longer-term measures that are significant include whether there is any

change in hunting, mating or, in the case of birds, nesting behaviours (e.g.
Higham, 1998, 2001). Other longer-term criteria of adverse changes to be
watched for include whether animals are straying from established
territories.
In a number of cases of wildlife tourism, guidelines are established as to
just how close tourists may approach wildlife. For example, whalewatching operations often have restrictions imposed on them as to how
close boats can approach a whale on the surface of the water, and at what
point they must cut or reduce their engines and engine speed. The concern
is that the observers must avoid forcing the whale to dive early, before it has
taken sufficient air. If it has taken in insufficient air, its hunting, feeding and
nurturing activities might be adversely affected. In describing issues
pertaining to manatees and sting rays, Shackley (1992, 2001b) also identifies
a number of more direct effects on sea-based life. These include injuries
from outboard motors, and skin diseases from handling by tourists apart
from any possible change in feeding habits and the effects of a more homogeneous diet.
One example of the type of measures used is provided by the study
undertaken by Barton et al. (2001) into fur seal behaviour at Kaikoura in
New Zealand. A centre for watching whales and other sea mammals, the
area has faced increasing numbers of tourists. The study identified the
criteria listed in Table 8.4.
In this particular study it was found that seal cows tended to be much
more sensitive to approaches by visitors than bulls were; the cows showed
tracking responses at greater distances from humans than did the bulls.
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Many other studies of impacts on mammals, reptiles and other species

exist. For example Walther (1969) found that male Thompsons gazelle in
the Serengeti National Park had lesser flight distances than females.
Jacobsen and Kushcan (1986) found examples of aggressive behaviour by
Florida alligators because of an habituation effect they had come to expect
food from tourists. Work undertaken in the Northern Territory of Australia
with saltwater crocodiles revealed that older crocodiles tended to be more
cautious of approaches by humans than younger crocodiles were. This was
thought possibly to be due to older crocodiles surviving from a time when
they were being hunted (Lyon, 1998). There have been numerous studies
undertaken with reference to birds, and Liddle (1997: 394) summarises a
number of these. Birds tend to show fairly high habituation effects,
although Higham (2001) found that albatrosses on the Tairua peninsular
near Dunedin in New Zealand had, because of noise intrusion from the
visitor centre, over time moved nesting sites away from a visitor centre to
what was thought to be a less optimal site. On the other hand, for example,
van der Zande, van der Ter Keurs and van der Weijden (1980) found that the
distribution of oystercatcher nests was unaffected by more than 54,000 cars
per day passing on a nearby road. In yet another study, that of American
flamingos in the Celeston Estuary in Mexico, boat visits increased the alert
time, but reduced feeding times by 2430% (an average of about 30 minutes
per day). Also boat movements caused movements away from optimal
feeding grounds (Galicia & Baldassarre, 1997). In some instances birds
quickly adapt to human presence, for example by scavenging for food in
rubbish bins as demonstrated by Figure 8.2, which was taken by the
author by the side of the Gold Coast Highway at Broadbeach, a major
conurbation of holiday apartments and flats.
Figure 8.2 Ibis foraging by the side of the Pacific Coast Highway in
Queensland, Australia
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Several factors have been found to account for the sensitivity of species
to tourist and other human intrusion. One obvious factor is the presence of
newly-born young. Nearly all species become protective of their young,
and are more likely to engage in threat behaviours if disturbed. Human
actions can trigger different animal or bird behaviours depending on the
speed of approach by humans, the number in the group, levels of noise and
similar factors. Equally, whether animals are isolated or part of a larger herd
can also influence situations.
In spite of the many studies of intrusion effects, the longer-enduring
impacts on wildlife environments are much more likely to arise from infrastructure encroachments on habitats than from any impact arising from the
behaviours of tourists in natural settings. The building of car parks, hotels,
roads, railways, even visitor centres (as noted in the case of the albatross
colony in New Zealand), can all cause significant changes to species diversity, density, distribution and subsequent behaviours. It might be observed
that not all of this is necessarily detrimental to all species. Indeed some
species, such as rats, seem to thrive on being in close human contact.
However, there exists a tension between what tourists wish to see, and the
conditions under which tourists might want to see it. Ryan and Saward
(2003), in a study of Hamilton Zoo, observe that many visitors recognise the
conservation values of zoos and, given enclosures that resemble closely the
natural habitat of the observed species, this might well meet a number of
declared intentions of ecotourists. But are ecotourists really environmentally friendly? Some evidence that this is not the case is discussed below.
Given that technology today is capable of reproducing natural environments far away from their original location (as evidenced by Disneys Zoo
in Disneyland, Florida), the issue arises as to whether there is any need for
tourists to intrude upon the original habitats in order to satisfy what may be
little more than a whim.
Water quality
One of the most popular of all tourist pastimes is spending time in or by
water. Tourists also like to spend time in accommodation by water.
Whether it is messing around in boats, swimming in the sea or, more prosaically, flushing the toilet, there is a potential for changing the marine or
freshwater environment. Water environments are much more complex
than those of land for a number of reasons, including:
Waterborne life may be dependent on what is happening on a sea or
lake bed several metres away from the levels at which any one species
actually exists.
Water quality may depend on inflows and outflows that can be
affected by events at some distance away from the main body of
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water. These might, for example, affect temperatures in the water,

and change inversion effects. Indeed, even changes in the riparian
edge can change water temperatures, reduce vegetation in the water
and increase turbidity (Hammitt & Cole, 1998).
Turbidity might also impact on water quality because of the amount of
daylight that is now able to penetrate the water. Shallow water growing
macrophytes (i.e. higher plants such as water lilies that grow at the edge or
float on freshwater) might have their spread constricted by more opaque
waters. Again, this directly affects not only the plants, but also waterborne
insects and larvae and, in turn, possibly fish populations. The water quality
might also be affected by lead from petrol-driven two-stroke engines, and
certainly many people may be aware of seeing a thin film of petroleum
vapour that settles on the surface of water by jetties. Although vapour associated with the starting of two-stroke engines contains a mix of carbons, oil
and phenols that fall back into the water, and such combinations can be
toxic in high concentrations, there is little if any evidence to suggest problems under normal conditions of use. Nonetheless, one can only be
concerned at the findings of studies like those of Mosisch and Arthington
(1998), who estimated that for the lakes and reservoirs they studied, a total
of some 380600 million litres of outboard motor oil were discharged into
waters each year. They also provide evidence of hydrocarbons being found
in fish.
Boating may have little or significant impacts depending in part on the
number of boats involved. Liddle and Scorgie (1980) indicate the possible
impacts using the diagram shown in Figure 8.3. In a study of 105 New
Zealand lakes, Johnstone et al. (1985) were able to trace the dispersal of five
aquatic weeds because of recreational boating. Similarly, with reference to
waterborne plant life, there have been reports that water lilies found in
waters with significant boat traffic are smaller than average, reports of
damage to reed beds, of the disruption of shallow-rooted and floating plants
and of the redistribution of silt from the centre of river beds leaving sand and
gravel in the centre all possibly caused by boat action (Liddle, 1997).
The wash from the propellers of fast and powerful motor boats can
create significant water turbulence, which has an impact on the sediment of
river, lake or sea bottoms, and on the banks of estuaries or inland waters.
The result is a possible increase in the turbidity of the water, although
Liddle (1997) comments that there is little actual quantitative evidence for
this. Other factors might be important for example the amount of clay in
the soils, the depth of the water, and the power of the craft involved. Any
increase in the cloudiness of the water, if long lasting, will have an impact
on the growth of waterborne plants, and hence on the feeding and breeding
of fish and other aquatic life such as frogs and oysters. Shackley (1992) has
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reported another boating issue with reference to the manatee of Florida. A

threatened species, manatee have become a tourist attraction, meaning that
more boats are now to be found in the waters which they inhabit. Shackley
reports increases in the number of manatee being found with wounds that
probably have been caused by boat propellers, although whether these
wounds are due to tourist boats or others is not known. She also shows a
correlation between an increase in boat registration and the number of
perinatal deaths and of manatees killed by collision with boats (more than
40 in 1988). In New Zealand the introduction of fast ferries across the Cook
Straits created considerable controversy because of the alleged consequences of a powerful wash on the banks of the Queen Charlotte Sounds
and the negative impacts on mussel beds. Subsequently speed restrictions
were imposed on the ferries, and this, argued the operators, began to
reduce the advantages of such ferries while negatively impacting on
Propeller action
Wash
Direct contact
Bank erosion
Turbulence
Washing out of roots
Stirs sediment
Increase in nutrients
Increase in phytoplankton
Cutting
Increasing turbidity
Decrease of submerged macrophytes
Decrease of emergent and floating macrophytes
Figure 8.3 The impacts of boating on water environments

Source: Liddle & Scorgie (1980)
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operating costs. One solution being explored was the construction of alternative ports; this solution in itself would have significant economic implications because of the impacts of changed traffic flows on accommodation
and other businesses based on existing ferry infrastructures.
Another associated negative impact that has attracted attention in the
tourism literature has been the taking of tourists to coral reefs. A number of
problems have been identified, and include the dragging of anchors and
anchor chains through live coral (thereby knocking coral away from the
remainder of the reef), the touching of coral and associated coral-supported
life forms by tourists and, finally, the very volume of visitors throughout
the year, which magnifies substantially the damage that a single tourist
might inadvertently cause. Higher levels of coral breakage have been
found in areas of recreational snorkelling than in other areas, (e.g. see
Hawkins & Roberts study of the Red Sea, 1993 and Allisons study of the
Maldives, 1996).
One problem that has attracted a lot of attention has been that of sewage
disposal. Sewage may be discharged from boats, or released from shorebased hotels and other accommodation units, although usually after some
form of treatment. The main issue associated with the discharge of sewage,
treated or untreated, is that it potentially contains large amounts of nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen. Organic pollution can cause algae
bloom, but severe pollution will eliminate algae. However, the complexity
of the issues is shown by Mason (1991), who found that the filamentous
alga cladophora became more dominant in less polluted waters, and
provided some cover and food for invertebrates. However at night
cladophora could de-oxygenate the water, thereby suffocating small fish.
Additionally sewage may contain bacteria that could be harmful to
humans swimming in the waters. While the bacteria might not be present in
very high amounts, there is always the danger that a swimmer could
unknowingly swim through a localised concentration and swallow the
water or let it through his or her nasal passages. Waterborne bacteria can
cause typhoid, cholera, Weils disease, intestinal infections, tuberculosis,
gastroenteritis and dysentery to mention just some illnesses. Waterborne
viruses can cause meningitis, poliomyelitis, hepatitis and diarrhoea. As
previously noted, one group of recreational water users in the United
Kingdom that is very aware of the dangers inherent in the discharge of
sewage into the sea is Surfers against Sewage. As a group of committed
surfers who surf all year round, for over a decade they have engaged in
active debate, action and data collection relating to the quality of waters
around the British coast, especially with reference to south-west England
and the Cornish coastline. Evidence cited on their website (http://
www.sas.org.uk) indicates greater incidences of minor illnesses such as
rashes, upset stomachs and similar problems among those holidaymakers
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who engage in full immersion in waters than among those who are content
to paddle in the shallows.
One of the consequences of such concerns is not only environmental
legislation around much of the world that, amongst other environmental
controls, has sought to control sewage disposal, but also the adoption of
enforceable criteria for bathing water quality. At the time of writing, the
European Union is still debating changes to existing standards of bathing
water quality, but the Blue Flag scheme has become an established part of
the Western European holiday scene. In 2000 the European Commission
issued a communication notifying member states that new criteria were to
be established (European Commission, 2000b). Up to 2002 there were 27
criteria for beaches and 16 for marina, and these were classified under four
main headings: water quality, environmental education and information,
environmental management, and safety and services. A key concern has
been the quality of bathing water and the two main sets of parameters, the
microbiological and physiochemical. One issue relates to coliform content,
as it is possible (but increasingly unlikely) that a beach where coliform
content is not counted may gain a Blue Flag if such counts are not part of a
national policy. However, a member country must provide evidence as to
why such a policy is thought proper. Also if a beach is affected by any
sewage-related or land-waste run off, then remedial action must be undertaken as soon as is possible. The regulations also state that a beach must
have at least one sampling site but, more importantly, the number and location of sampling sites must reflect the concentration of bathers along the
beach as well as sources that potentially affect the water quality at the
beach. The sampling must be done, first of all, where the concentration of
bathers is highest. Quoting directly from the website (http://www.
blueflag.org/frameset/criteria.htm as at June, 2001), the regulations go on
to state that the location of sampling sites must also reflect the location of
potential sources of pollution. Samples must be taken near the sites where
streams, rivers or other inlets enter the beach in order to provide documentation that such inflows do not affect bathing water quality. Alternatively,
the inflowing water must have been analysed at source, confirming that it
meets the Blue Flag criteria for bathing water quality. Similarly, in the case
of inland waters, where the water is supplemented by outside sources
during dry periods, the water quality of that outside source must meet the
Blue Flag criteria. In addition, samples should be taken 30 cm below the
water surface, except for the mineral oil samples, which should be taken at
surface level. An independent person officially authorised and trained for
the task must collect samples, and an independent laboratory must carry
out an analysis of bathing water quality. The laboratory must be nationally
or internationally accredited to carry out microbiological and physicochemical analyses. The laboratory must also be authorised to collect and
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analyse the bathing water by the authority responsible for the implementation of the national regulation on bathing water quality and monitoring.
The first sampling has to be undertaken within the fortnight before the
beginning of the official bathing season and, during the bathing season,
sampling must be carried out at least fortnightly. The last sampling of the
season must be taken within one fortnight of the last date of the bathing
season. Additional regulations relate to the levels of treatment that all
waste water should be subject to before it is discharged into the sea.
There is little doubt that this approach has benefited water quality and,
with newer regulations to come into effect, there is hope that cleaner waters
yet will result. There are encouraging signs with, for example, fish stock
assessments showing improvements in the surveys undertaken by the
Environment Agency Southern Region since 1995. On the other hand, in
2000, the UK Environment Agency released reports that oestrogenic
(feminising) changes in fish in rivers had been found as a result of endocrine-changing substances in sewage effluence, so it is obvious that there is
still a need for a tightening of regulations (UKEA, 2001; OConnell, 2002). It
is equally obvious that on the whole the tourism industry would welcome
the long-term effects of such moves.
Air pollution
Air pollution is more often associated with city lifestyles, although localised pollution might be caused by the burning of wood fires by campers on
still evenings. However, the major problem associated with campfires is not
the immediate risk of pollution but the dangers of forest fires that are associated with campfire not properly doused. Another environmental issue
associated with the lighting of campfires is the danger of denuding trees in
the immediate vicinity of the campsites. To avert these types of problems
many parks authorities around the world place embargoes on campfires at
certain times of the year or in certain locales. For example, Ryan and
Sterling (2001) mention how the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife
Authority provides specific barbecue points and makes available cut logs
to those camping at Litchfield National Park.
However, one of the main causes of urban pollution is the internal
combustion engine, and cars and coaches are also to be found in tourist
regions. Becken (2001) has estimated power usage by tourist accommodation and attraction providers, and has found that the per capita (tourist)
energy use in New Zealand was 9.4 megajoules at an entertainment
complex, while hotels are major energy users (the energy used by a hotel
guest is estimated as being the equivalent of the energy used for a 45 km car
journey). Not surprisingly the car-borne tourist is amongst the heaviest
users of fossil fuels, and hence is a source of pollution.
Another issue that is important in some parts of the world is whether or
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not air transport makes a significant contribution to pollution. It has been

claimed that aircraft movement into and out of Los Angeles International
Airport is one of the major contributing factors to the smog that can often
be seen hanging over the city. Modern jet aircraft are at their most efficient
when at cruising speed and height; it is then that they obtain the most efficient fuel consumption and the cleanest burn from their engines. But
airport movements are periods of less-than-efficient fuel burn. The take-off
procedures for an aircraft can be broken down into the periods of engine
start up and idling during periods of passenger boarding, a sequence of
approach to runway, waiting for clearance and then actual take-off from the
runway, followed by a period of a few minutes during which the aircraft
climbs to operational height and speed. It has been estimated that during
these stages a modern jet such as the Boeing 767200 will emit a total of over
30,000 kg of hydrocarbons and over 130,000 kg of carbon monoxide. Given
the total number of carrier movements at Los Angeles International Airport
(about 2.7 million in a year , June, 2002) this represents a significant amount
of pollution emission. As the geographical position of Los Angeles between
the sea and the mountains lends itself to inversion effects (where currents of
air are caught and remain static), then such levels of pollution are not
always immediately dispersed. One possible consequence of this would be
an increase in respiratory illnesses around the airport and on approach and
take-off paths over residential zones. To this might be added the problem of
noise pollution.
These issues are important, and to some extent help to explain the delay
in the approval of London Heathrow Airports fifth terminal. The public
enquiry into the possible construction of this fifth terminal began in 1995
and the report was duly handed to the UK government in December 2000.
Eleven months later, on November 20, the government announced its decision and approved the construction of the terminal (DTLR, 2002). Newspaper reports of the decision presented the decision in terms of economic
vs. environmental impact, the decision being described by Webster and
Hurst (2001: 7) in these terms; Business groups and trade unions welcomed
the approval of a fifth terminal at Heathrow but residents and environmentalists remained bitterly opposed. In practice, of course, the issue is not that
black and white. For example, businesses at Londons other airports or in
the regional airports may well have preferred an expansion of services at
their terminals, while environmentalists and residents associated with
other airports may prefer increased traffic to be handled in London rather
than impinging on as-yet-unaffected locations. Indeed, it is anticipated that
the noise levels by 2016 will not exceed those of 1989 thanks to new generations of quieter aircraft, while the number of aircraft movements will not
necessarily increase in direct proportion to the increased numbers of passengers because of the larger size of aircraft that are currently envisaged.
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Ecotourism and Certification: Is This an Answer?

Tourism has a potential for both good and ill and, in assessing the problems that tourism creates, such problems must be placed within the context
that many other industries have far more direct impacts on water quality,
and on fauna and flora distribution. Can the potential situations of harm be
identified? The World Tourism Organisation (WTO, 1983) identifies five
situations where tourism might harm the environment, these being:
(1) alteration of the ecological situation of regions where the environment
was previously in good condition from the natural, cultural and
human viewpoints;
(2) speculative pressures leading to the destruction of landscape and
natural habitat;
(3) the occupation of space and the creation of activities producing
irreconcilable land-use conflicts;
(4) damage to traditional values in the zones concerned, and a lowering of
standards on the human scale in existing developments;
(5) progressive over-capacity, which drains the environmental quality of
the area concerned.
In recognition of the problems posed by tourism developments, some
writers have sought to promote the concept of Green Tourism. Amongst
the foremost of these writers is Jost Krippendorf, who, in his book The
Holidaymakers (Krippendorf, 1987), argues that tourism should be consistent with its environment, and arise naturally from the activities that are
natural to the area. To that end, he quotes examples from the Swiss Cantons
where the host communities have sought to impose regulations that limit
tourism to within what might be termed the carrying capacities of the area.
This viewpoint is endorsed by Phillips (1988) who, in relation to rural
tourism, propounds six principles, these, briefly being:
(1) The promotion of tourist enjoyment of the countryside should be
primarily aimed at those activities that draw on the character of the
countryside itself, its beauty, culture, history and wildlife.
(2) Tourism development in the countryside should assist conservation
and recreation, by bringing new uses to historic buildings, supplementing the income of farmers, and aiding the reclamation of derelict
land.
(3) The planning, design, siting and management of new tourist developments should be in keeping with the landscape and. wherever
possible, seek to enhance it.
(4) Investment in tourism should support the rural economy whilst
encouraging a wider geographical and temporal spread so as to avoid
problems of congestion and damage through over-use.
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(5) Those who benefit from rural tourism should contribute to the conservation and enhancement of the countryside.
(6) The tourist industry itself should seek to develop the publics understanding and concern for the countryside and for environmental
issues generally.
As will be discussed in Chapter 9, concerns about the threat posed to the
ecological environment are paralleled by similar concerns about social
impacts. In both cases, the proponents of a more ecologically or socially
responsible tourism are to a large degree dependent on normative arguments that seek a change of behaviour by tourists based on changes of
values. The argument is, however, quite logical, given Krippendorfs
model of tourism as an extension of a social pattern that is itself of such a
form that it denies opportunities for creativity. Krippendorf argues that
man is not born a tourist, but becomes one because of escape needs, but
sick societies create sick tourists. Equally, as has been discussed in Chapter
5, this argument is but an extension of the viewpoint of Boorstin, Rivers and
others who claim that tourism creates nothing more than a series of pseudoevents. To argue that tourism must change in order to preserve ecologically
fragile areas that are nonetheless attractive to tourists, and to place hope in
educative forces, as Krippendorf (1987) and OGrady (1981) do, is of little
immediate help to planners and those responsible for the management of
tourism areas. What needs to be done is to translate the concerns into
management plans and practice. Phillips (1988) at least provides a series of
possible objectives, and so the question becomes one of how to achieve
those objectives.
It is true that for some time there has been a growing recognition by the
tourism industry of its responsibilities. For example, the 19871989 South
Australian Strategic Tourism Plan refers to strategy 14, which is to Manage
tourism to minimise adverse impacts (South Australia Tourist Commission,
1986). It outlines specific actions, such as the requirement that major
proposals must specify environmental safeguards, whilst the appendices
to the plan listing key issues indicated that to develop at any cost pressures would, in fact, be contrary to the States interests. It might be argued
that the slow acceptance of a need for such exercises is due to the educative
processes desired by Krippendorf (1987), OGrady (1981) and Wheeller
(1987), as they represent a response to public concern about environmental
issues, and increased interest in forms of tourism that emphasise nature.
However, between 1988 and 2000 the cynic might have observed that
ecotourism was being proposed as the answer to every ill associated with
both the environment and tourism. In May 2002, more than 1100 delegates
attended the World Ecotourism Summit in Quebec to endorse the Quebec
Declaration on Ecotourism, described by leisuretourism.com (June 12,
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2002) as an aspirational new tool for the development of this type of tourism. Equally, for its part, in 2002 the United Nations Environment
Programme called for governments and businesses to achieve sustainable
tourism practices (UNEP, 2002). Meeting in Bali, the Fourth Preparatory
Committee meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development
noted in its papers a growing gap between the efforts of business and
industry to reduce their impact on the environment, and the worsening
state of the planet (see http://www.unep.org).
Certainly, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, after perhaps
several decades of rhetoric, some practical responses to the environmental
pressures being created by tourism are emerging. It would also appear that
the nature of the debate about ecotourism has also significantly changed.
Among the much-cited original definitions of ecotourism was that of
Ceballos-Lascurain:
Travelling to relatively undisturbed or uncontaminated natural areas
with the specific objective of studying, admiring and enjoying the
scenery and its wild plants and animals, as well as any existing cultural
manifestations (both past and present) found in these areas. (CeballosLascurain, 1987: 14)
It has been queried to what degree ecotourism has achieved the aims of
re-education. In a keynote speech to the Conference of the Council of
Australian Universities in Tourism and Hospitality Education in February
2002, this author commented that one of the consequences of television
programmes such as those of David Attenborough or David Bellamy, or
those shown on the Discovery Channel is that of increased pressure on
natural environments as viewers seek to see the species concerned before
they became extinct. To use Wheellers (1993) much-cited expression, it is a
case of ego- and not ecotourism. Where is the evidence for such scepticism?
As has already been noted, in a study of visitors to Fogg Dam in the
Northern Territory of Australia, Ryan, Hughes and Chirgwin (2000) found
that most tourists (97%) defined themselves as ecotourists. However, it
has already been argued that their experience of nature was manipulated in
terms of what they experienced and in terms of what was drawn to their
attention. It might be argued that that is an issue for the Parks Authority.
However, if ecotourism is about education it was found that, in spite of the
Parks Authoritys attempts to inform, these ecotourists had learnt comparatively little as evidenced by poor recall of quite basic information about
the site. It can be objected that this may have been because the information
giving was comparatively rudimentary, being provided primarily by the
written word. On the other hand, as will be discussed in Chapter 9, if other
forms of information provision are required, then it may mean that tourists
seek information through entertainment, and that it is the latter that is more
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important than the former. Further evidence was provided by a study that
applied the New Environmental Paradigm. Ryan (2000b) reports that those
tourists who recorded the highest levels of environmental sensitivity on the
scale showed no discernible differences in attitudes towards wildlifeviewing experiences from those of the general body of tourists. These tourists still tended to prefer to join small groups to view animals, even when
told that such small groups increased the likelihood of intrusion impacts on
wildlife owing to the greater number of trips required to provide any given
number of tourists with a viewing opportunity. It might appear that all
tourists feel it is all right for them to observe the threatened species, it is for
others to have obstacles imposed on their access.
It can be objected that there is a fault in this line of argument. The surveys
relate to actual tourists. Those who are sensitive to these issues and do not
wish to impose strains on natural environments will stay at home, and thus
will not be surveyed. However, from a management perspective, the Parks
Authority or the tourism-attraction owner must cope with those who actually visit. Also, in the private sector, it is unlikely that operators will turn
down business. There are examples of operators who do refuse entry to
visitors thought to have an inappropriate attitude. For example Rod Rae of
Swimming with Dolphins in Whitianga in New Zealand, to reduce
impacts on dolphin pods, specifically restricts the number of trips he takes.
He also instructs the sales office to refuse ticket sales to those who ask for a
guarantee that they will swim with dolphins (Ryan, 1998b). However such
an entrepreneur represents a minority. Indeed, even the most well meaning
of tourists, when faced with that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity can find it
difficult to resist the temptation to engage in actions that he or she knows
might have deleterious consequences. Markwell (1998) in his study of a
group of students on an ecostudy tour of Sumutra recounts how some
respondents found it impossible to resist touching and holding hands with
a baby orang-utan, in spite of being knowing the risks of communicating
diseases and smells.
If, therefore, it is not possible to fully entrust tourists to engage in selfdenying behaviours, then arguably there is a greater imposition of duty on
the operator to take care that is imposed. Some writers have expressed the
belief that codes of conduct are one way forward. However, if these are to be
effective, then it seems that there must be some means of enforcing compliance with the codes.
Clarke (1997) discerns a shift in the understanding of ecotourism. She
argues that there has been a paradigm shift from the original understanding of ecotourism as being small scale, educative and a minority
interest towards an understanding of sustainable tourism that requires best
practice by tourism operations of all sizes in terms of minimising their
impacts on the environment. Evidence for this can be found in various
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initiatives like that of the PATA Green Leaf programme aimed at hotels.
This programme encouraged hotels to engage in environmentally-friendly
practices such as using long life light bulbs, encouraging guests not to
require clean towels and sheets each day (thereby requiring less laundry
and less disposal of detergents), where possible using alternative sources of
energy such as solar power, and using best practices in terms of water
usage, sewage and refuse disposal. Further examples include the sorting of
rubbish into recyclable categories and the disposal of food scraps into bins
so that earthworms can help generate natural compost.
Praiseworthy though such schemes might be, they still founder on
criticisms that they only marginally offset the environmental demands
made by the very existence of the hotel in terms of power generation, the
pollution created by tourists in burning fossil fuels in travelling to the
hotel, the additional demands that might be imposed on local agriculture
and so on. Second, while it might be nice for tourists to stay in such a hotel
as it engenders a feeling that management practices provide guests with
comfort, and reduce their negative impacts on the environment, there
remained little evidence that such schemes were proactively attracting
visitors. For these reasons the industry, under promptings from bodies
such as the World Tourism Organisation, PATA and other international
organisations, has sought to consolidate the myriad schemes that
emerged in the 1980s and the 1990s to produce an internationally-recognisable scheme and symbol that could be branded and sold to tourists.
The concept was that, by creating a brand awareness of good practice, the
industry would both persuade and inform tourists of means by which
negative environmental impacts could be minimised, if not totally
averted. The unkind might remark that the premise is that it is possible to
both have ones cake and eat it!
For these reasons the Green Globe 21 initiative has been much praised
and promoted. The International Ecotourism Standard for Certification
was developed by the Ecotourism Association of Australia and the
Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism, Australia, to form
the basis of the Green Globe 21 Ecotourism Certification Program that has
now been adopted by PATA in lieu of its former Green Leaf programme. It
has thus been accepted as the standard for certification of sustainable
tourism practices in the Pacific Asia region, and is being adopted elsewhere. The promoters of the scheme hope that not only will it encourage
companies to become sustainable but that tourists will prefer to patronise
companies that display its symbol. Thus adherence to its structures will be
of commercial benefit to participating organisations. Evidence of its adoption is provided by a list of its adherents. In early 2002 participants included
the Foping National Nature Reserve in North-West China, the Turtle Island
Resort in Fiji, Malla Treks in Nepal, and the Inter-Continental Hotel in
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Singapore, to mention but a handful. Yet even this example shows that
certification is open to all, from the largest to the smallest of tourism operators. Crabtree, OReilly and Worboys (2002) described the purpose of the
scheme as:
(1) providing a means of identification of genuine ecotourism product;
(2) giving visitors and other stakeholders (e.g. local communities) an
assurance that the ecotourism product will be supplied in accordance
with, and a commitment to, best ecotourism practices and provision of
quality experience;
(3) encouraging and rewarding product that continually improves best
practice or develops innovations that increase ecological sustainability;
(4) providing a blueprint for new and developing ecotourism product.
The process of certification revolves around eight core principles that
permit measurement. These principles are that ecotourism should:
(1) have a natural area focus that ensures that visitors have an opportunity to directly and individually experience nature;
(2) provide interpretation and educational services that give visitors an
opportunity to experience nature in ways that lead to greater understanding, appreciation and enjoyment;
(3) represent best practices in ecologically sustainable practices;
(4) contribute to the conservation of natural areas and cultural heritage;
(5) provide ongoing contributions to the local community;
(6) respect and be sensitive to cultures existing in the area;
(7) consistently meet consumer expectations; and
(8) be marketed and promoted honestly and accurately so that realistic
expectations are formed.
Certification thus involves a three-stage process. The first is to develop
an environmental plan that is registered with Green Globe 21. The plan
must cover items such as key performance area, identification of impacts
and an action plan to address those issues. The second stage is, put simply,
the implementation of the plan. Finally there is a process of accreditation
where the operator is externally appraised as to the effectiveness of the plan
and its implementation. At this point the operator becomes an accredited
operator and is permitted to display the Green Globe logo with a tick.
While this is commendable in many ways, the fact remains that there are
still myriad certification schemes. For example, in November 2001 a new
initiative was announced involving the Rainforest Alliance with support
from the JP Morgan Charitable Foundation and the Ford Foundation. In
some instances the same personnel remain linked with the different
schemes. For example, Graeme Worboys is CEO of Green Globe Asia-
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Pacific, and a member of the advisory group working for the Rainforest
Alliance certification scheme. For his part, Geoffrey Lipman, Chair of Green
Globe 21 (Global), has argued that other certification brands should be
supported and not marginalised (Green Globe 21, 2001). Some question the
principles on which some statements are based, and this refers to a wider
debate between those who perceive sustainability permitting restriction
and the WTO interpretation whereby green tourism is contextualised
within free trade and open access. For example, in 1995 the Earth Council,
The World Travel and Tourism Council and the World Tourism Organisation
released a joint document as to how tourism should implement the
Rio Earth Summits Agenda 21 (WTTC et al., 1996). However Agenda 21 for
the Travel and Tourism Industry makes clear that the industry identifies
sustainable development with free trade, privatisation and government
deregulation. Two of the twelve guiding principles specifically state that
protectionism in trade in Travel and Tourism services should be halted or
reversed, and that open economic systems should be fostered. As described
above, the Green Globe certification process seeks both sustainable practice
and quality experiences for visitors. While recognising that this is indeed
possible, a context that might regard restrictions on access as inimicable to
open economic systems is open to criticism that the economic system might
have precedence over the preservation of an environment. Nonetheless,
initiatives like Green Globe represent some advantages over schemes like
the ISO 14001 certification. Established by the International Organisation
for Standardisation, ISO 14001 is an environmental management system. It
has been criticised as being more concerned with process rather than with
what is being done. Krut and Gleckman (1998: 8) in particular have been
critical of ISO 14001, arguing that following this logic a company making
weapons for biological warfare can be certified to ISO 14001. At least Green
Globe is explicit as to its function and purpose.
In some instances of certification there is a high degree of specificity. In
1999, funded by the European Commission, a series of workshops were
held relating to the establishment of an eco-rating for accommodation.
Strong industry support for a single European-wide system was founded
on the premise of tourist confusion, ignorance and suspicion of credibility
about eco-labelling (see www.europa.ei.int/ecolabel). But it might be
argued that the very plethora of certification systems impedes understanding by both industry and tourists.
However, the actual process of undertaking the environmental assessments that are required for certification is not cheap. For example, the
president of the US-based Environmental Training and Consulting
International, Inc., which has conducted various ISO14001 appraisals for
hotel companies, estimates that developing an EMS (environmental
management system) can cost as much as $US30,00060,000 for a medium-
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sized hotel (e.g. see www.envirotrain.com ). There is a relationship between

credibility, payment for apposite appraisal by credible neutral third parties,
and being able to claim rigour for any certification process. This triumvirate
of concerns might mean that the very small ecotourism operators who
appear to be the epitome of ecotourism as originally defined by CeballosLascurain (1987) might be dissuaded from seeking certification on the basis
of cost. This is not to say that examples of low-cost, credible eco-labelling do
not exist, but unfortunately their history is chequered. For example, the
much-cited ecotourism policies of Costa Rica see for example, Weavers
(2001: 90) description of Costa Rica as one of the worlds model ecotourism
destinations included a green-rating in the guide book The New Key to
Costa Rica, which first appeared in 1992 (Blake & Beecher, 1992). The model
subsequently developed into eight pages that focused on three areas: (1) the
environmental impact of the lodge, including use of natural and energy
sources, (2) how much revenue remained in the local community, and (3)
how knowledgeable owners were about local culture, and in what ways did
they seek to reinforce it. Initially seen as a low-cost, but labour-intensive
method of measurement, over time the assessment became unsustainable
in the face of commercial pressures and changing individual priorities.
Other guidebooks, notably The Lonely Planet series, became more popular,
while the initiators of the method, Beatrice Blake and Anne Becher moved
away from Costa Rica. Unfortunately, while Costa Rica subsequently
created its Certificate for Sustainable Tourism (CST) for hotels, it has not,
thus far, been overly successful. By the end of 2000 only 51 of about 400
hotels had been certified, and the need for financial sustainability tends to
reinforce processes where those with money are able to fund certification.
As already noted, with certification schemes the potential irony arises that
the need to produce rigorous assessment combined with financial
sustainability (and it should not be forgotten that bodies like those of Green
Globe have to financially sustain themselves) might conspire to set costs
above those that small lifestyle ecotourism organisations can afford. Therefore they do not become certified as being green, while the larger accommodation units and attractions are able to afford such certification as an
investment in attracting visitors. The continuing danger is that the question
of whether such an operation should be present is not asked the focus is on
a process of minimising negative impacts, rather than asking whether a
natural environment should suffer any impact at all. It can be questioned
whether processes of open economic systems, inhibitions on restrictions
under World Trade Organisation rules and the costs of certification do not
combine to ensure the long-term financial viability of larger enterprise with a
green face. To some extent the answer to such questions depends on the
ability to sustain natural resource management policies within any countrys
individual legal framework. This is discussed in a little detail below.
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Managing the Environmental Impacts of Tourism

General issues
Arguably the first stage in planning tourism is the development of an
audit of resources, markets, activities and competition. It can be maintained
that there is a symbiotic relationship between tourist resources within the
destination zone and the market for, as has already been examined, certain
tourist types will be attracted towards certain tourism areas. Equally,
however, it is known that the tourist zone is not stable, but can change, as
was described by Young (1983) in his description of the touristisation of a
Maltese fishing/farming village. The implication of the concept of the
tourist area lifecycle is that planning needs to be undertaken from the initial
period of development, particularly if the development is taking place
within an ecologically fragile area. Unfortunately, the first stages of tourism
may occur almost unnoticed. At first there may be only a trickle of tourists
who are not only non-threatening in numbers or in type, but are indeed
careful and appreciative of what it is they see. At this stage it may seem that
there is little need for planning, but both the concept of the lifecycle and the
past history of many destinations indicates that such an attitude cannot be
maintained. From the practical viewpoint, this poses severe problems for
planning authorities. It may be difficult to persuade communities that
restrictions need to be determined at an early stage when currently there
appears to be little need for such restrictions. Charges of elitism may well be
made, and perhaps not without foundation. The host community will be
asked to make difficult decisions that might imply a restriction on
economic returns from tourism when the costs and implications of future
tourism flows are difficult to assess, and can be nothing more than speculative. In the case of ecological considerations, the reasons for such restrictions may seem intangible. The problem may be further exacerbated if the
self-same authorities are also responsible for the economic well-being of a
community that might be marginal to the mainstream of economic activity
within its country, and is thus looking to tourism to generate income and
employment. Initially, indeed, tourism can be seen as the lesser of two
evils. Thus, in parts of Colorado in the USA, tourism, based on skiing and
mountain resorts, provided a means of revenue that compensated rural
communities that had chosen this path rather than permit the mining of
molybdenum deposits from the surrounding hills, arguing that such
mining would have detrimental environmental effects. However, these
communities have subsequently found that tourism too has its costs in
terms of stresses on water quality, impacts of tourist numbers and the other
well-documented ills (Nova, 1990). Perhaps what is required is a recognition that natural resources are finite and, like other resources, are subject to
disrepair. In this respect the concept of assessing the environment using
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techniques such as costbenefit analysis, in order to help not only tourism

planning, but also any other form of physical development, would seem
not only logical, but necessary. Without any requirement for an environmental impact analysis, the environmental cost is in danger of simply being
disregarded. Unfortunately, as appears to be the case in New Zealand, such
a requirement may be seen as unnecessary, costly and an impediment to
economic development. In 1991 New Zealand introduced its Resource
Management Act both as a rationalisation of existing planning legislation,
and as a means of ensuring environmental sustainability. It created a
process whereby those initiatives thought to have an environmental impact
would need to be subject to processes of review and, effectively, an environmental impact analysis. However, in many rural local authorities, because
of little population pressure, the process has come to be perceived as not
only unnecessary but also as inconsistent in application between different
local territorial authorities. In fact there are growing demands from rural
and business organisations (including some tourism entities), for not
simply a review but indeed a watering down of the legislation (see, for
example, Page & Thorn, 1997; James, 2002).
Therefore, there are very real problems in beginning the planning
processes relating to tourism development, for the very process of planning
in itself requires a recognition that the market forces of demand and supply
are going to be subjected to restrictions. However once such a review is
commenced it can be argued that a first requirement is an audit of the area.
Mill and Morrison (1985) quote the methodology used by the Marshall
Macklin Monoghan Consulting Group (1980) in their study of a tourism
development strategy for southern Ontario. Natural resources need to be
identified, as do resources that are man-developed and man-controlled.
They developed a basic grid, which is shown in Table 8.5. The markets to be
examined in more detail may be further subdivided into local, regional,
national and international markets. It then becomes possible to develop a
coding that indicates the level of investment that may be needed to support
the infrastructure development required to reach the desired market. So, in
this example, the lighter the shading, the more is the required additional
investment. In the Ontario study, a simple three-fold visual symbolisation
was used that indicated high, medium and low investment need, development or density depending on the measure being used. As such, the
market may be defined in terms of numbers or even types of tourists. The
opportunities that exist may have to be further analysed by their duration
throughout the year; some may be possible only during winter or summer
months. Climatic conditions may also have to be part of the audit, as
perhaps might be tourism policies, labour policies and other socio-legal
aspects. The location and distribution of resources may have to be examined, and in short the audit might well utilise the descriptive techniques
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Table 8.5 The matrix used in the Collingwood impact assessment: A

partial example
Water-based
recreational
opportunities
J
J
International
National
Regional
Potential markets
Local
International
National
Regional
Local
International
Markets desired
Land-based
recreational
opportunities
Air-based
recreational
opportunities
National
Regional
Natural resources
Local
Existing market
J
J
Man-developed and
man-controlled
resources
Natural resource
opportunities
Historical resource
opportunities
Cultural resource
opportunities
Leisure
opportunities
examined in Chapter 6. Indeed, as was noted in that chapter, the advent of

GIS (geographical information systems) has aided the process of environmental audits. It is now possible to develop alternative scenarios that can
not only be quantitatively modelled on a computer, but can also be associated with alternative graphics, including film and photographs, that clearly
show how different developments might appear. This eases processes for
local stakeholder consultation because it becomes more possible for people
to comprehend the implications of alternative proposals and the magnitude of proposed changes. Theoretically at least, the infamous architects
drawing can be replaced by more realistic photographs and other images.
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It can also be noted that in some instances there are no planning controls,
in other cases planning controls are simply being ignored. Murphy (1985),
Barkham (1973) and many others require that communities play a role in a
rational planning process, but this assumes that the community is a homogeneous unit that is capable of making decisions not only in its own selfinterest, but also for the interest of others. It is perhaps a questionable
assumption. In addition, it is perhaps worth noting that both Murphy
(1985) and Krippendorf (1987) write from the background of political
systems in Canada and Switzerland, which permit plebiscites to be held on
issues where a comparatively small proportion of the population (in some
instances as little as 5%) can sign a petition to the effect that a plebiscite ought
to be put before the electorate. This method of community control is lacking
in many other countries, including the UK and France to name but two.
Functional measures
What remains? Possibly what might be achieved is at least some degree
of consensus over potential measures of carrying capacity. It might appear
this reduces the process to a mechanistic one rather than the dynamic
process required by Getz (1983), but at least it is a starting point and might
serve the required process. The WTO (1982b) noted a number of measures
when it considered the problem in its report Risks of saturation, or tourist
carrying capacity overload in holiday destinations which considered practices
in twelve of its member countries.
One of the problems facing tourism destinations is the seasonality of the
business, and hence measures of the temporal dispersion of business may
be useful. Measures relating to the question of peakedness of demand can
include:
(1) A measure of the maximum numbers of people that can be carried at
any one time. The WTO recommends a measure of two-thirds of the
maximum number of recorded visitors in order to conservatively
establish the maximum carrying capacity (1983).
(2) Weekly/daily maxima can then be calculated on the basis of the peak
capacity measured by the time period concerned. In the case of annual
figures, the figure will be based on the number of days the attraction
remains open.
(3) A measure of the level of crowding can be simply assessed by taking
the number of arrivals in a given time and dividing by the total
number of arrivals over a longer time period.
(4) A better statistic that measures the peakedness of the distribution of
visitors is the kurtosis. This is calculated according to the formula:
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K =
(X i X ) 4
i =1
n ( SD ) 4
where
K
Xi
X
n
SD
= the value of kurtosis

= the number of users at the time
= the arithmetic mean of all XI
= the number of time periods
= the standard deviation of Xi
If K has a value of 1 then the curve has a normal distribution. If it has a

value of less than 3, it is relatively flat in shape and is said to be
platykurtic. If it has a value of greater than 3 then it is said to be
leptokurtic, and is relatively peaked. In such a case it might be said that
the tourist area is heavily congested for at least some small period of
the total time.
The level of crowdedness can also be calculated with reference to space.
It might, for example, be said that the number of people should not exceed a
given number per hectare of space. Perhaps a beach should not have more
than 1000 people per hectare. However, it has to be noted that such a
measure of crowdedness fails to take into account the psychological
components of the concept of a crowd. For popular beaches part of the fun
of the situation, and a generator of the beach atmosphere, is indeed the fact
that it is crowded. People go to see people. In other situations, if what is
being sought is peace and quiet, ten people on a beach may be a crowd.
Carrying capacity is sometimes related to the expected numbers of
people. This is the case with the calculation of car park spaces, the number
of restaurants or the number of shops that are required. Thus, one might say
that 1 restaurant place is required per 2000 tourists, or 0.2 square metres of
shop floor space is required per tourist, or 1.2 car parking space per available bedspace, or 250 car parking spaces per hectare. Another approach is
to assess thresholds. If a factor such as water supply is limited, then the
number of tourists that can be catered for may be estimated along the lines
of available water supply divided by the consumption per tourist per day. If
car parking space is limited, then the number of visitors that may be catered
for is the number of car parking spaces divided by the average length of
stay per tourist per time period, multiplied by the average number of
tourists per car. For example, if there are 100 car parking places, and each
tourist stays approximately 30 minutes, then within 10 hours, 2000 tourists
can be catered for if each tourist arrives separately by car. If each car carries
3 tourists, then the limit is 6000 tourists. If it costs a given amount to develop
a tourist attraction, say an interpretation centre, then the number of tourists
required to cover the costs, the break-even point, is the total cost of the
development divided by the expected average expenditure per visitor.
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A popular measure is the hostvisitor ratio, and Deferts tourist function

is one such measure. This states that:
Df =
number of bed-spaces in a region

population of the region
x 100
With specific reference to ecology and rural activities, the number of visitors depends on the definition of the area. For a forest park, the daily allowable visitor rate per hectare may be 015, whereas for a surburban natural
park it may be 1570, and for a recreation sports facility, 80200. Campsite
standards vary around the world, again depending on the nature of the
zone in which the sites are found. In France, many sites operate at 300
persons per hectare, whereas in the USAin wildlife zones, the figure only be
2.5 people per hectare (WTO, 1983).
Types of zones and permitted usages
So complex is the measurement of carrying capacity that an alternative
approach might be adopted, which is to undertake an impact study
although it might be said that from many perspectives such studies are
complementary to, and not alternative to, the concept of carrying capacity.
The idea behind impact studies is to examine development projects with
the purpose of identifying the potential environmental impact. Having
identified such impacts, the initial proposals may then be modified to minimise the negative impacts. Often associated with the concept of permitted
impact is an identification of levels of allowable development. In short,
planners identify zones of different usage patterns. In practice, from the
viewpoint of tourism, many of these zones relate to rural areas, but of
course such zoning also occurs within urban areas. Thus, some urban areas
will permit only low-density residential development, whilst other zones
may have higher-density housing and some retail development, whilst yet
others may be characterised by industrial activities. One aspect of urban
zoning that relates to tourism is the protection of historical heritage and
buildings of historical value within a town. Such buildings may be subject
to preservation orders, and in addition any adjacent development that is
permitted will have to be of a nature that is sympathetic to the original
ambience of the area.
One of the best examples of a hierarchical classification of rural landscapes that indicates levels of potential development is that of Parks
Canada. Parks Canada has adopted a five-fold classification, as indicated in
Table 8.6. It is illustrative of one of the common techniques of tourism
management in that it indicates permitted levels of recreational use, with
the type and intensity of use being determined by the nature of the ecology
of the area. It also highlights the importance of the role of accessibility as a
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Table 8.6 Zoning: An example from Parks Canada

Zone I: Special Preservation
Specific areas or features that deserve special preservation because they
contain or support unique, threatened or endangered natural or cultural
features, or are among the best examples of the features that represent a
natural region. Preservation is the key consideration. Motorised access and
circulation will not be permitted. In cases where the fragility of the area
precludes any public access, every effort will be made to provide park
visitors with appropriate off-site programs and exhibits interpreting the
special characteristics of the zone.
About 3.25% of the parks system is zone I.
Zone II: Wilderness

Extensive areas that are good representations of a natural region and which
will be conserved in a wilderness state. The perpetuation of ecosystems with
minimal human interference is the key consideration. Zones I and II will
together constitute the majority of the area of all but the smallest national
parks, and will make the greatest contribution towards the conservation of
ecosystem integrity.
Zone II areas offer opportunities for visitors to experience, first hand, a parks
natural and cultural heritage values through outdoor recreation activities that
depend on and are within the capacity of the parks ecosystems, and that
require few, if any, rudimentary services and facilities. Where the areas are
large enough, visitors will also have the opportunity to experience
remoteness and solitude. Opportunities for outdoor recreation activities will
be encouraged only when they do not conflict with maintaining the
wilderness itself. For this reason, motorised access and circulation will not be
permitted, with the possible exception of strictly controlled air access in
remote northern parks.
About 94.01% of the parks system is zone II.
Zone III: Natural Environment

Areas that are managed as natural environments, and that provide
opportunities for visitors to experience a parks natural and cultural heritage
values through outdoor recreation activities requiring minimal services and
facilities of a rustic nature. While motorised access may be allowed, it will be
controlled. Public transit that facilitates heritage appreciation will be
preferred. Park management plans may define provisions for terminating or
limiting private motorised access.
About 2.16% of the parks system is zone III.
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Table 8.6 (continued)

Zone IV: Outdoor Recreation
Limited areas that are capable of accommodating a broad range of
opportunities for understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of the parks
heritage values and related essential services and facilities, in ways that
impact on the ecological integrity of the park to the smallest extent possible,
and whose defining feature is direct access by motorised vehicles. Park
management plans may define provisions for limiting private motorised
access and circulation.
About 0.48% of the parks system is zone IV.
Zone V: Park Services

Communities in existing national parks that contain a concentration of visitor
services and support facilities. Specific activities, services and facilities in this
zone will be defined and directed by the community planning process. Major
park operation and administrative functions may also beaccommodated in
this zone. Wherever possible, Parks Canada will locate these functions to
maintain regional ecological integrity.
About 0.09% of the parks system is zone V.
Parks Canada (1988)
means of protecting the natural environment. Numbers of tourists expand

once access is made available. Supply of an area appears to create its own
demand and, with a growth of demand, there appears to be a process of
further improving access. Distance is no longer the barrier it once was, and
even the furthest flung parts of the globe are susceptible to the visit of the
tourist, as is witnessed by the growing numbers that visit Antarctica.
Creating roads generates traffic that may far exceed the calculations of the
road planner, and this phenomenon is not restricted to tourist areas. The
M25 orbital motorway around London is such an example. Within a year of
its opening it became evident that the traffic flows far exceeded forecast
demand, and schemes to widen the six-lane motorway to eight lanes were
subsequently announced in 1989. Equally, the very existence of the
motorway has helped to generate submissions by property developers for
new retail/leisure centres around Londons perimeter. So, too, with tourist
destinations. One such example is the Greek island of Lefkas, which in the
early 1980s had some tourism based in Lefkas Town and the village of
Nidri. To a large degree this was local Greek tourism, attracted to the island
not only by its natural beauty, but also partly by its proximity to Scorpios,
an island made glamorous by its connections with the Onassis family. By
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the mid-1980s Nidri was being used by a few, small, specialist holiday
companies; at the same time the village of Vassiliki in the south of the island
was becoming known amongst the windsurfing fraternity for its strong
winds on summer afternoons. However, until 1987 the village of Vassiliki
was accessible from Nidri only by a rough road, but in that year the road
was made permanent with a tarmac surface. Consequently, the larger
holiday companies that had followed the smaller, specialist companies to
Nidri began to offer Vassiliki in their brochures for 1988, partly because the
travel time to Vassiliki had been reduced by the improved communications. Other factors were also important. A similar aspect of accessibility
was the increased frequency of flights to the airport of Prevaza, which
serviced the island of Lefkas. In consequence, the villages of Nidri and
Vassiliki began to change their character in the way described by Young
(1985). Thus, accessibility becomes a determinant of change that initiates
not only a change of land use from a strictly environmental viewpoint but
also a social change.
It must also be noted that classifications of areas are an important step
towards zoning, and hence care must be taken over the categorisation of
land, for such categorisations determine the level of development that will
be permitted. For example, within the USA the Wilderness Act defines
wilderness in the following terms:
A wilderness, in contrast to those areas where man and his own works
dominate the landscape, is hereby recognised as an area where the Earth
and its community of life are untrammelled by man, where man himself
is a visitor who does not remain. (Wilderness Act, 1964: section 2c)
Searle (1989) argues that, if this definition is applied to areas such as
Banff National Park, then the true wilderness of Banff is reduced to only
about 60% of the park. This is because the Canada Parks Service subcategories of wilderness include semi-primitive wilderness, which permits
commercial lodges, large group camps and site hardening. Within the
United Kingdom, National Parks policy has always had to recognise that
much of the land is in private ownership, much of it being worked by
farmers. Indeed, much of the area covered by UK National Parks would fail
the US definition of wilderness. Consequently, the English authorities have
had to set up systems of permitted land use, which contain within them the
potential for conflict between the right of individuals to develop their own
land as they see fit, and the right of a wider society to open spaces.
If the type of tourism that exists is indeed a reflection of the needs and
aspirations of a society, then the relationship between tourism and the
physical environment mirrors the values of that society. Arguably, the literature of holidays, with its promises of an unspoilt destination, contains two
implicit premises. The first is the recognition of the desire for escape into a
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paradise, a notion of nature as a means of renewing the spirit an attitude

that arguably may be seen as both unnecessarily romantic and mistaken
(Walter, 1982). Secondly, holiday brochures imply that the unspoilt destination is a tourist resource for mankind; and it is perhaps with this premise
that environmental pressure groups would most argue. Dearden (1989)
and Dearden and Rollins (1990) have argued, within a Canadian context,
that, historically, the environment has been viewed as a storehouse of raw
materials, and that the wilderness has value or worth only in relation to its
usefulness to humans. In consequence, National Parks, beautiful scenery
and the unspoilt areas, have value only if perceived as a resource for
tourism and economic benefit. Such a viewpoint, Dearden argues, fails to
recognise the integrity of the areas for their own sake, and instead places on
them a value that has everything to do with economic rates of return and
nothing to do with intrinsic values. And therein lies the crux of the matter.
On the one hand there exists a valid longing for escape, for the pleasure to
be found in skiing down the slopes, or sailing in blue seas, or communing
with nature within isolated areas, or simply sharing beauty with family and
friends and so reinforcing the feelings of togetherness of any given social
group. On the other hand, such desires, when translated into the wishes of
thousands if not millions wishing to share the same experiences, become a
threat not only to the sought-after experience, but also to the flora and fauna
and, as waters become poisoned and air polluted, to the host communities
themselves. Nor, as will be discussed in the next chapter, are the changes
posed by tourism limited to the physical environment alone.
Management Techniques
The above discussion begins to indicate ways in which the planning
authorities can start to minimise the negative impacts of tourism, whilst
simultaneously, at least under certain conditions, perhaps even enhancing
the degree of visitor satisfaction. A number of policies might be identified.
Essentially, these techniques can be divided into two broad groupings:
macro-techniques and micro-techniques. Macro-techniques relate to planning sites within a zone, and the relationship between them, whilst microtechniques relate to the management of flows of people within a specific
destination and place in the zone itself. Both are orientated towards maintaining sustainable levels of usage.
Macro-techniques
The setting up of honeypots
This involves the development, or the permission for development, of
popular resort areas in an attempt to relieve pressure on more sensitive
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areas elsewhere. One example of such a policy would be the development

of recreational parkland near centres of population in the hope that such
areas would attract users, so protecting the more distant fragile zones.
Another example would be to permit the development of major tourist
resorts. It might be expected that such resorts would help protect their
hinterland in two ways. The very gaudiness of the resort would deter the
allocentric, explorer type of tourist, whilst the psychocentric, mass-organised tourists would remain content within their touristic bubble experiencing its fun-packed delights. But such a policy may not work. As any
visitor to the Costa del Sol would testify, the hinterland of Andalucia is
indeed visited by tourists. In areas such as Ojen, foreign ownership of property is not uncommon; whilst by the 1980s the town of Ronda boasted
souvenir and antique shops that it did not possess a decade earlier. Incidentally, both of these developments have, in part, been encouraged by the
improvement of roads that lead from the coast through the mountains,
again illustrating the importance of accessibility. However, the policy of
honeypots might not work because the types of tourists described here are
partly a caricature of reality. As indicated in Chapter 1, the modern tourist is
capable of playing more than one role, of seeking one type of holiday on one
occasion and another at other times. Even within the one holiday, whilst
adopting predominantly one mode of behaviour, alternative patterns will
be taken up at other times. So the mass-organised tourist will take some
days out to explore the hinterland, and thus visit the less popular areas. The
honeypot thus becomes a nodal point for a series of day-trip activities.
Equally, the honeypot tourist area may well be capable of meeting the
needs of more than one type of tourist simultaneously, or at least temporally. The types of tourists that visit a popular area in the off-peak season
may differ from those who visit during the main season. Consequently, in
the off-peak season, visits to the hinterland may not decline in proportion to
the decline in visitor numbers to the honeypot. This implies that the policy
of adopting honeypots requires careful planning in relation to their location to the more fragile environments. Certainly such fragile areas must be
more than a day-trips distance away. Yet, what is a day-trips distance
away? There is no such set distance, in terms either of miles or of hours
spent in travel time. The question of accessibility is important. The policy of
the honeypot must go hand in hand with other policies, such as zoning
and route planning.
The policy of dispersion
The problem of the honeypot is that the natural and man-made
resources within the area may become stressed. Even if this is not the case,
and the policy is successful, then, by implication, the economic benefits that
accrue from tourism are being denied to other areas. In consequence, to
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help maintain a higher quality of natural environment within the main

tourist resort area, a policy of tourist dispersion may be adopted. The objective of this policy is to avoid overloading the capacity at the main resort and
to spread the benefits of tourism. Again, this may also help to enhance the
level of visitor satisfaction. Such a policy may be illustrated with reference
to South Wales and the Gower Peninsula. The Gower, with its beautiful
sandy beaches and coves, has long been a tourist area for the centres of
population of the South Wales valleys, and with the completion of motorways and railway links, it has succeeded in attracting tourists from a much
wider area. During the 1970s, however, problems became apparent. With
increased car ownership, and the improvements in roads as part of the
industrial reinvestment in South Wales, on a fine summers day the bays
became packed with people, and the car parks were full to overflowing. The
installation of a noticeboard on the Gower road leading out of Swansea that
gave information on the car parks, and thus warned motorists that there
was no parking available, seemed to have little effect. Arguably, therefore,
there was reason to develop other tourist destinations that could help to
relieve the stress. Equally, it could be argued that, as a tourist area, the
Gower was over-dependent on its beaches. When the weather was poor,
there was little alternative activity to which tourists could turn, and thus a
potential existed for disappointment. Therefore, in the period from the late
1970s to the late 1980s, a series of alternative tourist attractions was developed in the Vale of Glamorgan and the area north of Swansea, and subsequently in Swansea itself. Tourists may now visit Aberdulais Basin where
redevelopment of the old canal basin has taken place. Margam Park has
opened, mining museums exist within an easy car journey from Swansea
and other developments have occurred.
Has this policy been successful? On fine summer days tourists still prefer
to be by the beach, and the car parks are still full to capacity. The entrance to
Caswell Valley has long since become a tarmac area, and only older people
can remember its original beauty. The village of Mumbles still suffers from
a surfeit of cars, and the sand dunes of Oxwich and Port Eynon are
protected only by areas being fenced off and access to the beach being
controlled by other forms of resort management. To some extent, the problems arise not only from tourism, but also from increased building in the
area from the 1970s as South Wales recovered from recession and its past
over-dependence on coal mining and agriculture. Its very success in diversifying its economy led to some of the strains briefly described. Yet, as a case
study it illustrates some of the problems of diversification policies. The
alternatives may not be powerful enough to divert people from the major
touristic activities that caused the initial stress. If the alternatives are strong
enough to attract visitors away from the original magnet during peak
periods of activity, then the new combination of tourist assets will probably
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engender more visitors in total. This general principle is illustrated in

Figure 8.4. Here it can be seen that at the old carrying capacity excess
demand exists between months of a and b (generally the summer months).
However, increasing the number of attractions creates a new, higher
carrying capacity that would permit the numbers of visitors associated
with demand P1 to be easily catered for. However, the problem is not solved
and the increased attractions result in a higher demand (P2). The effect is
that, while the season is extended, excess demand now exists between
months x and y. One implication of this analysis is that excess removal of
demand requires not only the addition of visitor attractions to cater for visitors, but also the addition of roads and accommodation infrastructures that
again impose demands on land use and stress on natural environments.
Hence, it is argued, there is a need for planning controls and restrictions on
private sector use that results from adopting market led policies. The user
pays scenario of the market-led approach to tourism results in a distribution of costs that involves stake holders other than the commercial bodies
that attract revenue from direct market transactions.
In consequence, the policy succeeds in attracting more visitors and in
potentially generating land use pressures over a greater area. Some forms
of relief have come to the Gower Peninsular, but this is because, like many
other coastal regions of the United Kingdom, demand has ceased to grow at
the previous rates because overseas destinations have become both more
affordable and more attractive to British holidaymakers.
New
carrying
capacity
P2
Old
carrying
capacity
P1
a x
b
Months of the year
Figure 8.4 The possible effects of adding visitor capacity
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Zoning
Zoning involves the identification of areas of land, those uses that will be
permitted there, and those that will not be allowed. Within Britain, a major
example of zoning is the categorisation of land near cities as Green Belt,
where neither residential nor industrial development is permitted. Initially
these controls were implemented by various Town and Country Planning
Acts (notably that of 1971), but in the 1980s a series of orders and circulars
was issued that had the effect of making land development by property
developers that much easier. For example, the Department of the Environment circular 22/80, Development Control Policy and Practice, stated that
when there is a decision to be made there must be a presumption in favour
of development; in other words, permission will be granted unless there is
a strong counter-argument (DOE, 1980). Circular 2/87, Awards of Costs and
Planning Procedures, indicated that costs could be awarded against planning authorities for unreasonable delay in granting planning permission
(DOE, 1987). The consequences, particularly in urban locations where
listed buildings might be found within conservation areas, were the exercise of significant pressure on planning authorities for development, and a
potential danger that out-of-character development might be permitted.
However, the market-led, user pays approaches of the Thatcherite years in
turn gave way to the new political processes of Labour Party government.
The changes that took place resulted in the Green Paper, Planning:
Delivering a Fundamental Change, which was subject of consultative
processes until December 2001 (Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 2001).
At the time of writing it is not possible to say with certainty what outcomes
will take place, but the changes being proposed include several that are
important. As noted in debates about planning and environmental impacts
elsewhere, a middle path is sought between the market-led policies of the
past and the over-fussy regulations of other periods. The Green Paper seeks
to reduce uncertainty by identifying realistic and definitive time-scales, to
provide efficient and friendly service through a well skilled and supported
staff and a greater use of new technologies to speed processes. Development plans are contextualised within local development frameworks, and
to a large extent it can be argued that the Green Paper is about processes
rather than about macro-concerns. To some extent these concerns are
already to be found in legislation about environmental impacts and the
work of the UK Environment Agency among other bodies. However,
process is important. The conceived checklists for seeking approval require
clear statements about environmental impacts (Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister, 2001: section 5.9), and this would be consistent with European
Union legislation and overseas practices. This clearly imposes a need for
territorial authorities to maintain consistency of overall land-use patterns,
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while the test might be: what amount of detail will suffice to meet the
impact assessments required by the local authority? New Zealands experience of the Resource Management Act and its consultative processes has
been one of an unequal relationship between stakeholders: community
groups have sometimes felt disappointed by their inability to match the
resources available to commercial enterprise who produce environmental
consultants reports that indicate minimal negative environments. For their
part, entrepreneurs have expressed dissatisfaction about the increase in
start up-costs that such consultancies and time delays impose on their
plans. Consequently proposals exist that some form of public sector
support should be made available for local pressure groups. On the other
hand, businesses have expressed concerns about frivolous objections and
in New Zealand there has been recognition of the need to recompense business for extra costs resulting from appeal procedures where the original
application has been approved. It might be concluded that apparently
rational processes simply give rise to unlooked-for consequences.
From a tourism perspective, one of the common problems associated
with tourism development is that, in order to protect the important or
fragile area, tourism development may be restricted at the location itself.
Nonetheless, visitors may continue to arrive, and hence there is a need for a
tourist complex of hotels, swimming pools, restaurants, campsites and
souvenir shops at some distance from the tourist attraction. One such
example is the creation and subsequent expansion of the resort complex at
Yulara near Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park (Ayers Rock) in Central
Australia. In the longer term one problem that might emerge is that of poor
access to the attraction from the support tourist complex, and some have
argued that the construction of an airport at Yulara had significant impacts
on visitation patterns to Uluru.
The encouragement of soft tourism
The purpose behind this policy is that tourist activity should be dovetailed into existing facilities, and that tourist developments that are extraneous to the nature of the area are forbidden. As previously indicated, it
commonly proposes a form of tourism that is consistent with rural and
agricultural pursuits. It is argued that tourism should serve a purpose of
supplementing the major economic activities that exist, rather than
supplanting them. Attractive as this idea is, and consistent as it may appear
with environmental concerns and the changing patterns of tourism
demand previously discussed, this policy is also not without its difficulties.
Logically, it would restrict large-scale tourist development, such as theme
parks, to only one of two types of areas, namely the already urbanised,
developed area, and the area of derelict or desolate wasteland that has little
economic or ecological value. In the case of already-developed areas, such
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proposals might perhaps create the problems of stress that are associated
with the honeypot policy. It also denies to those living in rural areas the
chance of significant economic investments that may serve as a catalyst of
change. Some such developments may be held to be consistent with the
inherent nature of the area (for example, major attractions based on rural
technologies such as dairy production), yet actually have significant
income, employment, social and environmental implications because of
the very scale of any proposed development. The objective of soft tourism is
one of slow evolution rather than revolution, and one problem might be
that host communities might not willingly accept these restrictions. Much
depends on how the host community values the quality and form of the
landscape that external bodies feel has value and is deserving of protection.
The proponents of soft tourism argue that only this form of tourism offers
any form of practical solution to the economic needs of the community and
the requirements of conservation.
Sometimes, however, the proposals that are accepted do not always have
the desired outcomes. For example, it is often suggested that farm-stay holidays generate additional income, particularly for women, and permit them
to develop entrepreneurial skills. For her part, V.L. Smith (1994) reports
research from Belize that showed that small-scale, family-based tourism
produced little return for female workers, and that in fact chambermaids in
hotel complexes enjoyed more free time and higher levels of retained
income. Also, organised patterns of work as an employee were actually far
less intrusive on home life.
The encouragement of green policies
The encouragement of soft tourism is closely related to the establishment of green policies that seek not only to protect but also to restore the
environment and offset problems generated by acid rain and other threats,
even whilst improving recreational resources. The proposals of the
Countryside Commission to develop urban forests provide such an
example. The plan called for the commencement of tree planting in the
Black Country and Tyneside in 1989, with, within five years, further
planting in the London Green Belt, and on the perimeters of Manchester
and Sheffield. A second phase subsequently took place around Nottingham,
Leeds, Cardiff, Swansea and Middlesbrough. In Scotland, the Scottish
Office announced a 50 million woodland planting programme for
Glasgow and Edinburgh. The Countryside Commission proposed that the
woodland should consist of a 50:50 mix of broad-leaved and coniferous
trees, thereby achieving objectives of a quick-growing green landscape that
possesses economic value while also permitting a re-establishment of oak,
beech and other broad-leaved trees that provide animal shelter. At the same
time, the policy would help restore the loss of such broad-leaved trees the
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Nature Conservancy Council having estimated that 40% of ancient woodlands had disappeared in Britain in the period 19451990. Predecessors of
this type of initiative are not unknown in Europe, and the Countryside
Commission cited as examples the Bos Park near Amsterdam (2200 acres of
recreational forest) and the Stadtwiilder (town forests) of Germany
(Countryside Commission, 1989). Granger (1990) describes ways in which
parks in Ontario are being naturalised as part of a process of the greening
of cities. Berg (1990) indicates ways in which the greening of US cities
such as San Francisco not only generates a greater ecological awareness but
also supports a profound shift in the fundamental premises and activities
of city living.
Community Forests have become a reality in the United Kingdom.
Twelve such forests now exist, the largest being The Mersey Forest, which
covers an area of 92,500 acres. They serve as a major recreational resource
while incidental by-products exist because of the trees ability to act as
carbon sinks. Since the programme began more than 6,220 hectares have
been planted, and more than 5,000 kilometres of woodland trails have been
created. The planted hedgerow was estimated to be 783 kilometres in
length (http//www.communityforest.org.uk, June 2002).
From a touristic and recreational viewpoint, urban forests present an
opportunity for becoming settings for art galleries, concert venues, dry ski
slopes, cycle trails and science parks. At the same time their very existence
might help to relieve tourist pressures on existing woodland. Other aspects
of green policies might have implications for tourism. The growing
demand for organic foodstuffs means that farmers are reducing their use of
herbicides and pesticides, and thus in the longer term the quality of water
may improve. Currently there are examples where recreational use of water
has been stopped because of fears of water pollution from these and other
sources. For example, in the late summer of 1989 the use of Rutland Water, a
3000-acre lake in Leicestershire, by windsurfers and others was stopped
because of health fears. Since that time there have been other reports of
environmental problems adversely affecting recreational and leisure use of
natural resources. For example, in June 2002, the State of Vermont had 126
streams, lakes or other stretches of water officially designated as polluted, with
Lake Champlain suffering from an excess of phosphorus run off that can cause
toxic algae blooms as occurred at Rutland Water.
Unfortunately, as forested areas are so attractive to tourism operators,
some come under threat of development. For example, in the UK in 1998
the Rank Organisation sought to develop a resort complex, Oasis Village
with 350 waterside villas, 400 forest lodges, 90 studio apartments, golf
courses and staff accommodation for the provision of short-break holidays
for up to 4000 guests at any one time. The site for this development was to
be Lyminge Forest in East Kent. The artificially constructed lake would
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have required 17.5 million gallons of water with maintenance needs, or so it

was claimed, of over 100,000 gallons per day. The result, in spite of planning
permission being granted, was a noisy and effective opposition of sit-ins
and demonstrations. Environmental pressure groups led the campaign
against the proposed development and adverse comparisons were made
with Ranks competitor, Center Parcs Limited. At the end of the day, Rank
Organisation sold its one northern Oasis Village to Center Parcs and
withdrew from the resort complex market.
A development that has gathered strength in the first years of the
twenty-first century has been the concept of inland islands. Conventionally many conservation efforts have been concentrated on islands
because of the ease of controlling access to them. For example, once introduced predator species such as stoats, possum, rats and others than prey on
birds nests are cleared from an island by a policy of hunting, trapping and
killing, distinct improvements in the native bird population have been
found to occur. Native species are able to reassert themselves once the
natural environment is freed from predators that are present because of
past human intervention, although in some instances special breeding
programmes may be required. Examples of these policies would include
the New Zealand Department of Conservation breeding programmes for
places such as Kapiti Island, Poor Knights and Great Barrier Island. In some
instances these might be combined with marine reserves. The same policy
is now being adopted for inland sites, and one of the first of these was in the
city of Wellington, New Zealand. The old Karori water reservoir catchment
area had been closed to the public for 120 years. In the early 1990s James
Lynch, then Chairman of the Wellington branch of the Royal Forest and
Bird Society, led a movement to repossess the area as an inland sanctuary
wherein fauna, flora, habitats and processes representative of an indigenous lowland forest could be restored to a managed area. The total area was
fenced off with a specially constructed fence that went underground to
defeat invasion by burrowing pests. Vegetation was cut back from the fence
for a distance of at least a metre, and trees in particular were cut back so that
tree-based predator mammals could not jump across the gap. The fence
was also specially shaped to defeat such attempts. A campaign of hunting
introduced predator species (particularly rats, stoats, weasels and possum)
was mounted and then native New Zealand birds were introduced. These
included, in June 2002, the first saddleback bird to be re-introduced to the
New Zealand mainland for 100 years, thereby improving the long-term
breeding programme and chances of survival for this once almost-extinct
species. Within a few years it has been noticeable just how rich in bird life
the area has become, while native tree and shrub species that have little
protection against the voracious appetite of the possum have begun to
thrive. The area is becoming a notable tourist attraction. Five themes are
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presented to visitors who are taken on guided tours, these being heritage,
restoration, education, the kiwi trail and wilderness. Figure 8.5 shows the
entry point for visitors and the nature of the fencing. The metre-wide path
around the sanctuary has also had an un-looked for benefit, as it has
become a popular resource for mountain bikers, and of course in this
instance the trampling effect is generally beneficial. Plans for other such
inland sanctuaries are being advanced both in New Zealand and in other
parts of the world to help restore environments to their natural condition.
However, green policies and green tourism do not provide instant solutions to the environmental problems created by recreation and tourism. They
often take time to develop, and long-term horizons need to be considered.
Long-term commitments are required. The UK Community Forest scheme
and the Karori Sanctuary are but two examples of this, and further evidence
is provided by two Canadian examples: the Weyerhaeuser Forest and the
Meewasin Valley Authority plans (Weyerhaeuser Canada, 1989: MVA, 1987).
The Weyerhaeuser 20-year Forest Management Plan is primarily concerned
with the creation of forests that can sustain timber processing, but the plan
also considers, based on forest simulation models, other activities including
recreational use of forest areas. Indeed, it can even project forest growth over
a 220-year period to evaluate the impact of various forest management
systems and usage patterns. This plan was also subjected to a resource
management approval process in Saskatchewan and was approved in 2001.
In 1979 the Meewasin Valley Authority began a 100-year plan to consider the
use of the valley for both tourist and recreational use within a context of environmental conservation. The initiative was not without controversy, and at
one stage, in 1981, one of the Saskatoon city parks was removed from the
jurisdiction of the Authority. However, work has continued in the period
since that time and in 2002 the third phase of the Meewasin Riverworks Weir
redevelopment commenced. As in many such instances the objectives are
those of land reclamation, an improvement in recreational facilities, and an
improvement in the overall ambience of the area.
Figure 8.5 Entry to the Karori inland sanctuary
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The provision of tourist/recreation facilities near urban centres

Such developments as the Meewasin Valley Developments or the UK
urban and community forests are just a few examples of creating a recreational resource near the home of the tourist. If tourism does indeed pose a
potential threat to ecologically-fragile areas and if peoples working
patterns are indeed changing to permit an increased demand for leisure
near to the home location, the implication is that tourist authorities can
respond to the increased demand for day-trip activity near to home by
establishing a number of recreational facilities. Such facilities include not
simply urban forests, but also urban farms, the use of water splash parks,
the greater use of rivers and riversides within towns, and the use of canals.
Weekly, as well as occasional events can be organised within urban settings
that attract tourists and local people, and can enhance the local economy.
For example, Portland, Oregon, like many North American cities, features
special Saturday markets. Farmers markets and regular bric--brac markets
have become very popular the world round. In some instances they incorporate local heritage themes and involve local museums. They provide an
outlet for historical societies to re-enact events or display aspects of their
activities (as shown in Figure 8.6, which shows a scene from a Sealed Knot
muster or battle re-enactment in the UK). The resulting economic impact is
a form of import-saving in the sense that the home area retains spending
that would otherwise have taken place elsewhere. At the same time, pressures on other areas are diminished, whilst costs of travel are likewise
reduced. It might also be argued that the escape motivations for holidays
are equally mitigated in some form or other, and indeed perhaps the very
need for holidays is diminished. If it is thought in the final analysis the
potential harm that tourism can cause can be met only by reducing the
demand for travel, then such policies are at least part of the answer in that
they lessen the distance travelled.
Figure 8.6 A Sealed Knot muster, or battle re-enactment
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Create environmental-awareness holidays and tourists

A further policy that might be adopted is to ensure that tourists are
aware of the stresses that large numbers of tourists can cause, so that they
might mitigate the pressures by behavioural change. For example, the
Centre for Development Education in Stuttgart has worked with tour operator representatives and charter flight companies to provide literature for
their clients that makes them aware of cultural differences and the scarcity
of natural resources. In Australia the Co-operative Research Centre for
Sustainable Tourism seeks to engage with the tourism industry in finding
ways in which impacts can be minimised. One such project related to the
minimisation of waste from in-flight catering services, and other programmes exist elsewhere. In 1976, in Lower Casamance in Senegal, a programme commenced whereby tourists stay, not in large hotel complexes,
but in huts and as part of the village community. These initiatives have been
sustained with, today, for example, eco-cycle tours being offered in the
same region and using much of the same accommodation. Whilst one may
question the degree of authenticity this actually creates for the tourist in
terms of the social experience, it does have the benefit of helping to reduce
the negative ecological impacts of tourism. It also brings income to regions
while still adhering to principles of small groups of tourists that do not
overwhelm local cultures.
Micro-techniques
All of the above policies might be said to be planning policies on a
macro scale, i.e. they are concerned with allocating tourists between destination areas. What about the means of mitigating the tourist impact on the
environment when they actually arrive at the destination? At the micro
level there again exists a number of policies that managers might use.
Structured visitor management and monitoring
Park managements have become practised at developing structured
visitor management and monitoring procedures, and the literature is rich
in acronyms. These include:
ROS
LAC
VIM
TOMM
VAMP
Recreation Opportunity Spectrum

Limits of Acceptable Change
Visitor Impact Management
Tourism Optimisation Management Model
Visitor Activity Management Process
There are high degrees of similarity between these different approaches,

and all are predicated on rational, logical and scientific management procedures based on goal setting, measurement and monitoring. This section of
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the chapter will briefly describe these methods and then highlight at site
level some of the specifics that relate to management of natural areas.
ROS: Recreation Opportunity Spectrum
Associated with work undertaken in the United States Forest Service in

the 1970s, this method is based on a categorisation of zones from those that
have no facilities and accessible only by foot to those that are highly developed with resorts and lodges. Associated with each class or zone is a range
of possible recreational activities. The approach is often summarised in the
form of a grid with zones forming the columns and activities forming the
rows, and degrees of development being allocated to each cell. Clark and
Stankey (1979) effectively laid down the ground rules for this approach.
LAC: Limits of Acceptable Change
This approach derives from combining the concept of carrying capacity

with the classifications of the Recreational Opportunity Spectrum. It too
was compiled by George Stankey and colleagues (Stankey et al., 1985) in the
United States Forest Service and tries to provide an answer to how many
people should visit a site by asking what is the acceptable number before
change due to impacts becomes unacceptable. It reinforces the importance
of selecting appropriate measures and continuous monitoring. Stankey et
al. (1985) argued that indicators should possess four attributes. They
should:
be capable of being measured in a cost-effective way at an acceptable
level of accuracy;
have as direct a relationship as possible to the amount and type of use
of space that was occurring;
be related to the concerns of the users;
be responsive to changes created by management policies.
The technique therefore includes measures of the type already discussed
(i.e. water quality measures, trampling effect measurement), but is associated with usage patterns. In practice, however, the weakness of the
methodology has been the obtaining of agreement about the meanings of
such measures. In short, interpretation of results and the actual implementation process may be more due to political processes than to scientific
objectivity (McCool & Cole, 1997).
VIM: Visitor Impact Management
VIM sought to carry forward the LAC methodologies but also to incorporate the components of subjectivity that are associated with the management
of open and natural spaces. As before, it describes a process of logical review,
proceeding from a statement of objectives to the selection of criteria, and then
the implementation of those criteria at sites and a comparison of what is
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occurring with what is thought permissible. From this point, however, the
management then seeks to identify what are the probable causes of the
impacts, management strategies are aimed at causes, and their success is
measured by continuous monitoring using the agreed criteria. These criteria
include social as well as environmental objectives. A problem is the allocation of weighting between social and environmental criteria. A second
problem is that, while the measurement of natural phenomena is generally
recognised and well understood, the measurement of social perspectives as
they apply to natural places is more complex. However, in a report for the
New Zealand Department of Conservation, Cessford (2002) reported that a
simple Likert-type question seeking degrees of satisfaction with a site had
high degrees of validity as a measure of satisfaction. Their work looked at
differing constructions of scale and correlations with attributes that are
thought to be important, including measures of perceived crowding.
TOMM: Tourism Optimisation Management Model
Developed by the Sydney-based consulting firm, Mandis Roberts, this

model is described as a community-based monitoring initiative. It was
developed for assessing the long-term sustainability of tourism on
Kangaroo Island and collects information on the general health of the local
economy, the numbers and types of visitors arriving, the health of the environment, the types of experiences that visitors are having, and the social
well-being of the host community. It differs from the other measures by
seeking not to limit tourism but to optimise it, by which is meant the
creation of optimal income from careful marketing aimed at specific market
segments consistent with the host community and environment. So, in the
case of Kangaroo island, at Seal Bay, it considered options ranging from
closure of the beach to marketing messages about the declining opportunity to view seals, while this was contextualised within a framework that
considered the effects of any policy on other parts of the island.
While holistic in approach, and trying to be based on easily-obtained
datasets and criteria, the possible weakness of the method lies in the very
quantity of data that is required, and the weightings allocated to various
parts of it. A key objective is the creation of attitudinal change and awareness of environmental issues by differing stakeholders, and the web pages
associated with TOMM claim that such change has been occurring (http://
kitomm.webmedia.com.au/publications/files/AnnualReport2000v2.pdf).
VAMP: Visitor Activity Management Process
VAMP was developed primarily within the Canadian Parks Service and
seeks to identify visitor activities and the service plans required to meet thir
needs. This is contextualised within two frameworks: a National Park
Management Process that seeks to include community involvement in
planning for particular areas, and a natural Resources Management
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Process based on resource planning and conservation issues. Newsome,

Moore and Dowling (2001) comment that the plan has received little attention outside Canada, although the New Zealand Department of Conservation has expressed some interest. Like TOMM it places the visitor activity
more to the fore and requires a more market-oriented approach in the sense
that visitor activity modification can be undertaken only with reference to
visitor motivation and understanding of environments.
Visitor management
No matter which of these approaches is adopted, in practice managers of
natural and many man-built tourist attractions have to make a series of
decisions about site infrastructure, which includes reception areas, footpaths, numbers to be catered for and so on. The following section of the
chapter identifies some of the more specific components of structure and
offers comments on each of them.
Restrictive entry
The first of these techniques is to control numbers simply by permitting

only a few to enter. The levels of control can vary from exhortation (as illustrated by the car-parking signs in the Gower Peninsula mentioned earlier in
the chapter), to the maintenance of quotas by restricting entry to only those
with permits, to, at the final extreme, permitting no entry at all. In the
tourism of the wilderness areas of North America, the impacts of hunting
are controlled by the issue of licences, and by anti-poaching campaigns.
Entry may also be permitted to national parks at certain points only, and in
this respect the location of roads is important. Parks may permit only a
limited number of roads, which enter the park at specific points and,
beyond any given point, no wheeled traffic may be allowed. In consequence, distance from the access point becomes a means of reducing usage
rates, as tourists may gain access to some areas only on foot. In addition,
restrictions might be imposed on the type of camping that is permitted, and
the actual number of camping points also becomes a means of control. The
Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan maintains a policy of restricting numbers
of tourists, and such tourists are permitted only to travel in groups with
qualified guides. Entry to the Kingdom is permitted through only two
access points: by road through Phuentsholing or by air through Paro
Airport. Booking can be made through only 80 approved tour operators,
and visitors can stay only at certain approved accommodation. In 2000 the
limit was set at 6000 visitors. The purpose of the restriction is at least twofold. First, it reduces the social as well as the economic impacts of tourism to
levels that the country can easily absorb. Second, it permits a greater direction of the economic flows that tourism creates, without causing negative
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economic impacts such as too high an inflation rate in certain geographical

areas, or the sucking in of imports at too high a level.
Price
One simple way of reducing numbers of tourists is simply to charge high

prices and create exclusivity. This sense of exclusiveness in turn helps to
justify the high price. Obviously, therefore, the higher the price the fewer
the number of people who are able to take advantage of the area. However,
this conflicts with policies of open access in some spheres of activity.
National Parks may be part of the tourist package that is offered to visitors,
but equally the concept of a National Park is that it is open to its own
nationals and is for educational as well as recreational purposes. Restrictions on access are thus not always constitutionally possible, nor is the use
of pricing mechanisms. The problem becomes more apparent when
National Parks are designated, but include within them private property, as
is common in Britain. Thus, water authorities and other private landowners
can indeed charge admission, and will often use such admission charges to
raise revenue to maintain the quality of the recreational provision. Van
Sickle and Eagles (1998) trace the experience of Canadian Parks over the
period 19751995 and show the result of declining financial support from
central government. This has not been unique to Canada, and has been
experienced elsewhere in the English-speaking world. One consequence is
an increased dependency on revenues derived from fees and services, and
Van Sickle and Eagles note four possible ways in which park fees can be
used. First, fees are a means of creating value for the visit. Second, they can
be used to offset costs. Third, they can be used as a management tool to
deter visits at certain times by using differential pricing. Finally, they might
be used to generate profit. However, Van Sickle and Eagles (1998) also note
that, in 7 of the 13 cases they studied, the agencies had to remit revenues to
other organisations. One major implication across all of the Parks managements was the implication for management, with financial objectives
becoming much more important than in the past.
Site management sign posting
One aspect of site management is the use of wardens with various duties
including conservation work and the provision of information to visitors.
Working from interpretation centres, the aim is to inform visitors so as to
make them appreciate the natural environment, and so modify their behaviour. One means of behaviour modification is to create signposted walks.
The visitor will tend to keep to the approved trail, and this behaviour is
reinforced by the provision of information points along the route. Given a
leaflet, the visitor is drawn from one point to another, and attention is
directed to various features. Not only, therefore, are visitors taught how to
observe and appreciate nature, but they are also kept to those areas that can
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Figure 8.7 Examples of signposting

sustain high pedestrian flow, and so are kept away from the more fragile
areas, so permitting flora and fauna to sustain themselves. Underlying this
policy is also a belief that elitist attitudes towards nature are eventually selfdefeating. Minorities may serve to act as catalysts within societies. But only
if the majority are at least sympathetic to the minority viewpoint can
desired policies be put into practice. Thus, whilst studies may illustrate that
few visitors will move far from their cars, and the clichd picture of the
family sitting in the lay-by viewing the countryside from the car is not
without truth, arguably people will not be moved to protect areas or appreciate the need for protection unless they have greater knowledge. It has
been found that behaviour is changed by the provision of information. If,
on arriving at a park, people are told that a number of walks exist, that these
walks are of a certain distance and duration, that the terrain is easy or otherwise, then the distance travelled from the car park tends to increase. People
hence enjoy the visit and obtain more from it. Equally, just as the provision
of information influences behaviour, so too does the withholding of information. Nonetheless, the desired result is a greater use of areas, the acquisition of knowledge and an appreciation by the public of the importance of
things natural, and in the end, hopefully, an increased readiness to support
policies of conservation. Figure 8.7 illustrates two forms of signposting
used at Litchfield Park in Australia by the Northern Territory Wildlife and
Parks Authority. The first is a simple directional sign and the second is a
more complex sign providing some information as well as a map of the
immediate area.
Footpaths and car parks
No policy is without associated costs. The paradox is that increased

usage may often be needed to obtain public support for parks authorities
that are increasingly constrained financially, but the routes chosen must
retain a state of naturalness. The selected routes must thus be capable of
supporting high levels of pedestrian flow. Care must be shown in the planning of the paths. Where possible it is preferable to use natural rocks and
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hard surfaces that can sustain higher traffic than grass or soil can. Within
woodland settings, cork and tree chips may be used for the paths. In using
such wood-based products there is a need to take care that, wherever
possible, non-treated wood product is used, as the chemical leakage from
treated wood might have unlooked-for consequences. Boardwalks may be
used near streams and rivers to protect the banks. Car parks may indeed be
parks, but there is a need to protect grass from the wear produced by tyres.
One solution is to use small hollow concrete squares. The soil sits within
these squares and is seeded. The grass grows, but the concrete protects the
roots of the grass, which is therefore not worn away by the tyres.
Aesthetically, the area retains its greenness and freshness. Other advantages also accrue. The soil is not beaten down and denuded to become a
hardened area off which water flows. The drainage patterns are less
adversely affected, the rainwater can still percolate through the soil, and
hence trees continue to be nourished.
On open areas of moorland it may be necessary to use even more expensive techniques. Whilst paths may be created from tarmac to overcome the
problem of path erosion and of path-widening due to trampling effects,
there is a resistance to the concept of wild open areas being criss-crossed by
black tarmac paths that stand out against the natural terrain. Such paths are
man-made and man-imposed on an area that is supposedly being protected
as far as possible against encroachment by man. Rebuilding footpaths with
natural material might appear to be an answer, but the problem is that the
very transport of rocks and stones can make the problem worse. In fact in
Snowdonia, helicopters have been used to transport stone material to help
restore footpaths with natural rock. On moorland a number of high-tech
solutions are being used to create footpaths that can sustain high pedestrian
flow whilst at the same time blending into the natural terrain. The Peak
District National Park in the UK in 1989 experimented with a footpath
comprising three different levels (Cohen, 1989). At the base is laid a nylon
membrane that allows water to drain through, but stops mud from coming
up when pressure is laid on the path by the walker. Over this is placed a
synthetic net that helps to distribute the impact of the walker over a greater
area, thus lessening the pressure on any given surface. Finally, over this is
laid a combination of basalt and grit stone that is consistent with the terrain
of the Peak District. However, such footpath building is very expensive. In
other areas grass is sown on top of various layers of material such as
fibretex so as to be consistent with the terrain, and indeed in some cases
grass and other plants are being forced by the use of carefully planned
applications of fertiliser. Alternatively it is possible to use sacking made of
natural materials that decay over time, but which help to stabilise new
grass growth from seed in the initial stages. Figure 8.8 illustrates such an
example from Hamilton, New Zealand.
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Figure 8.8 Stabilising new grass growth on a bank

Opinions about the use of fertilisers are divided, but the reasons that
prompt their use are easily understood. In some areas users may be asked to
voluntarily adhere to certain practices, for example, to walk in small groups
and in single file. Across sand dunes walkers may have to keep to boardwalks to avoid the wear on the grasses that help maintain the sand dunes
formation. As the boards become bleached and are covered by drifting
sand, they do not appear to be out of place, but there is a continuing need for
maintenance.
In establishing paths there is also a need to assess the likely routes that
people will take. The temptation to take a short cut seems to be too much for
many people to resist. Observation of any park in an urban area, or any
open piece of grass where paths are provided, will often reveal worn areas
of grass where people take short cuts. This provides a problem for parks
departments. The same sort of path erosion problems that might be found
in the open areas of the country can be found in a citys local parks. For
example in England, in the deer park at Woollaton, Nottingham, the
circumference of the park now has worn paths created by joggers who use
the park for training. Cars had worn away the grass to such an extent that it
was replaced by a shale-type surface, and car parking is now restricted to
specific areas in order to protect other parts of the park.
Footpaths in areas of heavy usage have to also be protected. A common
method is to install wire mesh over wooden paths or bridges as this serves
two purposes: it both protects the wood and makes the surface less slippery
in damp conditions.
Control of access points
Whilst there may be a reluctance to directly control access to what are

deemed to be national heritage areas or wilderness areas that belong to the
nation, or to areas featured in tourism-promotion programmes, indirect
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controls are often used. Controlling the number of access points is possible,
as has already been noted. Thus, within park areas, the location and size of
car parks, and the spatial relationship of roads to zones of activity within
the park are important. For example, in 1988 the car park at Dove Dale in the
English Peak District was made smaller in order to reduce the numbers
who parked there and then walked through the dale. This was to ease the
pedestrian flow through the dale in order to permit recovery of paths and to
begin to offset trampling effects. Alternative means of access may be made
possible. Again within the Peak District, schemes that reduce car traffic and
offer instead a bus service or cycle hire have proved successful. This was
done in the Goyt Valley, and an interesting side effect has been that the
social composition of the visitors changed, with higher socio-economic
groupings becoming a larger proportion of visitors (Murphy, 1985). In the
Snowdonia National Park in Wales, the Mountain Goat bus service was
established to relieve stress on car parks around Snowdon where walkers
parked before taking one of the routes up the mountain. Naturally, people
were somewhat reluctant to forgo the use of their cars, but the bus service
offered real benefits to walkers in that they could now take two routes in the
same trip. There was no longer a need to go up and return by the same
route, when they could take a different path down and be picked up by the
bus. So, a marginal dispersal effect has been created.
An important aspect of accessibility is the location of accommodation
facilities. These have to be sufficiently near to allow time for visits into the
vulnerable areas, but far enough away to protect the area from the support
infrastructure that accommodation requires. Sometimes the trip into the
protected zone becomes part of the visit experience. Thus, within the
Maldive Islands, tourists may visit certain islands but not stay on them. The
boat trip under blue skies on blue waters is obviously an inherent part of the
whole experience, and generates visitor satisfaction. Management of zones
must therefore look into means of replicating this type of satisfaction under
less-promising circumstances.
Changing usage patterns
One of the great problems in tourism site management is the protection

of sites where tourists have already established behaviour patterns that
may be inimical to the long-term integrity of the area. Through custom and
usage, interests have been generated that some would wish to protect. This
perhaps represents one of the major challenges to planning authorities, and
one of the most difficult to cope with. The degree of difficulty associated
with this is illustrated by Waiser (1989), who describes the difficulties that
the Prince Albert National Park authorities had in reversing the development of summer homes erected by local residents within the park in the
1960s. Based on the town of Waskesiu, development had spread into the
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park, and after the Second World War visitor numbers increased from
50,000 in 1949 to 136,529 in 1958. By the summer of 1950 there were 412
shack tents (wooden shacks) in the Waskesiu campsite, and an association
was formed that petitioned for them to be recognised and kept for the duration of the whole year rather than having to be dismantled at the end of
every season. However, in 1959 a planning report commented that:
The present spectacle which confronts the visitor is not a pleasant one,
where the key areas in the developed portion of the park are dominated
by semi-permanent occupancies. It can be expected as the proportion
of touring recreationists grows so will the indignation against the
present type of development grow. For it is most obvious this is a
misuse of a national park. (Parks Canada, 1959)
Equally, by the mid-1960s new demands were emerging, and in 1966 the
park appointed its first warden for the development of park interpretative
services. The result was that in 1967 a plan was announced that only
existing shack tenters could apply for permits for a lot in a relocated area.
However, faced with opposition, a series of temporary arrangements
were made so that by the early 1970s the shack tents had become all-yearround structures plugged into the electricity mains supply. In 1971, after
further review of the role of National Parks, Prince Albert was designated
as a national wildland park. The public hearings revealed a conflict of
perception and use between those who perceived the role of National Parks
as a means of preserving wilderness areas and the flora and fauna they
contain and, within Prince Albert, the majority who saw the park as an area
of recreation as a family park. The latter group saw the whole attempt as a
means by which distant central government ignored local custom and
sought to impose its will on those who had developed the park. The conflict
is described by Waiser as one where the townsite serves the park, not vice
versa, and that the natural heritage values of the park should govern
Waskesiu management and development (cited by Ryan, 1991a: 128). By
contrast, local townspeople argue that the town constitutes but a small part
of the total area and, from the viewpoint of visitors, the park primarily
serves local people.
The same type of issues have arisen in New Zealand relating to baches
located on that countrys conservation estate. They date from more relaxed
times of less pressure, and what emerges from these type of debates is that
the owners of such summer homes have established close identities with
the places where these simple homes are located. Often the homes have
been in the possession of a family for generations, and with the sense of
ownership comes a sense of responsibility for the immediate area, with
many families voluntarily undertaking refuse collection and cleaning of the
natural environment within which their homes are located. In many senses
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they possess a potential to be allies in any conservation movement, and

consequently parks authorities have tended to be sympathetic in their
treatment of such owners. In a sense it is often unborn generations that will
bear the loss of such family assets, as arrangements are usually based on
reclamation of property at some future time.
Encouraging natural processes
By seeking to meet recreational requirements, many of the natural

processes of a wilderness area are interfered with. For example, dams may
be built, or woodland fires fought. The Yellowstone National Park provides
a graphic example of conflict between permitting areas to be true wilderness areas, and meeting preconceived notions of beauty. In 1972 the park
authorities decided to permit predators to re-establish themselves within
the parklands. Then, in the 1980s, the authorities decided that they would
reverse their earlier policies on fire fighting. It was argued that forest fires
should be left to burn out, for this creates opportunities for shrubs and
grasses to flourish where they would normally be suppressed by the shade
of the trees. The policy generated many new findings. For example, it was
found that 80% of fires burnt themselves out quite quickly, particularly if
started by natural causes such as lightning strikes. Secondly, it was found
that elk, deer and bison manage better with recently-burnt ground.
However, in the summer of 1988 the park authorities permitted, as had
become normal practice, the fires to rage in June in the expectation of rain in
July. But the rain failed to materialise, and the American media showed
pictures of fires apparently destroying the park. It did not matter that the
park authorities spent $120 million in fire-fighting; the impression was
conveyed that crazed environmentalists were letting the park burn down
(McKenzie, 1989). The problem was one where, although park managers
have moved on to sophisticated theories about biosphere management and
ecological preserves, people tend to seek the same things from parks that
they have always sought (McKenzie, 1989). A year after the fire, as North
(1989: 11) commented, the park was a wilderness enriched by fire, as it
bloomed yet again.
However, there is no doubt that the public reaction to the fire policies
being pursued at Yellowstone affected the park management. It was also
obvious that there had to be a careful monitoring of fire and at least a basic
division between those fires thought to be part of the natural process and
those caused by human intervention, such as out-of-control camp fires. In
2002 Yellowstone maintained several fire crews, helitrack (a helicopter
based tracking patrol) and several land-based tracking and fire-fighting
teams. A detailed fire-fighting plan has been created and different techniques and scenarios have been identified. For those interested these plans
are available for inspection on the web (e.g. www.nps.gov/yell/technical/
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fire/hazard.pdf). Associated with this is a careful monitoring programming

on the effects of fire. This programme was partly established in response to
demands after the 1988 fire so the parks authority was able to cite specific
evidence of the benefits of fire on vegetation growth. At the same time such
data collection becomes part of the fire-fighting programme by highlighting
the collection of litter and depth of duff (fine material), the dryness of areas
and so on in short, areas of potentially easy burn are established.
Such concerns are mirrored in other parts of the world. Fire is also part of
the natural cycle in the Northern Territory of Australia and again policies of
letting a fire burn itself out are enforced. However, unlike Yellowstone,
much of this area is also prone to flooding when it is wet, and the environment has created a specific flora and fauna for which such extremes are
indeed the norm. New Zealand faces a slightly different problem, with
many unique species of flora and fauna and, while natural fire can occur, it
is generally less frequent than in other parts of the world. One of the
problems that New Zealand faces is that in cases of extreme emergency
large monsoon buckets suspended from aircraft or helicopters will be used.
Unfortunately the nearest expanse of water may be the sea, and thus firefighting has the added detrimental effect of salinisation of natural vegetation, and heavy dousing of areas ablaze might thus mean very slow recovery
rates of the natural vegetation. Consequently an emphasis is laid on fire
prevention, and a common sign in New Zealand is a fire sign showing the
sensitivity of areas to fire, and warnings to the public not to start fires.
Summary
The controversies over both the Prince Albert National Park and the
Yellowstone National Park indicate that park management and, in a wider
sense, the management of tourist and recreational areas, is not simply a
technical one of assessing visitor numbers, planning footpaths, calculating
the number of car park spaces, ensuring the quality of water supply, and all
the other aspects mentioned above. Tourist areas carry with them a heritage
and a received perception of roles and functions. It is this aspect of the
tourist resort lifecycle that perhaps needs examination. Butler (1980),
Young (1983) and others generally relate the cycle to built-up tourist zones,
but there is also a need to establish a lifecycle of perceptions of use of wild
and natural areas. Many tourists, as Walter (1982) argues, derive their
notions of the countryside from the romantic literature of the late nineteenth century, and thus have perceptions of countryside as both unspoilt
and serving purposes of renewal of the human spirit. These notions are
projected on to the National Parks of many nations, and foster sets of expectations and perceptions. The case of Prince Albert also shows the conflict
that arises between local users of a park and the viewpoint of distant
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government, which sees a park as part of a national asset that plays a role on
a larger stage. The management of tourist zones is thus no mere matter of
mechanics, but rather a complex balancing act between past heritage and
changing perceptions of the future needs of many participants not only
human, but also drawn from the natural world of mammals, fish and plant
life, as is indicated in Figure 8.9. The techniques of tourist zone management require a recognition of problems, and a willingness to accept and
impose constraints on use a willingness that is easy to preach in the
abstract but difficult to practice in the reality of any given situation. Whilst
difficulty is no reason for aborting the effort to develop tourism that is
consistent with the needs of ecological systems, such developments
possibly require different motivations for tourism than those that have
characterised much of tourisms growth in the last three decades. So,
whilst, as argued in Chapter 6, tourist zones become statements about the
hosts as well as the tourists, so too, the tourist zone becomes a commentary
about the wider issue of mans relationship with nature.
Management techniques
(1) of accessibility
(a) car park size
(b) pricing etc
(2) of flow control
(a) routes
(b) use of boardwalks etc
(3) reinforcement of man-made/
natural assets
(a) planting
(b) drainage etc
Number of Tourists
Motivations
Expectations
Perception of appropriate
levels of crowding
Carrying capacity
Rural setting
Urban setting
Soil type
Topography
Water retention/drainage patterns
Fauna and flora
Levels of fragility
Dependence on specific
combinations of soil/water/
shade/temperature
Historic value
Urban sight lines and views
Relationship of built-up areas
to open space
Patterns of retail/residential/
commercial/industrial/
recreational use of land
Figure 8.9 Indicative schema for factors determining the ecological aspects
of tourism
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Chapter 9
The Social Impacts of Tourism

The Nature of the Problem
In 1989 the author and naturalist Gerald Durrell wrote in relation to his
beloved Corfu:
Tourism is a curious modern disease. It attacks the shoeless man, the
man of meagre wealth and the bloated man of affluence, whereupon it
becomes an epidemic like the Black Death that stalked through Europe
in the Middle Ages. It now ranges all over the world. The people of
Corfu were blessed with a magnificent, magical inheritance, an island
of staggering beauty, probably one of the most beautiful islands in the
whole of the Mediterranean. What they have done with it is vandalism
beyond belief. (Durrell, 1989)
Two years earlier the travel writer Jan Morris wrote with great intensity
about what she felt tourism had done to her home area of the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales. She stated that:
For years I have tried to defend it [tourism] as a valuable asset to a poor
region ... I stood up for the vast caravan parks which disfigure so much
of our coast on the grounds that the caravan was the poor mans
holiday cottage ... No longer, something has cracked in me. I have come
to detest all aspects of mass tourism ... It has gone too far, has got out of
control not just in Llyn outside my window, but wherever in the
world affluence, big business and officialdom have made it possible ...
too many of the entrepreneurs who are developing tourism in our part
of Wales are not local people at all. They are English people who have
come to Wales to develop tourism! Their oblivion to the local history
and culture is generally absolute few of them have the courtesy to put
up their shop signs in Welsh and their contribution to the national
well-being, vociferously though they claim to represent Welsh progress at planning enquiries or in Letters to the Editor, is virtually nil.
(Morris, 1987)
The complaint of Durrell and Morris (both of whom are significant travel
writers) is not simply one of tourism damaging the landscape, but of more
insidious damage to a way of life, to a culture and to sets of values. Pffflin
(1987) quotes one Hawaiian delegate at the 1986 Third World People and
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Tourism Conference as stating, We dont want tourism. We dont want you.

We dont want to be degraded as servants and dancers. That is cultural
prostitution ... There are no innocent tourists. MacNaught (1982) lists the
negative themes that are stated about the cultural impacts of tourism as
being six in total. These are:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
tourists do nothing to promote international understanding;

the strains of hospitality eventually become intolerable;
employment in the tourist industry is often dehumanising;
tourists have undesirable demonstration effects on residents;
tourism debases local forms of cultural expression;
the tourist industry adversely affects community life.
Nor should it be thought that tourism brings these ills only in situations
where the tourist is a foreigner in a foreign land. Ragan (1989) reported on
the tourist influx into the Yorkshire village of Malham in these terms:
Malham is finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the evergrowing numbers. More leisure time and easier access have made a
day out in the Dales a popular outing. But although residents are
growing disillusioned with the situation, they accept there is no easy
solution. The numbers taking to the hills and walkways are taking their
toll on the landscape. Footpaths are being eroded; dry stone walls
damaged and meadows ruined. While locals say they do not want to
deny people the right to enjoy the countryside, they say unless something can be done to preserve it, the village will no longer be worth
visiting. (Ragan, 1989)
Why is it then that tourism, which brings so much enjoyment to people,
and which contains the potential to indeed broaden the mind and enable
people not only to relax, but also to marvel at the world they occupy, and
possibly reinforce concerns over environmental issues why is it that
tourism attracts these criticisms? In Chapter 6 it was noted that the tourist
area is not fixed either spatially or temporally. The change that was
described in Youngs model of spatial change (Young, 1983), implied a
process of social change as the former fishing/farming village became an
international tourist centre complete with marina and casino. This process
of social change has long been recognised, and various authors allocate to
the resort lifecycle different social implications at each of the stages
concerned. This chapter will describe some of the changes with reference to
the work of Butler (1980), and will subsequently amplify specific aspects of
the relationships between tourists and guests that have emerged as being of
importance in the studies that followed the publication of Butlers description of destination change.
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The Changing Attitudes of Host Communities

Butler identifies a six-stage cycle in the evolution of a tourism area, and
as such it relates to the product lifecycle of marketing theory. The stages are:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
exploration;
involvement;
development;
consolidation;
stagnation;
decline or rejuvenation.
The following descriptions of the Destination Lifecycle are intended to

supplement the description provided in Chapter 6 by relating business
change to social impacts on the resident community that result from
changing resident/visitor ratios. It should be noted that the descriptions
are based on resort destinations that evolve from the discovery of undeveloped or marginal regions and, as has been previously discussed, not all
destinations fit this pattern. For example, reference will be made to the
resort of Cancun in Mexico. This is an example of a resort complex that was
primarily purpose-built and thus the early stages in this and other similar
cases are simply highly concentrated or avoided.
The exploration stage
This first stage is characterised as the exploration stage during which
there are only a small number of visitors. They may be identified as akin to
Plogs (1977) allocentrics or Cohens (1979c) explorers in that they make
their own travel arrangements and seek to merge with the local host
community. Often they will speak the language of the hosts and identify
with their culture. The hosts themselves will welcome their guests, for
they bring novelty and open a window to the outside world. They may not
realise that these tourists are part of what Turner and Ash (1975) called the
pleasure periphery. That is to say, these are the tourists seeking new destinations away from those areas that were once unspoilt but which now
have grown in popularity and thus are of no further interest to the
explorer. These tourists return home, and might enthusiastically tell
friends about the great, unspoilt places and the friendliness of the locals;
thereby selling the place to yet more tourists. Therefore these explorers
may be precursors of what is to come.
Within the exploration stage, the social impact is small. Any commercial
activity that occurs is small scale, is individualistically or family based, and
there is effectively no adoption of formal marketing strategies by members
of the host community.
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The involvement stage

Should the numbers of tourists increase, the second stage is entered the
involvement stage. Local residents now begin to respond to the increasing
numbers of visitors by providing some additional facilities specifically for
tourists. In the early part of this stage, such entrepreneurial activities still
tend to be family based. Some members of the host community might set
aside part of their home and take in visitors. Levels of tourist/resident
contact remain high, and the marketing of the area remains subdued.
Owners of accommodation may simply display signs indicating rooms to
let, and possibly a few might later print some leaflets to give to their guests,
who will subsequently pass them on to friends. At this stage the relationship between host and tourist is still harmonious, and the tourists still
possess high levels of interest and sympathy with the local way of life.
Indeed, the term paying guest rather than tourist might still be appropriate at this point.
In the later stages of the involvement stage some of the resident community might recognise that tourism will continue to grow, and that in order to
earn more from it they will have to expand the facilities being provided.
Accordingly, they may have recourse to borrowed funding, and may not
simply involve family members but also refer to commercial sources of
finance. At some stage, if there has not previously been a branch of a bank in
the village, one will become established as local entrepreneurs seek safety
for their money, a means of earning interest, and, of course, a source of
capital borrowing. At the same time the entrepreneurs within the village
will become more professional in their marketing efforts. Unable to reach
directly into the tourist-generating areas they will have recourse to those
organisations that can. In many instances the first such body is the countrys own tourist organisation, which generally would be keen to promote a
new area because it adds to the nations portfolio of attractions, and allows
it to offer something new to overseas tour operators. Either directly, or
through the tourist board, members of the village might also approach
other intermediaries, such as inbound tour operators. They may form a
local tourism organisation that will help to achieve some economies of scale
in printing brochures, and will represent the entrepreneurs in the region.
The processes of commercialisation can be traced to such roots. The
levels of income emanating from tourists begin to rise and become more
important to the entrepreneurs, who become increasingly professional in
the service they render. The relationship between host/resident and guest/
visitor changes slowly to that of service provider and client, albeit still
within a framework of cordiality and good relations.
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The development stage

Butler then assumes that the process continues, and the numbers of
tourists arriving now begin to grow quite significantly, as illustrated in
Figure 9.1. The third stage, that of development, is now reached. Butler
describes this stage as being the one where the community becomes a
tourist resort. Plogs (1977) mid-centrics or Cohens (1979) institutionalised tourists now appear. In the period of late involvement and the early
development stages, the community begins to attract the interest of outside
bodies. New retail businesses appear. Some of these are owned by local
people and some by nationals, drawn from the centres of population, who
have retail or catering experience. As described by Tsartas (1992) in his case
study of the Greek islands, some of these people may have family connections with residents, and thus the developing resort permits opportunities
for the employment of returning family members. In the early stages of
development the first of the package holidaymakers appear. However,
these are holidaymakers who are using the services of niche companies
who serve that part of the market and have much in common with the attitude of allocentrics, but who are not full-time travellers and are
operating within constrained time periods. As the development stage
progresses, the spatial dimensions of the village begin to change rapidly, as
described by Young (1983).
Stagnation
Rejuvenation
Visitor numbers
Consolidation
Decline
Development
Exploration
Involvement
Time
Figure 9.1 Butlers destination lifecycle theory
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After the niche tour operators come the larger tour operators who deal
with a mass market within the tourist-generating regions. In terms of the
total activity that is now being generated, the locally-owned businesses are
becoming marginalised. The hosts have now delegated the main marketing
efforts to organisations that are not only outside of their area, but are also,
perhaps, outside of their country. The relationships between tourist and
host have changed, and tourism is now a business, and no longer enjoys the
novelty and excitement that it once possessed. Indeed, in the well-developed tourist enclave, the host community may increasingly have less
contact with tourists as the tourist area attracts migrant workers into the
hotels and restaurants. In time the growth of the industry slows down. The
pleasure periphery has long moved on, the niche tour operators have
either left the area, or now market the destination in another way, or have
had their operations taken over by the larger, mainstream companies.
With the combination of the commodification of the tourist product and
the changing nature of the tourists, it is inevitable that the host/guest relationship will change. From the perspective of those in the industry, the
service provider/client relationship may still be characterised by friendly
commercial interaction, but the increasing professionalism of the industry
also creates a possible division between those local residents involved in
the industry, and those who are not. This implies that the relationships
between those visiting an area and those residents not directly involved in
tourism have to be considered. The issue is whether the residents not
employed in tourism are still well-disposed towards tourists as individuals
and towards the industry as a whole.
The consolidation and stagnation stages
The consolidation phase begins. As the expansion ceases, attention is
paid to the control of costs as hoteliers and tour operators find that this is
the only possible way of increasing profits. Revenue earned per tourist
tends to fall, as the resort loses its exclusivity tag. Resort loyalty is low, as
the resort has come to resemble many other locations. Take-overs and
mergers occur within the industry as the transport-leisure-accommodation
company buyouts occur and industry structures are rationalised on the
basis of cost reduction and profit absorption. The tourists now being
attracted are the organised mass market and the psychocentrics.
Company strategies turn to maintaining the visitor numbers, and hence the
stagnation phase is reached. The resort has reached full capacity, perhaps
even exceeding it at certain times of the year. The resort has an image
abroad of its own it is distinguishable from the surrounding hinterland.
Unfortunately it is not a fashionable area. In order to sustain visitor
numbers, the tour operators may have to resort to low prices to attract the
volume of tourists that they consider necessary to sustain their investment.
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Falling profit margins mean that maintenance programmes are put off, and
the resort begins to look dowdy. The attendant environmental, social and
economic problems associated with areas past their prime begin to emerge.
The host community is faced with a resort where local tourist companies
are a minority in their own home area. Associated with the decline, there is
the possible withdrawal of foreign-owned businesses. The host community
is left to pick up the pieces. The locale can never regain its original
standing as a fishing/farming village, but it might be able to regain its
status as a place in which local people can have pride. The local authorities,
mindful of the economic implications of decline, might seek to develop a
process of renewal with those organisations that remain in the area, and
rejuvenation might then become possible. Thus, new forms of tourism
might be sought. Alternatively, the facilities are switched to other uses. The
hotels become nursing homes, and the once-thriving seaside resort
becomes noted for its numbers of retired people. Failure either to rejuvenate or to find alternative uses for tourism assets means that the area will
continue to decline. The resort sees brief bursts of activity in the height of
the season but, with a continuing erosion of its assets it becomes characterised by peeling paint, rusting rails, and memories of days when the place
had glamour and excitement.
On the face of it would appear that relationships between visitors and
local residents can only become strained. The scenario appears to be one
where residents/tourist ratios are high, and where the retail developments
are dominated by the needs of visitors. However, the very size and
changing land use patterns might effectively create buffer zones. Tourists
will tend to adhere to those parts of the locality that cater for tourists, and so
contact between residents not employed in the tourism industry and tourists might actually be quite low. Much may depend on the actual spatial
arrangements, nature and size of the tourist zone. At beach resorts the
beach can become a shared terrain between locals and visitors, as might
other community assets such as theatres, swimming pools and the like. But
if hotel resort complexes have been established, they may become tourist
ghettos and thus contact with local people not employed in tourism may
be effectively minimised.
Social Impact implications of the Butler Destination Lifecycle

Theory
Butlers Destination Lifecycle (Butler, 1980) permits a series of models of
resident/visitor relationships to be considered. These relationships can be
categorised as being:
Micro-individual interchanges. This relates to social exchanges at the
level of individual experience. The measures that apply here include
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the number of interactions a resident has with out-of-region arrivals,

the duration and nature of those meetings, and the ways in which
those meetings are characterised and evaluated.
Macro-social impacts. This relates to the way in which a social and
physical environment begins to change in response to growing levels
of tourism. It will be argued that change in the physical ambience is not
value free. Changes in physical environments dedicated to tourists
engaged upon generally hedonistic pursuits freed from normal
constraints might be said to potentially represent a specific set of
values that may or may not be congruent with those of a resident
community. Consequently sets of cultural change arising from
demonstration and affiliation effects can occur that impact on the
social cohesion of the resident community and the ways in which this
is expressed. Therefore macro-social impacts refer to broad patterns of
cultural and social patterns of behaviour.
That these processes exist has long been evidenced by various studies,
but the conceptualisations arising from findings and their interpretations
have changed over time. One of the first studies, and certainly an influential
one, was that of Doxey in 1975. In the Irridex model, Doxey suggests that, as
the destination cycle unfolds, specific changes in attitude occur within the
host community towards tourism. As indicated above, initially there is
what Doxey terms euphoria. The host community is pleased to see the
tourists for reasons relating, at the very least, to hospitality; and if that
community is economically poor, then the economic promise of tourism is
welcomed as a source of income that, at least in the initial stages, supplements the regions low wages. As the cycle moves into its involvement
stage, Doxey observes that it is generally only a minority of the host
community that is involved. As the numbers grow, the tourist is no longer a
rare sight. A process of habituation occurs. The later arrivals may not speak
the language of the host community, and are perhaps less interested in the
daily life of that community. Apathy sets in on the part of the resident
community, and the second stage of Doxeys model begins. By the time
development is well under way, the tourist/host ratio has so changed that
the host community increasingly feels marginalised in its own home area.
The resident faces queues in the shops. Many shops change their role, and
souvenir shops are of little use to the local person. The roads are full of traffic,
and it becomes difficult for local people to park in areas that are convenient to
them. They may well feel that they live in a car park for, while each individual tourist is present for but a short time, the local person lives in the area
throughout the whole tourist season. Apathy turns to annoyance. In turn,
faced with the problems of over capacity that can occur at the stagnation
phase of the lifecycle, annoyance turns into antagonism, as was perhaps
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Table 9.1 Doxeys Irridex and Milligans modification model

Doxeys Irridex
Euphoria
visitors are welcome

and there is little
planning
Apathy
visitors are taken for

granted and contact
becomes more formal
Annoyance saturation is
approached and the
local people have
misgivings. Planners
attempt to control via
increasing infrastructure rather than
by limiting growth
Milligans modified version

Curiosity
that people should

accept jobs that the
hosts consider
beneath them in
status, pay and career
prospects
Acceptance of immigrants on the

island, tourism is no
longer a concern of
the local people
Annoyance coupled with an
annoyance with
tourists is apathy
towards immigrant
workers who are
seen as contributing
to deteriorating
standards
Antagonism both sides are aware

Antagonism open expression of
of resentment and
irritation, and
the situation amongst
planning is remedial
young people is
yet promotion is
volatile, Immigrant
increased to offset the
workers are blamed
deteriorating
for all that for which
reputation of the
tourists cannot be
resort
held directly
responsible
demonstrated by the quotations at the start of this chapter. As a highly visible

industry characterised by the fact that the consumer comes to the provider of
the service, tourism is blamed for changes that have taken place in an area.
Nor is the antipathy reserved for the tourists alone. Milligan (1989)
parallels Doxeys earlier work in her study of Portuguese workers in
Guernsey. As indicated in Table 9.1, Milligan argues that, just as the local
people become annoyed with the tourists because of the problems of
crowding that they cause, so, too, that anger can be directed at those who
serve the tourists, particularly if they are also outsiders. Milligans study
was within a somewhat different context than those usually associated
with applications of Doxeys Irridex as Guernsey is not a developing area,
but enjoys all the advantages of being a tax haven with all that that implies
for employment in the financial sector. Nonetheless, tourism has for many
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years been a significant part of Guernseys economy. However, with local

people having full employment, they were not dependent on jobs in the
hotel and associated sectors. Consequently Doxey found that many of the
hotel workers were imported; particularly from the island of Madeira. As
Portuguese speakers, often living in not-overly-spacious accommodation
that was offered by the employers, they nonetheless often stayed for long
periods of time in Guernsey because they worked through the whole of the
tourist season. Many of these workers were young adults. Milligan reports
that they had to use many of the same shops, bars, cinemas, discos and
places of entertainment as local residents, and many felt a sense of being
treated as inferior because they were temporary, not local people, and yet
they might be competing for space in the same places patronised by local
young residents. In short, a tension of difference was observed.
The Social Impact of Tourism at the Individual Level

Traditionally, academics have tended to follow the early work of Valene
Smith (1977), who wrote of Hosts and Guests when examining the relationships that occur between tourists and local people. However, to the mind of
this author, these are value-laden words that are inappropriate to the realities of the experiences of many people. Simply because a tourist may visit
the area in which a person lives does not, in itself, require the latter to meet
the responsibilities associated with the word host. Equally, given that in
most cases a tourist interacts with other tourists, or with tourism industry
employees, the role of guest seems secondary to the role of client. Therefore, for this author the preferred term is that of resident/visitor when
describing these exchanges and the impacts that might result, but from time
to time host/guest might be used to avoid tiresome repetition of a phrase.
To state the obvious, there is a link between the social impacts of tourism
at the level of the individual resident and those at the macro level of culture
expressed through architecture and social movements associated with
gender roles, artistic expression and the myriad factors that come to form
culture. With immediate reference to the theories of Butler and Doxey, at
least two questions immediately come to mind. The first is, what are the
causes of the process that is envisaged? Second, is the process inevitable?
Certainly there is much to indicate that annoyance with tourists is not
restricted to situations where the host country is a developing country and
there are large gaps in cultural and social norms. Murphy (1985) notes that
there are three determinants of community attitudes towards tourists. The
first is the type of contact that is made with the tourist. Krippendorf (1987)
makes the point that there is a specific truth about the tourist/host relationship. One is on holiday and seeking relaxation, the other is at work.
Krippendorf describes the relationship thus:
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Tourist and native are in diametrically opposite positions. The one is at

leisure, the other at work. Natives distinguish between tourist and
guests, and tourists are merchandise. Spontaneity is difficult for the
umpteenth group of tourists. Meetings are meaningful when there is
common ground, but there is little of that. The tourists are visiting a
phantom of a place an illusion of clichs they are drawn by the
unusual not the minutiae of everyday reality the very thing they
seek escape from. Natives also view tourists through stereotypes they
are rich, they come from cold countries. Neither knows the world of the
other. (Krippendorf, 1987: 87)
Does this matter? There are a number of reasons why the views of residents about the nature of tourism that exists in their locale are important.
From the perspective of the tourism industry itself, the reasons include:
(1) Residents may have contact with tourists. How tourists are treated
might impact on their levels of holiday satisfaction, and thus have an
effect on any evaluation of the services being provided by the formal
structures of the tourism industry.
(2) Residents are potential employees for the industry.
(3) Residents pay local taxes, including property taxes that provide
revenue for local government. In turn local government often supports the tourism industry both directly and indirectly: directly by
often being a part funder of tourism organisations and maintaining
structure such as tourist information centres, and indirectly by
providing infrastructure such as roads, sewage and refuse disposal. If
residents are not well disposed towards tourism they may resent such
expenditures. That leads to:
(4) Residents vote! If residents are distrustful of tourism, they will seek
candidates that reflect those opinions. As, in many cases, local authorities may be the territorial authority involved in planning procedures
and permits, policies that inhibit tourism might result.
(5) Residents are a permanent pressure group in planning procedures
and appeals, and can participate in various ways in local politics.
(6) Residents are potential customers. If tourism is characterised by high
degrees of seasonality, then local tourism businesses may require
local, resident demand to help sustain it during the off-peak period.
From the perspective of local people, the relationship a community has
with tourism is important because:
(1) Tourism structures offer many recreational and cultural structures
beyond what the community itself may be able to sustain.
(2) Tourism offers employment, and in particular hospitality enterprises
can offer travel opportunities and career enhancement;
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(3) It has been argued that tourism potentially offers more employment
and income to females than is the case in many other industries, particularly in marginal economies based on traditional enterprises.
(4) Tourism brings people from outside the region, and their requirements can impact on daily life in a number of ways, including extra
traffic, changed retail structures, competition for land that drives up
land prices (and values), and therefore can create series of costs even
for those not involved in tourism.
(5) Visitors exhibit behaviour patterns that might differ from those of the
local community, and that serve as a model for some within the
community. This is the basis of the demonstration effect. To the
extent that some modes of thinking and behaviour are adopted as a
result of these interactions, a degree of acculturation takes place.
For these and other reasons, the nature of the resident/visitor exchanges
needs to be considered. However, it must be stressed from the outset that,
while conventional analysis has focused on these relationships when social
impacts are considered (see for example Pearce et al., 1996); tourists and
residents are simply two of the stakeholders involved in the system of
social interactions. Of necessity, any analysis of social impacts must recognise that pressure groups exist and that political processes are part of the
equation. Therefore the resident/visitor exchanges are mediated through
structures created largely by industry and prevailing political structures.
As Aramberri (2001) argues, much of the literature on host/guest relationships seems to ignore the basic facts of many touristic destinations. These
facts are: that the relationship is between clients and employees of multinational organisations; that these organisations may be present because of the
actions of political hierarchies; that most tourists primarily interact with
other tourists and industry employees rather than with residents; and that
most tourists have little interest in seeking contact with residents for the
sake of such exchanges, but rather such meetings are coincidental. The
meetings that tourists have with residents are not, as Ryan and Huyton
(2000) point out, because holidaymakers are lay anthropologists but
because they are tourists seeking amusement, and thus residents may be
stereotyped through performance in order to earn a dollar, yen, pound or
euro for both locals and intermediaries. Therefore, following academic
tradition, the initial discussion will follow in the footsteps of researchers
who have examined local resident attitudes, but the discussion will be
broadened to take account of these other issues.
With reference to resident/visitor exchanges, De Kadt (1979) noted that
there are three contact situations. The first is when the tourist buys goods or
a service. The second is when tourist and host find themselves side by side
at an attraction that both are using, for example, a beach, golf course or
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nightclub. Finally, the third situation is when the two come together for an
exchange of information and ideas. As the first two situations are by far the
most common, the great majority of tourist/host relationships are marked
by their transitory nature. In addition, it might be argued that the third type
of situation can have differing degrees of informality. If, therefore, the
nature of the relationship tends to be so fleeting, how is it that tourists
present the challenge that they do to the social and ethical norms of the host
society?
The answer to this question, Murphy (1985) believes, lies in two other
domains: the relative importance of the tourist industry to the individual
and the community, and whether or not a host group can handle the
amount of traffic that tourism generates. Tolerance of the tourist is thus a
function of the returns and compensations that tourism creates, and the
amount of nuisance that it brings. It can, therefore, be easily envisaged
that, if tourists are large in numbers but bring little economic or other
benefit, and intrude on the local patterns of activity, then the stage is indeed
set for Doxeys annoyance and possibly antagonistic stages. In a sense,
therefore, Murphy pre-shadows Aps use of social exchange theory. Ap
(1995) proposes a social exchange model that comprises four key components: (1) initiation of exchange, (2) exchange formation, (3) exchange
transaction evaluation, and (4) reinforcement of behaviour. Ap argues that
residents will accept tourism if their needs are being satisfied, but the
model stands and falls on a number of factors. First, it assumes rationality
and high degrees of (if not perfect) knowledge of, potential outcomes.
However, Ap does discuss the importance of power within the relationships, and the possibility of unequal power relations. Second, the issue of
degrees of homogeneity is not really discussed in detail within Aps model,
and there seems to be an implication that high degrees of homogeneity exist
within the resident community. There appear to be a number of issues that
influence this mutually beneficial exchange between resident and visitor,
for clearly most communities are at some point between the continuum of
welcoming or hating tourists. In short, degrees of tolerance exist for the
costs associated with the gains. Indeed, from the evidence that is reviewed
below, it can be concluded that there is no simple linear or sequential set of
relationships that determines the degree of social change that tourism
might create. It is, for example, difficult to relate social change to tourism
alone. While tourism may bring economic wealth, how that wealth is spent
is determined by the recipients of the income, and it is not inevitable that
they spend it in ways that simply ape the lifestyles of the tourist. Local individuals or for that matter, communities, are not passive sponges that soak
up foreign ideas, and any resulting social change is a reflection not only of
tourists, but also of the underlying strength of the host culture. Furthermore, it might be argued that, in well-established tourist areas, what
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emerges is not a culture that reflects fully the culture of either the visitor or
the native, but some hybrid that reflects the non-permanent relationships
that occur within tourism. In short, a tourist culture emerges, that is
recognisable to all participants as being something outside the norm. The
characteristics of such a culture might be said to include the following:
(1) large numbers of visitors staying for a short duration;
(2) large numbers of seasonal workers;
(3) transient relationships between visitor and visitor, and between
visitor and temporary worker;
(4) tourists are freed from the constraints of their normal life style;
(5) leisure is the main motivation;
(6) spending is comparatively unrestrained;
(7) neither worker nor tourist fully conforms to the habits or norms of his
or her usual peer groups, i.e. the groups from which they come, but are
selective as to those norms they wish to adopt;
(8) usual patterns of daily activity are different, even the normal patterns
of sleeping and waking times;
(9) businesses reflect the importance of tourism, e.g. retail outlets have a
different merchandise mix compared with shopping centres in nontourist areas;
(10) the cultural expressive symbols are based on stereotypes and caricatures;
(11) superior/inferior relationships exist in varying degrees between
guest and host;
(12) lack of long-term commitment to the area by tourists and possibly
many of the workers;
(13) communication may be through intermediaries and partly-spoken
languages. If it is argued that language is the medium of conveying
complex ideas full of nuances and subtleties, the fact that the parties
concerned may have an incomplete knowledge of one anothers
language means that communication lacks those facets that are of
importance in conveying culture. The communications within the
tourist area may thus be dominated by crude concepts related to only
a few (leisure) aspects of human behaviour.
Additionally it must be noted that the channels of cultural change are
many, diverse and complex. In the emergence of the global village, where
American soaps are beamed by satellite into villages with a communal
television set, or where instant access to news is available through the
Internet, it is difficult to disentangle the separate processes of change mechanisms. Tourism may be a catalyst of change, but the direction of change is
uncertain. Or tourism may simply be a reinforcement of trends set in
motion by other social forces operating within a resident community. Nor
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must it be thought that the participants within the process are tourist and
host alone. Some tourists come to stay, while immigrant workers are
attracted to the jobs that tourism brings. Thus, the social changes that
tourism brings are not restricted to the tourist zone itself, but are felt in the
hinterland from which the workers come. Nor must it be thought that the
quality of change is always bad. Travis (1982) noted at that time just how
grossly inadequate has been the consideration given to the dis-benefits of
tourism in the previously mainstream writings of authors such as Burkhart
and Medlik (1974), and even today similar criticisms can still be made
(Middleton, 1988; Pearce et al., 1996). However, there is equally a danger
that all tourist activity is perceived as negative; in his review of the thenprevailing literature, Travis (1982) indicated that studies considering the
sociocultural and political impacts of tourism are overwhelmingly of the
opinion that tourism generates negative impacts by a ratio of almost 3.8 : 1
(an admittedly crude calculation, it must be emphasised). What then are the
processes and issues that need to be examined?
The process of social change induced by tourism is illustrated in Figure
9.2. Within the tourist zone, the nature of the interaction between resident
and visitor is determined by the nature of the tourists, the belief and
cultural systems of the host, and the physical carrying capacities of the area,
which determine the degree of stress that is being generated. Physical
carrying capacity possesses psychological implications. Not only is it a
question of the perception and tolerance of physical crowding by the
tourist, but also by the resident a set of perceptions and expectations that
are shaped by their own culture. Within this process of interaction, sets of
behaviour have demonstration effects. Again, this can be on both tourist
and host. Generally, the literature describes the demonstration effects on
the host community, particularly on the young within that community
(Cohen, 1982a, 1982b; Loukissas, 1982; Jafari, 1981, 1982; Krippendorf,
1987). But theoretically, and especially when the tourist/host ratio is low,
residents can influence the behaviour of tourists, at least within the setting
of the host community. Thus, the tourist complies with the norms of the
host. Such demonstration effects feed back into the nature of interaction.
However, in the more developed tourist areas, the host community also has
two other groups to cope with: those who are drawn to the area seeking
work, and those visitors who come to stay. Both groups also have their
norms. Indeed, those visitors who come to stay in the area might be the very
people who exhibit most alarm over physical changes in the zone.
It can be argued that the impact that tourism will have on a society is the
result of an interaction between the nature of the change agent and the
inherent strength and ability of the resident culture to withstand, and
absorb, the change generators whilst retaining its own integrity. From the
viewpoint of the host culture there may, therefore, be mechanisms of
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EMERGENCE OF TOURIST CULTURE
Physical and social
Immigrant worker
community
Tourist impacts
! Number of tourists
Nature of
interaction
! Types of tourists
Host community
! Size and type
! Inherent strength
of own culture
! Seasonality
! Behaviour
carrying capacities
Demonstration effects
Permanent visitor
community
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Figure 9.2 The process of social change
protection such as withdrawal from tourist activity, or the confinement of

tourism. The pseudo-event and the tourist bubble become protective
mechanisms in that they limit touristic impacts; and there are erosion
factors, such as the type of tourists, the number and background of immigrant workers, and the permanent visitor. An important component of
the protective mechanism of the host culture is the role and views of
opinion leaders within their own community (Long & Nuckolls, 1994;
Victurine, 2000). Ryan (2002b) has argued that commodification can be a
protective mechanism and is not simply a description of the commercialisation of culture. This is premised on the specification of a particular role for
the tourist product that is a copy of the original and which separates its
meaning from the performance originally undertaken. Therefore two sets
of meanings may co-exist, or intermingle, as required by the resident
community and culture.
Communities are not necessarily homogeneous, and the Doxey Irridex
can be criticised for implying both a process of inevitability and a homogeneity of opinion. Bjorklund and Philbrick (1972) present a matrix whereby
the hosts may be active or passive in terms of their behaviour towards
tourism, and negative or positive in terms of their attitude. This gives rise to
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Figure 9.3 Residentvisitor behavioural responses to tourist activity
a four-cell matrix, as indicated in Figure 9.3. The difference between this

and Doxeys framework is that the matrix recognises that a variety of opinions may be found within the host community, and that opinions can
indeed change in any one of the four directions. It may be that Doxeys
Irridex represents the general tone of opinion, whilst the Bjorklund and
Philbrick model represents the attitude disaggregated into its various
components. Each of the various sectors within the host society the entrepreneurs, public planning authorities, general public, and conservation
groups will have their own paradigms of behaviour and attitude. Murphy
(1983b), in a survey of residents, the business sector and local government,
found that the entrepreneurs generally had the most positive attitudes
towards tourism. If they and the local authorities are the change agents and
opinion leaders within their own communities, then tourist development is
more likely to occur.
Moreover, it should not be thought that residents have a simplistic attitude towards tourism, for it has been shown that they are more than
capable of distinguishing between different impacts. Liu, Sheldon and Var
(1986), in a comparison of Wales, Turkey and Hawaii, found that, whilst the
economic benefits of tourism are recognised, residents tend to rate the
intangible dis-benefits of tourism as more important to them, particularly
in the more developed tourist areas. For both Hawaii and North Wales,
notions such as environmental protection ranked higher than certain
expected costs and benefits. The rank order was as follows:
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Environmental
protection
>
economic
benefits
>
social
costs
>
cultural
benefits
However, there were differences between aspects of the different

dimensions. For example, residents of Hawaii were concerned with the
ability of tourists to create higher standards of living, whilst Residents of
North Wales appeared to be more altruistic and willing to undergo
personal sacrifice for environmental protection (Liu et al., 1986). Similarly,
Milman and Pizam (1988) interviewed residents of Florida and found that
whilst residents recognised the economic benefits of tourism, tourism was
perceived as a factor that would contribute to worsening traffic conditions
and crime. Ryan (1989) used the same questions as Milman and Pizam for
the town of Nottingham in England, and found that the results were
comparable, in that the economic benefits were recognised but, if anything,
there was greater doubt about the social implications.
The measurement of resident perceptions of tourism has now a particularly rich literature and, unlike many other areas of research in the field,
possesses a reasonably high degree of commonality in terms of the questionnaires being applied. Many studies have contained within their questionnaires items derived from the work of Allen et al. (1988) and Long et al.
(1990). For example, various workers (Evans, 1993; Hernandez et al., 1996;
Lindberg & Johnson, 1997, Ryan et al., 1998; Lawson et al., 1998; Williams &
Lawson, 2001) have used scales that possess high degrees of similarity
using dimensions identified by Long et al. (1990). Among such dimensions
are items that relate to the economic impacts of tourism, traffic conditions,
retail mix, crime, revitalisation of local crafts, recreational facility provision
and attitudes towards local authority and community tourism policies.
The relationship between attitudes and behavioural change is not a
simple one. Attitudes may be said to comprise three components:
(1) the cognitive component: what is, or is thought to be, true about a
situation. A process of belief as much as perceived objective truth;
(2) the affective component: the emotional aspect of attitude;
(3) the conative component: the predisposition to act on the cognitive and
affective components.
In the case of tourism, the cognitive component may be based on a series
of, at best, partial truths the tourist may have a stereotyped image of the
place, whilst the resident of a developing country might perceive the tourist
as a rich, leisured person and have no concept of the work that that person
usually does. A series of emotional (affective) feelings might result from
these cognitions; and the predisposition to behave in a particular manner
consistent with the feelings of being a tourist emerges. However, given any
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set of cognitive, affective and conative aspects, the link between attitude
and behaviour is still complex because a series of inhibiting, external
factors may dampen the behaviour consistent with any given attitude.
Thus, tourists who are unhappy about aspects of their holiday may be
reluctant to express an opinion if their peers are seen as having a good
time. In this respect, as Fishbein (1967) observes, it is not only the content of
belief, but the importance attached to that belief, that is important. The
reluctant tourists may, in spite of inhibiting pressures, act in accordance
with their beliefs if these are deemed important enough. Equally, in
Fishbeins extended model, they may take into account the perceived
outcomes of their actions. In such a case, whilst attitude may motivate
change, equally, the expected outcome can also determine behaviour. Thus,
the attitude of, and towards, tourists depends on a complex pattern not
simply of belief, but also the importance of norms and the values attached
to potential outcomes of behaviour. Host societies may not like some
aspects of tourist behaviour, but they tolerate it on the basis of expected
economic benefits. What might be said is that the attitude of hosts towards
tourists is not always revealed by their behaviour towards tourists their
behaviour is simply the result of a series of compromises between conflicts
of objectives of varying importance to them.
Ryan, Scotland and Montgomery (1998) utilise such arguments in trying
to reconcile different findings relating to resident perceptions of tourism.
Many studies of resident groups reveal a range of attitudes to tourism from
support to opposition and, as might be expected from Butlers (1980) theory
of the lifecycle, the stage of development of the resort is one determining
factor. The issue that they consider is possible movement from membership
of one cluster to another cluster that is, does opinion change over time
from support to modified support to opposition? One very common
finding from many studies of resident attitudes is that tourism is recognised as a source of income and employment, and this is generally rated
positively, even where the respondent receives no direct benefit from such
economic advantage. In Aps (1995) terminology, there is no social
exchange contract, yet the resident is supportive of tourism. Ryan, Scotland
and Montgomery (1998) therefore ascribe to the resident an altruistic
motive of support for tourism because it is thought to aid others at no cost to
the respondent. This support of tourism is even evidenced where there is no
knowledge of the policies being adopted towards tourism by planning
authorities. The process might be described in Figure 9.4.
The argument is that, at the early stages of tourism development,
residents will not be overly concerned with tourism or its impacts. If they
feel that benefits might accrue to others, they will voice support for the
development of tourism, even if they receive no direct benefit. However, as
visitors grow in number and spatial change occurs, then that view might
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Levels of
opposition
to tourism
development
Altruistic motives/
peripheral values
Threats to self interest/

core values activated
Stages of tourism development
Figure 9.4 Changing attitudes towards tourism development
change. The altruism felt towards changes, the residents own core values
or perceived threats to aesthetics or way of life, or indeed the nuisance
value of tourism as it affects the respondents own lifestyle, means that the
early altruism is weakened and less strong support for tourism development is evidenced. This theory, however, is really applicable only to those
not directly employed by tourism. For those so employed, an opposite
process might occur. Originally they will be supportive of tourism, but that
support may subsequently be reinforced further by the income and career
opportunities that the industry provides. Lindberg and Johnson (1997)
found that residents tended to sustain support for the economic values of
tourism, but that issues pertaining to congestion, litter and crime were
reported as being of concern to residents. However, when they tried to
assess the influence of these latter factors by modelling based on the technique of structural equation modelling, they found poor levels of fit, and
suggest that their results must remain tentative (Lindberg & Johnson,
1997: 418). Nonetheless they suggest that the cognitive and affective
components of attitude might be susceptible to messages about tourism,
but such messages need to be congruent with both experience and corresponding attitudes, otherwise they will be rejected as being inappropriate
and incorrect.
The issue of messages about tourism ties closely to the nature of ownership and control of processes that direct peoples lives. Accordingly, many
commentators have espoused a community approach to tourism in the
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belief that, by adopting such processes, tourism will be supported and not
threaten patterns of lives in varying communities. This is thought to be
particularly important in the case of rural communities where the need for
supplementary income might be high, yet equally the negative impacts of
tourism may be at their most apparent. An area that has received attention
from this perspective has been the Bow Valley and surrounding areas in
Alberta, Canada. Draper (1997) and Getz and Jamal (1997) are among those
that describe the processes that have taken place there. The latter describe
the Alberta government-funded processes that led to the formulation of
Social Planning Goals and Economic Development Strategy for Canmore and
the Bow Valley, the area lying south of Banff and just north of Calgary
(Town of Canmore, 1995). These procedures were undertaken under the
Community Tourism Action Plan initiated by Alberta Tourism in 1987.
About 231 communities in Alberta were involved, with some 3200 local
residents serving on committees, 5000 attending public meetings, and
$CN30 million of expenditure. Getz and Jamal (1997) describe the different
twists and turns of the controversies that ensued at Canmore, and the high
costs in time and finances that such community approaches involve. For
her part, Draper (1997) considers one aspect of the tourism planning there,
water resource management. Both sets of authors point out the resulting
high levels of awareness of issues that emanated from the consultative
procedures, but also the need for continuous monitoring and consultation
between all stakeholders. Were the plans any the better for these processes
of consultation? For Getz and Jamal (1997), the issue is far from clear. They
note that what emerged was a plan oriented towards conservation, but
wonder whether a sustainable plan for tourism had been produced. Indeed
in a number of articles Getz and Jamal have examined the whole issue of
collaboration in tourism planning. In 1995, they examined collaboration
theory with reference to five key components: the independence of stakeholders, constructive dealing with difference, joint ownership of decisions,
collective responsibility for ongoing direction, and collaboration as a
collective process. They suggest six propositions for success in tourism
planning, and essentially argue that the fragmented nature of the tourism
industry leads to complexities and a high need for management for any
community-based planning (Jamal & Getz, 1995). Later Jamal and Getz
(1999) revisited the planning processes of Canmore and again noted the
immense effort that was required in such participative planning. For
example, more than 25,000 hours of volunteer time were recorded, as were
tensions and feelings of winning and losing. They noted that collaborative
planning is not a warm, fuzzy feeling and that, for constructive progress to
be made, it is important that space for change, resistance and dialogue are
enabled in the mediation between structures and participation (Jamal &
Getz, 1999: 305).
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Another interesting study of the socioeconomic impacts of tourism is

that of Tsartas (1992), who studied the general impact of tourism on the
Cyclades islands of Greece with more specific detail relating to Serifos and
Ios. Tsartas identified three categories of island, the first being those islands
that responded positively to the challenge of tourism development in that
they created the necessary infrastructure of small hotels and tavernas. He
particularly notes the role played by islanders who had previously left the
islands in search of work in Athens and Piraeus, and who were often instrumental in creating businesses on the islands. But he notes that, within the
comparatively short time of 510 years, compliance with the wishes of the
external package tour operators very quickly changed the social and
economic framework of these islands to the point where their dependence
on tourism was absolute.
A second group comprised smaller and poorer islands, and in their case
the development of infrastructure was delayed. They thence became a
satellite group of tourist destinations and their target market became good
tourists; that is, big spending and socially acceptable tourists (Tsartas,
1992: 522).
The third group was the most traditional group of islands, characterised
by strong religious traditions, who opposed tourism development as being
a destructive force. However, Tsartas notes the presence of alternative
sources of important economic activity, notably ship building. It is in this
group that the problems associated with tourism are least evident. He
identifies five factors that helped to explain the different rates of tourism
development, these being:
(1) returning migrants, seaman and Athenian investors as change agents;
(2) local social groups, their value structures and processes of lobbying at
local government level;
(3) foreign tour operators;
(4) national tourism policy;
(5) the poor past and rich present factor and the demonstration effect of
those nearby islands that gain from tourism.
Many of the instances noted in the literature about stakeholder
approaches to community responsive planning seem to omit one significant stakeholder from the discussions, and that is the tourist his or herself.
The reason for this is obvious. How might visitors from outside a region
become consistently involved in long, drawn-out processes of consultation? And it can be objected that they are indirectly represented through the
presence of entrepreneurs who wish to provide product for the visitor,
while indeed those within the community will often be tourists visiting
other locations. Nonetheless, it can be argued that planning processes that
seek to mediate resident/visitor exchanges within the local social and
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environmental frameworks that create a tourism product will always be

deficient if they do not refer to the ways in which visitors can use both space
and product. As already discussed, tourists are proactive, imaginative
users of place, and future behaviours may not accord with those expected
by planners, no matter how much consultation with residents occurs. Thus,
almost inevitably, as described by Jamal and Getz (1995), planning will give
priority to the needs of residents as it is they who either directly or indirectly fund the planning process and provide the major part of the input.
Therefore concerns about local environment will almost inevitably take
precedence over touristic experience, and thus, as noted, it might be that
any plans that emerge are plans of conservation rather than of tourism.
If this is to be avoided, then, of necessity, the role of the entrepreneur as a
stakeholder is important. For Hall (2000) this raises an important issue, and
that is the one of realpolitik. What is the nature of the relationship between
the tourism industry and government agencies? It might be argued that in
the case of Albertas rural communities the Provincial Government was
prepared to permit long, drawn-out consultative processes that stretched
out over many years because it had no core interest that was being threatened. It might be asked, where were the long, drawn-out discussions over
the hosting of the Calgary Olympic Games? For Hall (2000), tourism is
about client politics that is specific groups benefit, but the costs are distributed amongst all. Hall and Jenkins (1995) analyse the roles of pressure
groups and policy-making decisions within government in so far as they
relate to tourism, and conclude that by its nature tourism is a fractured and
ill-defined policy area (Hall & Jenkins, 1995: 96), but throughout their text
there is an implicit assumption that tourism is important. But is this, in fact,
the case when national policies are being debated? There is no doubt that
tourism policies and plans abound in many countries, but it is also true that
in many countries, for all its economic importance, tourism is not well
represented at the central points of political power. How often are tourism
ministers members of cabinet as of right? For Sharpley and Crave (2001) the
experience of British tourism during the 2001 Foot-and-Mouth Crisis is
educative. They point out that the potential value of lost livestock exports
was no more than 315 million, whereas rural tourism generates almost
twice as much revenue as livestock farming. In total, they suggest that they
UK may have lost over 1 billion in tourism earnings from overseas visitors.
Yet they characterise the responses made to the tourism sector as late,
confusing and inadequate. The answer to why this happened is, they argue,
a lack of recognition of fundamental changes that have occurred in the
English countryside, the influence of the National Farmers Union as representing farming and not countryside issues, the fragmentation of tourism
as undermining its political clout, and a failure by national government to
fully appreciate the importance of tourism. Or, to put it simply, tourism had
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less political presence in the policy decision-making processes than

farming. Foot-and-mouth was, understandably, initially seen as a farming
issue, and the case for a wider appreciation of countryside and rural
tourism issues was seen as of secondary importance; thereby pointing to a
political failure by the decision makers.
One interesting implication of the fragmented business and political
nature of tourism is that the individual can still attain an importance as a
catalyst for change. Reference has been made to the concept of shakers and
movers postulated by Russell and Faulkner (1999) in their application of
chaos theory to tourism and their description of tourism development on
the Gold Coast of Australia. Reed (1997) analyses the politics of tourism
development at Squamish in Canada and relates how the advisory
committee was divided over the development of a ski hill. In this instance it
was the failure of clear alternatives to the conventional power elites that
produced slow processes of decision taking, as, according to Reed, the
conventional power elites had resort to both modified co-optation and
marginalisation of proposed tourism plans. In short, not being able to get its
way, the power elite sought to incorporate proposed plans within a context
that included its own preferences and, while approving alternative
projects, did little to effectively implement plans. Reed comments that
collaborative planning and community involvement is, by its nature,
pluralistic; but pluralism does not equate to equality of power.
Finally, McGibbon (2000) provides an interesting example of how power
elites sustain some tourism stories but continue a silence about others. In
her analysis of the development of Tyrolean ski tourism at St Anton am
Arlberg, McGibbon notes that the local museum, which records the growth
of local ski tourism, is generally silent about the period from 1933 to the
immediate post war period. This was an important time in Tyrolean
tourism, because it was in this period that skiing emerged from being the
pastime of a few into mass tourism; in 1939, a million arrivals were
recorded. The selective history that is represented records the earlier
contribution of pioneers such as Schneider and Gomperz, but not the
reason for their departures from St Anton, which was due to their anti-Nazi
sentiments and, in the case of the Gomperz, his death in a concentration
camp.
Tourism and Social and Cultural Values

In the reported research about social implications of literature, there has
been a considerable emphasis on the impact of tourism on marginal or
economically developing regions or areas. This is because it can be envisaged that the greatest impacts will be made where there is the greatest gap
between the culture and/or income of both resident and tourist. It is a clich
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of the literature that the American tourist in Canada will have little impact,
but the same American tourist in a developing country will have a far
greater influence. Adapting the arguments of Heron (1989, 1990), it may be
argued that cultures are characterised by differential use of three types of
time dimension. These are:
(1) sacred time is time used for communal participation, not simply for
worship, but in any type of rite that establishes the relationship of that
community with its environment. Its characteristic is that it is a time
shared with others where common beliefs are expressed and reinforced.
(2) profane time is functional and mechanistic in nature. It is time that is
measured, time where appointments and meetings are made, where
timetables are established by man and are adhered to.
(3) personal time is time that is used for personal reflection and re-creation
in the sense of determining the individuals relationship with environment, community, family and self.
Heron argues that developed nations tend to emphasise profane time,
whilst a characteristic of developing nations is the more central importance
of sacred time. Hence, the impact of the industry of tourism (with its time
schedules of events, arrivals and departures) includes a fundamental
cultural change whereby the host community shifts from using sacred time
to profane time. Therefore a common criticism of tourism is the manner in
which it has created commercial packages of culture based on performance
arts timed in one hour or half-hour slots to meet the requirements of coach
schedules and other pragmatic requirements of tour operators. It has been
argued that such performances stereotype: they create performances that
meet the preconceptions of tourists rather than challenge or inform. In
short the cultural performance of the residents is down graded and
commodified for profit. Moreover, it is argued that these performances are
decontextualised from their original setting: dances used in religious or
community-based functions such as weddings are taken and transposed
into the hotel saloon or restaurant to provide photo opportunities for
tourists. Therefore, such performances become stripped of their meaning,
secularised, commodified and in short, debased. Moreover, it is argued,
such performances come to emphasise the spectacular and the exotic, and
in consequence anothers culture is represented to the tourist shorn of its
nuances, presented only as theatre, and deprived of meaning.
Such criticisms of tourism were much heard in the period from the 1970s
following critiques such as Turner and Ashs book, The Golden Hordes in
1975, and echoes of these critiques can still be found in books such as those
by Frances Brown (1998) and Martha Honey (1999). Academics continue to
support, at least in part, this form of analysis. For example, Taylor (2001),
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writing of representations of Maori in tourist brochures in New Zealand,

states:
Within brochures and on postcards, almost without exception, Maori
appear in the standardised, contemporary version of ceremonial
costume and are posed in acordance with the gender constructs of
Maori maiden/Maori warrior made fashionable at the turn of the
century. (Taylor, 2001: 20)
Taylor argues that, by emphasising an apparently timeless culture, the
actual history of Maori is made silent, and the people become staged. While
there is much to support such criticisms, an alternative perspective is
emerging that, while recognising the possibilities of such things, also
questions the simplicity of the interpretation. Even Taylor notes that such
(mis)representations of Maori are not those of non-Maori alone, and he
suggests that Maori seek to portray a sincerity if not authenticity about their
culture. For her part, Daniel (1996) argues that by its very nature dance
incorporates creativity, even when performed for tourists. From the
dancers perspective, the act of dancing creates an existential authenticity
it is their movement, their own physicality, that imbues the performance
with movement and hence meaning. Equally, tourists get caught up with
the dance and for many tourists, the dance becomes their entire world at
that particular moment (Daniel, 1996: 789). Daniel asks for a re-examination of the processes of dance performed for tourists. Indeed it can be
observed that touristic dance and classical ballet share similar constraints
of repetition of movement, time constraints, an evolution of creativity
through experimentation and the effort of performance. Tahana and
Oppermann (1998), through Tahanas tribal affiliation and status, were able
to obtain the views of Maori performers about the nature of their participation in tourist performances. It is clear from their account that performers
have considerable control over the content of the shows, and that performances are changed because People like challenges, they are all fired up
and once this challenge is lost they start to tutu (fiddle) around (Tahana &
Oppermann, 1998: 29). Indeed Maori, especially the Te Arawa people, have a
long history of performing for tourists, and this history is part of their own
culture (Ryan, 1997).
The social and cultural impact of tourism is not always restricted to the
immediate tourist zone. In her study of Spanish immigrant workers in
Lloret de Mar, Lever (1987) traced, over a five-year period, the effect of
working in the tourism industry on young people from the village of San
Santiago, a village in the hinterland of the Costa Brava. The majority of such
workers were females, and from the poorer sections of village society. The
demonstration effects of tourist behaviour, as well as the changes of life
involved in working in a bar or as a chambermaid, created a number of
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social impacts. The young women were freed from the conservative lifestyles of male-dominated homes, and could go to discos and have relaxed
friendships with males. They lived in flats with their peers with no parental
presence, and they became important sources of family income, perhaps
earning more than their fathers did from the soil. They might have played a
role in the burgeoning trade union action of the immediate post-Franco
period. In short, the traditional, conservative lifestyles with clearly-defined
gender roles were being both challenged and changed. Further, the changes
were recognised by the village, if only because a person who was financially independent and who contributed to the family income had to be
treated very differently from someone who effectively worked as a subordinate on the family farm. Overall, because tourism created a new role for
women, it might be said to have been beneficial. Further, the income that
tourism generated helped to sustain the farms, for without such an income
the area might have followed what had long been a traditional pattern of
Spain, and that was the emigration from the land to the city. In various other
studies of tourist souvenir production, the same impacts have been identified of an outworking of production beyond the point of retail sale, as is the
case of the production of Australian Aboriginal paintings and carvings, or
South American weaving and fabrics.
The relationship between tourist city and rural area is a complex one. In
some areas of the Mediterranean, for example in Cyprus in the 1980s, it
was the males who tended to go into the tourist zones, (such as Ayai Napa
in Cyprus), in order to start up tourist-related businesses such as snack
bars and restaurants. While the younger women worked in the hotels, it
was the older women who took over some of the work on the farms such
as picking fruit and vegetables. Thus, the women were displaced from a
purely domestic role into more of an income-earning role, but still in a
subsidiary function. The development of tourism in developing, peripheral economies undoubtedly changes female roles, and potentially male/
female relationships within the host society. McGibbon (2000), when
describing Alpine tourism, also notes the strains on females. Much of that
tourism is still within the hands of family-owned businesses, but for those
seeking to start a business, business development and the mothering of
young children often coincide. McGibbon also notes the ambivalence that
some children show towards inheriting a family business. Some note the
financial gain, but also the wear on family life, the unequal experiences of
both men and women as the men play the glamorous role of ski instructors and women play the role of caterers and housekeepers. Yet even this
is not without advantage for many women, and McGibbon notes the
financial independence of many of them, although she still concludes
that, partly because of legislative frameworks relating to social benefits,
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females still tend to be valued for manual labour and not for entrepreneurial skills.
Certainly the monies created by tourism are important. For rural
societies that are little mechanised, the burdens of hard work are well
ingrained. The work in hotels and bars, whilst hard and exhausting, might
be seen as being easier than agricultural work, particularly if the tourist
season is well defined and restricted to approximately the four or five
months from spring until autumn. If locally-owned businesses are able to
flourish, then the tourist area will attract workers from other industries. It
might also attract the better qualified and educated into supervisory
management roles and away from other jobs that might be more needed by
the local community, but which are also low paid. Such alternative jobs
might include teaching, nursing, social work of various forms, and local
authority administration. For the balance to be rectified, it becomes important to know how much of the economic benefits generated by tourism are
retained by the host community, and the means by which these benefits are
distributed.
Reference has been made to tourism not only influencing the host
community, but also having a wider impact on immigrant workers. In
Levers (1987) example there was homogeneity in the culture of the immigrant and the host, but that is not always the case. In his study of the
islands of southern Thailand, Cohen (1982a) traces the development of
two beach resorts. In the second resort, that on the island of Phuket, he
observed that much of the property ownership was not in the hands of the
Thais, but in Chinese ownership. He commented that The marked difference in the ownership structure of the tourist facilities on the two beaches
is of crucial importance for their differential developmental dynamics
(Cohen, 1982: 226). In the case of Phuket, the beach sites evolved with little
outside interference. On the other hand, on Sawadee, the islanders had no
comprehension of the motives that brought the tourists, and there were
diametrically opposed sets of opinions as to the value of sunshine. The
tourists perceived the beach as an island paradise, and swam naked in the
blue seas. For the natives, naked bathing was indecent and sunshine was
damaging to the skin. In Phuket, the landowners were in negotiation with
multinational hotels. Cohens study of the marginal paradise raises a
whole range of issues about tourist/host interactions, but is also of
interest in terms of the role of the outsider as landowner and intermediary
between tourist and host.
If host communities are to retain the integrity of their own culture, they
have to develop means by which they can restrict the influence of the
tourist. Paradoxically, the tourist bubble and the pseudo-event that is so
much criticised by Boorstin (1961, 1962) is just such a means. If tourists stay
within the walls of the holiday village, then it is true that their appreciation
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of the host culture is small. But equally, it is true that the demonstration
effects of topless bathing, of affluence, of drinking alcohol and other practices that might give offence are not on display for the mainstream of life
within the host community. The pseudo-event satisfies the tourists wish
to see the culture of the area, and it does so in a package that is of meaning to
the tourist. It avoids the situation whereby the host community finds that
its own events become a theatre experience for the tourist. The host
community is able to retain the meanings of its own events. MacNaught
(1982) argues that host societies are quite able to distinguish between the
tourist show and the real event, and thus it is simplistic to argue that
tourism undermines the integrity of the host culture. The danger, however,
is that the host community is unable to maintain its own social events
without them becoming a sight for the tourists, and thus the very presence
of the tourist begins to change the ambience and, in time, the meaning of the
event for the host community. Equally, it must be recognised that social
events are not fixed in format. Increasing affluence generates change.
People reach gatherings by car and not by foot; food is cooked in ovens and
not over fires; the externals of the social meeting are changed. The question
is whether or not tourism changes the internal meanings of the event for the
host community. Certainly there is evidence that tourism creates stress.
Smith (1977) relates how the Eskimo women of Kotzebue in Alaska, had to
build fences and barricades to stop tourists photographing and viewing the
process of butchering carcasses. Finally, they had to take the carcasses into
the privacy of their own home, and thus the social aspects of the process
were being destroyed. To complain that tourism changes a society in terms
of the female/male roles, that it leads to the emigration of young workers
from the rural areas to tourist complexes, that it changes traditional
patterns of extended family networks, that it even changes the frequency of
use of minority languages (White, 1974) is, in many cases, no more than to
state that the areas so changed were areas that were economically vulnerable to change. But the argument can be taken further. The charge against
tourism may not be that it has induced change, but that the nature of the
tourism permitted has generated a change that is potentially inimical to the
culture of the host society, and not one that is supportive. Tourism developments do not have to take the form of a wide dispersal of large numbers of
people that create a tourist/host ratio in which the hosts are unable to
escape from the tourists. As previously indicated, soft tourism policies are
possible. Yet the case against tourism is far from proven. It may be argued
that, in the case illustrated by Lever (1987), the position of young females
was improved, that the conventional male-orientated society of rural Spain
needed to be changed. It can be argued that no culture is either sacrosanct,
to be preserved from change, or indeed necessarily contains within its
norms and values ethics that are beyond challenge. In the final analysis, it
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may be that those cultures that have modes of life that have meaning for
their citizens will prove to have the tenacity to meet any challenge that
tourism poses.
Tourism and Expressions of Culture

Ritchie and Zins (1978) identified eight areas in which tourism might
have an impact. These are listed below with a short commentary about
each.
Handicrafts
As has been noted, in the 1970s and 1980s criticisms were made of airport art and the decontextualisation of style from original meaning. On the
other hand, tourism was often credited with a revival of interest in traditional arts as the commodification of the art form created a market and
hence an income for the producing communities. Ryan and Crotts (1997)
provide examples of long relationships between tourism and carving,
weaving and metalwork with reference to Maori and Navajo cultures.
Essentially they argue that in both cases the original work has benefited
from contact with tourists; not only do tourists provide a market but, by
producing work for the tourist market, the artists themselves have incorporated new colours and themes into their work. Whereas in the past this may
have been seen as a form of bastardisation of traditional art forms, Ryan and
Crotts tend to perceive this process as an enrichment of such art forms and a
means by which artists are better able to exercise creative judgement.
Certainly from the Maori perspective, as published in documentation by
the Aotearoa Maori Tourism Federation (1995, 1996), the issue is not one of
compliance with a deemed authenticity but of control and recognition of
the value of Maori art forms. Such documentation defines Maori art forms
not wholly by design, but by whether the work is conceived and executed
by Maori. The concerns of the Aotearoa Maori Tourism Federation were
met in 2001 with the establishment of the toi iho label by Creative New
Zealand, and in 2002 37 artists were credited with the right to use the mark.
Two classifications exist Toi iho maori made and Toi iho maori co-production
the latter applying to work co-produced by Maori and non-Maori. The
criteria for the former work is that the artist must prove that he or she is of
Maori descent, must produce work that is distinctly Maori and be a person
of standing in the Maori community. However, in spite of the good intentions behind the branding, it has not been uniformly adopted or accepted
even within the Maori community. Certainly in 2002 it would be fair to state
that many of the artists approved would not see themselves as meeting
primarily a demand from tourists, especially from those paying only small
sums of money.
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In some cases the industry has been quick to identify local design as a
means of making statements that have marketing value. For example,
various national airlines now have aircraft painted in varying traditional
designs that are unique to their part of the world. For example Qantas
worked with Aboriginal Dr John Moriartys Balarinji design studio to paint
two Boeing 747 aircraft. In 1994 Qantas unveiled a Boeing 747-400, Wunala
Dreaming, painted in an Aboriginal design depicting the story of journeys
by spirit ancestors, in the form of kangaroos, across the Australian landscape. In November 1995, the airline launched Nalanji Dreaming, a Boeing
747-300 painted in an Aboriginal theme, this time depicting the rainforest
and reef. The airline company feels that it has enabled Balarinjis team of
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists to develop distinctive contemporary
imagery using Northern and Central Australian style motifs in order to
create two of the worlds largest and most mobile pieces of modern art.
Indeed, in this particular instance the airline goes further in its support
of Aboriginal culture. For example, Qantas is the Official Airline for the
Bangarra Dance Theatre, and a sponsor of the National Aboriginal Sports
Council. The airline also, in 2002, sponsored Bungabura productions (the
production company of singer, director and actor, Leah Purcell) as well as
the production of Purcells book and documentary, Black Chicks Talking
(Purcell, 2002). Qantas is also major sponsor of the Tjapukai Dance Theatre
in Cairns. Other airlines can cite similar examples of corporate sponsorship
aimed at activities that are consistent with the uniqueness of the main destinations they serve.
Traditional clothing and textiles
There is little doubt that, in a world increasingly subject to fads of
fashion, what were once perceived as traditional forms of dress have
influenced designers from the major fashion studios. In the summer of
2002, for example, influenced in part by Andrew Lloyd Webbers support
for Bollywood music, Indian design percolated the British High Street
although fashion and art critics maintained that this was once again simply
a case of high fashion catching up with what had been a trend among the
young on the streets for at least two years. More traditionally, from a
perspective of tourism studies, there have been several studies of the South
American textile industry and its linkages with tourism (e.g. Cohen, 2001).
These studies often trace a pattern. Opportunity for home-based production is frustrated by merchant and distribution chain intermediaries
coming to the fore as traditional clothing is sold through recognised
tourism retail outlets, and then a subsequent countervailing market reaction occurs as producers try to directly access the tourism market by
various means. Examples include the promotion of areas as the authentic
places of production in order to redraw the tourism routes to them, and the
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formation of co-operatives or the use of textile and arts fairs to sell direct to
tourists. In some places attempts might be made to establish authentication labelling schemes, as in New Mexico with Navajo Indian art.
Certainly there is significant interest by tourists in the purchase of
souvenir clothing. Healy (1994) points out that, although the value of
individual transactions may be small, in aggregate they can account for
significant proportions of the total tourist retail expenditure. Asplet and
Cooper (2000) are among those who have surveyed tourists about this
issue, in this instance about the level of interest in purchasing authentic
Maori designs on t-shirts. In their work they found that about 40% of tourists attached some importance to local motifs on souvenir clothing and, if
supported by labelling, would be persuaded to buy such clothing in preference to other designs.
Languages
Language has an important role, for it is not only a means of communication but also a way in which perceptions of the world are shaped. For
example, the Inuit are said to have about 40 words for the descriptions of
snow. Is it a coincidence that in English one speaks of the buying and selling
of goods and not bads? Language thus beomes an important component
in sustaining a culture, and it is for this reason that minority groups seek to
maintain the health of their language. For example Welsh speakers sought
long to obtain the Welsh television channel SC4, and the success of that
station has become a model for others including, for example, speakers of
Maori in New Zealand. Again, for example, in the United States of America,
the proliferation of Hispanic television channels over cable television is a
testimony to the Spanish-speaking cultures and has proven to be a boost for
entertainers who have gained experience prior to achieving success in the
more mainstream culture. The erosion of a language thereby carries the
implication of changing norms of expression, and thus thought. The issue is
whether tourism is important in the erosion of languages. From the viewpoint of this author, what evidence that does exist seems to produce two
conclusions. First, the pressures on the maintenance of a language seem to
come from far more influential sources than tourism, namely business and
the international media of television and the Internet. Second, there are
examples of where tourism, by creating a market value for a culture, has
actually helped to sustain a language. One of the most-cited examples is
that of the Tjapukai or Djabugay language of the Aboriginal people of
Queensland, Australia. The commercial success of the Tjapukai Dance
Theatre has led to a resurgence of interest in Tjapukai culture among its
own people, and its language, which was once being slowly forgotten, was,
in 2002, being taught again at two local primary schools (Ryan & Huyton,
2002).
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Traditions
Tourism creates work opportunities, but sometimes these may be inconsistent with past patterns of work. For example, when the design was
undertaken for the interpretation centre at Wanuskewin in Saskatechewan
in Canada, which exists to explain the culture of North American Plains
Indian peoples that occupy that area, there was a desire to have some story
telling. In a primarily oral tradition, story telling is a means of passing on
values and the commonalities that help identify a people. Saskatechewan
Province experiences several months of snow during the winter, and historically that was a period when, after the American Indian Wars that forced
some of the tribes to stay north of the border, the peoples concerned would
engage in story telling. Hunting opportunities were limited in the depth of
winter, and so the tradition grew up that stories were told only in the
winter. However, tourist trips to Wanuskewin occur primarily in the
summer. Anumber of the elders were opposed to a break with tradition and
the original compromise reached was that some stories could be recorded
and played over loudspeakers in tepees in a display within the main
building. Subsequently this was relaxed when the level of interest and
respect shown by visiting groups became more evident and some story
telling now takes place in the specially-constructed story-telling area
outside the centre.
In some instances tourism engenders interest in past traditions, especially perhaps those that are associated with both spectacle and romance.
To take one example, the Maine Windjammers Association is able to maintain its fleet of sailing vessels to recreate the past by catering to the tourist
trade. It has fourteen ships that operate out of Camden, Rockport and
Rockland, located in mid-coast Maine. Most of these ships were built at the
turn of the century when America relied on sailing ships to transport heavy
cargoes from port to port, and many are registered National Historic Landmarks. Today, these vessels still rely on wind power, and tourists can
choose 3-day or 6-day sailing holidays on the vessels and help sail them.
The result is that a heritage is sustained in a living manner that provides an
insight into the sailing skills of nineteenth century mariners.
Gastronomy
Tourism generates a demand not only for traditional foods, but also for
new foods. It has been noted that Jamaican hotels began by offering what it
thought its visitors wanted, which led to the import of food stuffs from
primarily the USA. However, the hotels now offer a range of traditional
dishes that not only provide visitors with new experiences, but also provide
employment opportunities for those in the local food industries (Belisle,
1984; Henshall-Momsen, 1986). In Hokitika, Westland, South Island, New
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Zealand the annual Wild Foods Festival held in March has created a
national and international reputation for wild and wacky foods. In addition
to the conventional venison, sheeps balls and oysters can be found a range
of insects, fried, boiled and marinated! More conventionally, Getz (2000)
has traced the growth of popularity of wine tourism. Not only are there
wine and food festivals, but winery tours have become one of the hot
tourism products of the early twenty-first century.
Architecture
A conventional criticism of tourism was that, based on observation of the
tourism-resort complexes that surrounded the Mediterranean, tourism
property development comprised box-like structures with external walls
scarred with balconies that promised views to the guests. Certainly it was
not hard to find such examples, but over time architects have offered more
to corporate clients who now realise that imaginative design is one means
by which tourists can be attracted. Simultaneously there has been a movement to reinforce local architectural styles for reasons that include
marketing, but with a growing concern to support local craftsmen and
traditional industries. It is also a convenient means by which the hospitality
industry in particular can fulfil the role of being a responsible citizen.
This is not, of course, new, nor is it without some value. One of the loved
eccentricities of North Wales is Portmeirion; the Italianate village set in
beautiful surroundings and started in 1926. One difference between a
location such as Portmeirion, and the various marinas and hotels that exist,
lies in the motivation behind the buildings. Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, the
architect for whom Portmeirion was the fulfilment of a lifes dream, sought
specifically to design an area that consisted of attractive buildings that
harmonised with, and enhanced, their surroundings. Sight lines from the
cottages and views from the wooded valley towards the village were thus
carefully designed.
In Florida a similar development is the town of Seaside, a town
constructed to a code that controls the shape, height, colour and materials
to be used, and dictates the amount of open space, and where this is to be
located. Unlike Portmeirion, Seaside has permanent inhabitants, but its
popularity has brought with it increasing land values which means that
only the most affluent can buy properties. The website for Seaside describes
it thus:
Seaside founders Robert and Daryl Davis drew inspiration from historical Southern towns and traditional neighborhoods of the 1920s and
30s, before the car was king. Here in Seaside people stroll, friends chat
with neighbors, cars stay put, and children walk or bike to the town
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center and the beach. And, most of all, everyone shares the glorious
Gulf of Mexico. (http://www.seasidefl.com, June 2002)
Whilst undoubtedly popular, Seaside has its critics. Guest (1988) refers
to it as being primarily a rich mans holiday resort, pointing out that only
about 15% of the 100 or so homes are completely occupied all the year
round, the rest being rented out for holiday use. He concludes that:
Seaside is perilously close to being a model village, a pastel coloured
pastiche of classical, Victorian and Georgian versions of the old sharecropper and dogtrot houses. It either looks too good to eat or good
enough to scrawl graffiti on depending on your point of view. (cited
by Ryan, 1991a: 141)
It is also evident that Seaside is like Portmeirion in another sense, and that is
that at any one time many of its inhabitants are holidaymakers renting
accommodation. Yet both places inspire high degrees of loyalty and repeat
visitation, implying that both have an appeal of quieter, nostalgic times.
Any discussion of the relationship between architecture and tourism
must recognise that it can exist only within a wider context of the relationship between man and his surroundings. For advocates of the community
architecture movement, such as HRH, The Prince of Wales, and Rod
Hackney, former president of the International Union of Architects, it is
important that architecture relates to the needs of people both as individuals and as communities. The signs are that the tower-like, 400-or-morebedroom hotels with their poor sound-proofing may be increasingly
rejected by European and North American tourists who show their
preference for self-catering chalets, boutique hotels and similar forms of
accommodation. Yet, ironically, the search for greater individual freedom
by the tourist generates greater costs. High rise is high-density housing, but
low rise and low-density tourist complexes are more space demanding,
with all that implies for the environment.
Some holiday destinations are very aware of these issues, and tight planning controls on construction might exist. For example, Lanzarote, inspired
by the painter and architect, Caesar Manrique (who died in a car crash in
1992), has required all developments to conform to certain traditional
features of its architecture. It can be argued that architecture has long been
the expression of aspirations of a society; and indeed that is one reason why
tourists flock to cathedrals and palaces, and to the homes of both the mighty
and the humble of the past (the Welsh National Museum of St Fagans is an
example of the latter). In this respect therefore, the type of architecture that
is adopted for tourist complexes is, arguably, a reflection of priorities that
are deemed to be important. The tower block hotel reflects priorities of cost,
of seeking to achieve high rates of return on investment in the short and
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intermediate term. Other styles of architecture may reflect different norms.

If tourism is an agent of social change, then the architecture and buildings
of the tourist industry are the expressions of that process and the type of
tourist activity that the host society has sought to attract.
Religion
Historically, and even today, there are strong links between tourism and
religion. Pilgrimage was and remains a strong motive for travel, as is
witnessed by the requirement imposed on those of the Islamic faith to travel
to Medina, or by Catholics who travel to places like Lourdes or Fatima.
Vukonic (1996) has also remarked on the long history of the intermixing of
the profane with the religiously sentimental in souvenirs, and the ability of
church authorities to reap benefit from such sales. He gives, as one such
example, the minting of a special gold coin in the jubilee year of 1450 by
Pope Nicholas V. Today, tourists wander through the great cathedrals of
Europe with varying degrees of awe. Many churches have become, in
effect, museums: the shell of a Middle Ages culture stripped of the sense of
worship that motivated their very construction all those centuries ago.
Himalayan trekkers strip outside the holy places of Buddhism in order to
wash after a days climb. The bare-breasted sun worshippers regard the
mullahs cry as a nuisance that breaks their reverie. While, in many countries, there may be many differences between residents and visitors, the
differing attitudes towards religion may be amongst the most marked. This
can be especially so when the tourist originates from an increasingly
agnostic, if not atheistic, Western culture and the resident is from a world
where religious belief may still be strong. Like all generalisations, neither
the tourist nor the host can be so easily categorised, and the individual
tourist may indeed be more religious than the individual host. The impact
of tourism on religion is difficult to assess. That Western societies permit
tourists to throng through the cathedrals is a reflection not simply of the
impact and importance afforded to tourism, but also of the importance
attached to its Christianity. It may be argued that the income from tourism
is important to the maintenance of cathedrals, and indeed this is the case;
but the recognition of this fact implies an acceptance that the average
person is more prepared to pay to see the cathedral than to worship within
it. But even this type of statement withers before the data collected by the
Commons Select Committee on the Environment (in 1987, cited in Ryan
1991a), when it was found that York Minster attracted 2.5 million visitors in
1986, and raised 359,000, (an average of 14p per visitor), to help offset
annual maintenance charges of 600,000. Problems may emerge when the
same attitude is shown in locations where the tourist fails to appreciate the
importance of religious shrines to the local resident, who views them not as
curios from the past, but as an essential part of everyday life. But, as in
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many other aspects of the debate about the impact of tourism on components of culture, the ability of the host society to withstand the cultural
changes potentially inherent in tourism depends on the strength of that
culture.
Dress and leisure activities
Tourists may cause shock amongst their hosts by their dress, or lack of it.
Cohen (1982a) in his paper on marginal paradises, the beaches of
Thailand, observes how nudity gave offence to the local people; and this
type of observation has been made many times. Equally, residents may
view certain types of dress as inappropriate. Thus, for example, in Spain in
the 1960s, female tourists had to be properly attired before entering a
church, and a bare head and a mini-skirt were definitely perceived as not
being appropriate. Males had to wear shirts with sleeves, and long trousers.
Today, in many of the same tourist areas, the bare-headed female or the
short-sleeved male may enter the church without fear of generating disapproving stares. However, to argue that this is due solely to tourism would
be to underestimate the other changes within Spanish society in the last
part of the twentieth century: changes that have transformed Spain from a
dictatorship to a Parliamentary democracy within the European Union.
Tourism has affected dress in the sense of helping to create an interest in
traditional dress. Whether it is Morris dancers in England, Highland
dancers, grass-skirted hula girls or North American Indian costumes and
dancers throughout the world the tourist-orientated performances help
to maintain the existence of traditional dress as a means of retaining distinctive elements of a culture, and as an expressive statement of a tradition and
past that are an explanation of the present. However, just as Ropponen
(1976) refers to the faking of antiques for the tourist trade, so, too, it might
be queried whether the occasion for the wearing of traditional dress is not
also faked for the tourist. Within New Zealand the close connection
between Maori performances and the dress associated with those performances has created its own rituals. Maori are able to distinguish between
the wearing of cloaks for purpose of performance, and the wearing of a
cloak on other occasions by people with due mana or authority for the
occasion. However, within the performance group itself, the cloak-wearing
person him or herself may possess mana with reference to that occasion or
role. In short, the performance contains both the components of traditional
authority and acting to formulate a complex set of meanings of ambiguity.
Just as it is for dress, so too with some of the traditional times of rejoicing
within societies. The large processions of Semana Santa (Holy Week) in the
major Spanish cities have become a tourist sight. Staged Indian weddings,
staged African dances throughout the world, culture is being offered as a
tourist resource, a commodity to be sold to the coach parties. Initially moti-
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vated by a pride in their dance and dress, the sheer repetition means that
the community event becomes a professional show performed by paid
actors. As a show, the performance becomes packaged in one-hour time
slots to fit the timetable of the tourist without any reference to the original
purpose or duration of the event. Yet, in a changing world that moves at a
different pace from that of the past, the evolving modern societies might
arguably have no place for these past traditional performances were it not
for tourism maintaining at least a bank of skills in dance and dress, so that
the host society can call upon the traditions when it sees fit. And, as noted
by Daniel and other writers, the very act of performance contains an existential authenticity for both audience and performer. The fuzziness of the
margins between performance and integrity of cultural expression is
perhaps exemplified by the Aotearoa Traditional Maori Performing Arts
Festival. Originally created for the express purpose of improving the
quality of performance for tourist production, the festival has become a
major cultural event for Maori. The Festival is important for the development of dance, choreography, a sense of identity for Maori, and it also
reflects the tension between that which is traditional and that which is new
as both performers and choreographers wish to take advantage of new
means of cultural expression. Consequently professional kapa haka
(performance) groups embrace multimedia forms of presentation, just as
do a number of performers at Tjapukai Dance Theatre.
It is the authors view that forms of analyses that perceive tourism as
having the effect of creating little more than a stereotyped culture and of
squeezing complex stories into simplified 60-minute productions, fail to
appreciate the energies and creativity of those performing and the manner
in which people take control over and view the performance. Performers
are well able to distinguish between the forms and purpose of performance.
The issue is, or perhaps was, one of control of performance, but there are
many signs throughout the world that control does not lie in the hands of
tour operators or hotel managers alone. Yet, as is discussed below, many
tourists also conceive of such performances as lacking authenticity having
adopted this form of analysis, and in doing so underestimate the complexities of process that are actually occurring.
Tourism and Heritage: Framing, Performance and Audience

There are a number of paradoxes in the relationship between tourism
and culture. In the past, some critics argued that the challenge that tourism
poses is not simply one whereby tourism creates change, but in fact the
opposite. Tourism might calcify a culture into a frozen picture of the past.
For example, MacCannell (1976) argued that what takes place is a process of
sight sacralisation. This is characterised by a number of stages:
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(1) The naming stage: a process of authentication whereby the site, sight or
event is differentiated from its other similar events.
(2) Framing and elevation: putting on display and enhancement of the
place.
(3) Enshrinement: the framing material is in place, and the first stage of the
sacralisation process begins.
(4) Mechanical: the creation of the copy, so that the tourist becomes aware
of that reproduction, and seeks the real thing.
(5) Social reproduction: the original is a model after which others name
themselves.
Whilst MacCannells examples include the Mona Lisa, and what might
be termed the expressive artefacts of a culture, it has been argued that the
process applies to the very processes of culture. Nowhere perhaps is this
seen more clearly than in Heritage tourism. Hewison (1989) highlights a
process whereby myths of a past are created the past is seen in the way in
which we would like to see it, and not in the way that it was. Barrett (1988)
comments that:
The Rhondda Heritage Park is the latest in a series of large scale
heritage parks like Ironbridge in Shropshire, the Black Country
Museum in the West Midlands and Beamish in the north-east that have
a cast of characters in period costume. For the most part these are
people recruited at Government expense from job creation schemes:
the unemployed of the Eighties paid to pretend to be the employed of
the Twenties. For these museums the temptation is to sanitise the
past: trim out the nasty bits, omit the poverty, the hunger and the
strikes to see life as a newsreel film of the Thirties and Forties, where
the working classes are always irrepressibly cheerful. (Barrett, 1988)
A culture thereby is named and stereotyped. The visitor seeks to see the
characteristics of the image of the culture, and the host society provides the
expected treat. Boorstins (1961, 1962) pseudo-event is born. The danger
is that the myths are incorporated into the culture; succeeding generations
do not know anything but the enactment of a past that may not have
existed, and come to accept it. There is, indeed, a confusion of stories that
are told. Ryan (2002b), in an analysis of the December 2001 Disney Holiday
Parade (note, not Christmas Parade) comments on the mix of stories
wherein Woody from Toy Story is legitimised within a context that incorporated more traditional European stories of Cinderella and Beauty and the
Beast, while Mickey Mouse is conveyed in an open carriage reminiscent of
Dickensian images and Victorian Christmas Cards to form a whole that
supports the branding of Disney. The question posed is, does this matter?
To a generation that is able to distinguish between the different traditions
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the amalgam might be seen as creative commercialisation, but for newer

generations, what message is being conveyed that all of this is Disney?
In short, much depends on the ability of the culture to distinguish
between the contrived and the real. But processes are complex and subtle
because the contrived becomes its own reality for those who perform and
observe. In analysing the impacts of tourism on developing countries, one
concept that may help to describe the processes is suggested by Wallace
(1956). According to Wallace, societies can be subjected to a revitalisation
process that consists of five stages, although there is no guarantee that any
society will exhibit all five stages, or indeed experience them in the order he
suggests. The stages are:
(1) The steady state: Social and cultural forces exist in a dynamic equilibrium, whereby change does take place, but does so within the internal
dynamics of the society, which thus retains its integrity and is able to
handle processes that may cause stress.
(2) The period of increased individual stress: The society has been pushed out
of equilibrium due to some external event. From our viewpoint, such
an event may be the development of tourism. The previous existing
cultural system can no longer satisfy the needs of all of its members.
The opportunities and demonstration effects of tourism may create a
process of conflict within individuals as they seek to reconcile the
developing changes with a framework of values that relates to a
previous social and cultural setting.
(3) The period of cultural distortion: This period is characterised by piecemeal attempts to restore equilibrium and so reduce stress, and the
conflict between community members that is now being expressed.
Special interest groups emerge, seeking either a restoration of
previous ways, an establishment of a new consensus, or some other
form of adaptation. Generally, however, such effects are initially ineffective.
(4) The period of revitalisation: This takes place with the realisation that the
communitys culture is maladaptive, but for the society to be
successful a number of changes must occur. From the processes of
cultural distortion, there must arise a blueprint for a better society,
i.e. one that reduces stress. This new blueprint acquires followers
who both defend and enforce the new code. The movement must also
be routinised so that the new culture can establish its own methods for
handling change.
(5) The new steady state: This occurs when social disorganisation and
personal stress return to tolerable levels and a new dynamic equilibrium is evolved.
Wallaces model relates to homogeneous native societies, but the process
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can be observed in relation to tourism, where resident communities

develop coping strategies to maintain their business alongside the tourist
activity that takes place within their community. There is, however, nothing
within the model that indicates the nature of the new steady state. For some
societies, it may be a resurgence of old values within a new context, in that it
is the traditional values that define the distinction between the residents
and the guests. From the perspective of the native peoples of North
America, or the Basques of Spain, it is these traditional aspects that define
their being separate from the majority. Some societies may even seek to use
tourism as a means of reinforcing their uniqueness both to themselves and
to the tourist. Examples of this can be found in the Amish societies of
Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, and the Mennonite communities of
Southern Ontario. At St Jacobs, Ontario, the Mennonite community has
established a small interpretative centre that portrays the history of the
movement from its European Anabaptist origins. Visited by tourists, the
centre fulfils many roles. It interprets the communitys culture for the
tourist in a manner that the Mennonites wish to portray. It seeks to establish
an empathy on the part of the tourist for the community: to generate the
understanding of different practices which OGrady (1981) sees as an
essential component of responsible tourism. In challenging the tourist to
respect the differences between the tourists everyday life and that of the
Mennonite, it also serves to reinforce the uniqueness of the Mennonite
culture. In short, tourism might require sophisticated social skills from host
communities if their differences are not to be submerged in some form of
international culture. It requires that the hosts can maintain their own
homogeneity, even whilst they move from one world to another as, for
example, they move from work in the hotel back to their homes. In practice,
the best from both worlds will often be selected. In a sense, therefore, the
hosts practise the same skills that immigrant societies practise, albeit on a
different scale and within a different context.
Another important component in the analysis of the tourist/resident
interaction is the position and nature of the tourist. In the emergence of
ecotourism in the 1980s and 1990s, the concept of cultural tourism also
emerged. Indeed the two were often linked in that ecotourism was
supposed to indicate a respect not only for nature, but also for those traditional cultures and communities that co-existed with natural settings. The
concept was that there was a strong demand for the culturally authentic.
Certainly there were a number of statements made that a strong interest
prevailed for the culture of indigenous peoples around the world. Evidence
for this was supposed to exist in the numbers that, in response to questions
on International Visitor Surveys such as those conducted in Canada,
Australia and New Zealand, indicated that they had attended a cultural
performance. Little regard was paid to the nature of the performance, the
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frequency of such contacts, or what was in fact being sought by (or

provided to) tourists. Since the late 1990s a more critical view of both
cultural tourism and ecotourism is emerging. Duffy (2002) writes:
Ecotourists can replicate the same problems as the mass tourists that
they are expected to replace. In particular, the problems created by the
meeting of very different cultures have been highlighted. New forms of
tourism such as ecotourism, adventure tourism and cultural tourism
have become increasingly intrusive and dependent on the destination
community, and this intrusion has resulted in the development of
uneven power relationships between the host and origin communities.
(Duffy, 2002: 32)
Duffys comments result from a two-year project with eco-tourists in
Belize, and Duffy claims that much of the same stereotyping of people from
the resident culture, and many of the hedonistic behaviours associated with
mass tourists were displayed by the eco-tourists. McKercher and du Cros
(2002) report research into tourists visiting Hong Kong. They state that:
Based on raw participation rates, one could assert that 33.3% of tourists
to Hong Kong are cultural tourists of some description. But on closer
inspection, only about 10% of all tourists surveyed indicated that
cultural tourism played a significant role in their decision to visit Hong
Kong, and only 4% of all tourists could be classified as purposeful
cultural tourists people highly motivated to travel for cultural
tourism reasons who have a deep experience. (McKercher & du Cros,
2002: 148).
In a different context, that of visitation to place and tourist products
based on Aboriginal culture in Australias Northern Territory, Ryan and
Huyton (2000, 2002) come to much the same conclusion. They state that
from their research it would appear that only about 23% of visitors would
actually want to stay in an Aboriginal community overnight. Ryan (2000b)
questions just how environmentally friendly is the behaviour of ecotourists
who, to his mind, justify unnecessary incursions into the natural environmental on the premise that it is alright for them to do so because they are
ecotourists. As McKercher (1993) propounded, a fundamental truth about
tourism is that it is about polluting activities and about fun. Most
ecotourists and cultural tourists are motivated by the much the same thing,
albeit perhaps in different settings.
On the other hand, in research undertaken in both Australia and New
Zealand, the present author has encountered a reverse situation, particularly with reference to German tourists, who are strongly motivated in their
search for alternative cultures. The issue here is that on occasion they meet
the criteria posed by Cohen (1979a, 1979b) of tourists who are disappointed
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by their failure to appreciate the authentic within a performance, or who are

selective in their understanding of what is pertinent about a culture. For
example, a German tour guide expressed her disappointment that the
Maori Arts and Crafts Institute permitted people to use flash photography
and take video images of performers during the lunchtime cultural performances. She explained her view that this practice could not be traditional.
In return, Maori explained that a more fundamental principle was that of
Manatangita, or hospitality, and that knowing of peoples want to record the
events it seemed only hospitable to permit this to occur. This resulted in an
attitude change on the part of the courier. In personal interviews with
German tourists at the Institute it became evident that they recorded lower
levels of satisfaction with their visit than other groups of visitors, often on
the grounds that it was staged. However, given Te Arawa history, the relationship of the performing groups with other forms of artistic expression,
and the site as a training institution for Maori carvers and weavers, such
perceptions of staging are arguably being shaped by preconceived images
of what is proper for a traditional representation.
The Impact of Holiday Homes

Of the tourists that come, some may seek to stay. They may initially be
considering a holiday home, or it might be that they are about to retire and
want an escape from the winter of their home area. One of the differences
between developed economic regions and the peripheral areas is not
simply in the income earned during a working life, but also access to accumulating wealth. Amongst the professional groups of Northern America
and Europe areas characterised by demographic trends whereby the old
are becoming a larger part of the population part of that access to wealth
lies through the possession of pension plans that offer inflation-proofed
income in retirement. In addition, such social groups may also inherit
wealth because their parents owned houses, whilst they too own their
homes. Data drawn from HM Inland Revenue shows that in 1999 there
were over 700,000 inheritances in England and Wales with a value in excess
of 300,000, while the total number of properties passing at death was over
700,000 an almost seven fold increase compared with twenty years earlier.
Increasingly there is emerging a generation that possesses the means to buy
holiday homes through inherited wealth. Historically, by their nature, the
rural, scenic tourist areas tended to be areas of low income and low housing
costs, but this is beginning to change even though the much-flaunted flight
from the city that was being proposed in the 1970s has not, broadly
speaking, occurred. The consequence is that this poses problems for
younger people who are resident in rural areas, and many newly-married
couples in such areas find it increasingly difficult to find the means of
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buying their own home. In the United Kingdom some local councils have
sought to respond to the problem by building properties that can be let and
purchased only by local people. The same problems have occurred in
Whistler in British Columbia (Ritchie, 1988), where a community of
approximately 3500 people has, as a result of the development of ski runs,
seen tourist numbers rise to nearly a million per year in a short period, with
the resulting acceleration of property prices by over 40% in just over a year
in the period 1988/9. Searle (1989) gives examples of property development
in Banff, Alberta, where prime residential lots climbed to $CN160,000
within a few years. Fagan (1989) reports how the resort of Phuket in
Thailand changed from being a haven for students and hippies in the early
1970s to a tourist-developed area where, from 1982 to 1989, seaside land
increased in price from $3,500 to $350,000 per acre. In New Zealand, in 2002,
the resort town of Queenstown is now one of the most expensive, if not the
most expensive, areas for residential property while property prices in
holiday regions such as the Coromandel peninsular have shown rates of
growth that are much faster than average. It is easy to find such examples
throughout the world. On the other hand, it must be recognised that property prices within communities can rise because of any influx of outside
demand, and not simply because of tourism. For example, the building of
the Honda Accord plant at Marysville in Ohio in the 1980s, or the Toyota
plant outside Derby in the United Kingdom, led to increases in house prices
in what were formally rural or dormitory areas. Thus, once again in Sessas
(1988) terminology, what may be seen as a tourism impact is in fact a facet of
the process of establishing urban poles.
As well as the physical changes created by tourism, the sense of community may also change. Some villages may be characterised by an absent
population; the village is full only during the season. Younger local people
leave to seek areas where they can buy cheaper houses. The withdrawal of
such people leaves an older population. Local schools may have falling
numbers of pupils, and are thus forced to close. Other village services are
also threatened including general stores, post offices, medical services and
the like. Slowly, the support structures of rural life may be undermined, and
the businesses that may arrive cater for tourists and not for the local people.
On the other hand, the purchase of holiday homes in certain areas may help
to stop declining property prices that slowly undermine the wealth of families, and hence inhibit their capacity to move to other areas that do offer
employment in other than a declining agricultural industry. If the homes
that are being purchased become permanently occupied, then the retreat of
population from the rural areas is, if not totally reversed, at least slowed. It
may indeed become possible to keep schools open on the basis of existing
populations and potential future births. However, the newcomers may
have several different social impacts. In the case of movement to different
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countries, as has occurred with the influx of northern Europeans to the

Mediterranean, newcomers may not know the language, and hence much
depends on their willingness to learn it, and the tolerance of the local
community towards such efforts. Secondly, the newcomers have been
drawn to the area because of its special qualities of peace and quiet; theirs is
a retreat from the urban pattern of life. Newcomers might become a force
for the retention of the status quo, once they have found their niche within
it. Thus, they become a group that seeks to protect the environment and
possibly the culture that they have entered into, but in doing so they seek
possibly to hinder the evolution of a society.
In the assessment of the culture and society of developing areas, there
needs to be an awareness of what Walter (1982) would characterise as a
romantic ideal. Whilst it may seem to the urban citizen of an advanced
economy that the peasants of a developing region do in fact possess riches
of a spiritual sort, in that, for example, their way of life is more natural,
such a viewpoint overlooks the harshness of that way of life. Thus the
motivation of the subsistence farmer turned hotel keeper, catering for the
tourist who comes to enjoy the sunshine, is easily understood and difficult
to criticise, for to criticise such an action is to deny the aspirations for
advancement not only of the farmer himself, but of his family and children.
Tourism and Crime

One aspect of tourism that has attracted attention is the hypothesis that
tourism generates crime. Mathieson and Wall (1982: 150) surveyed existing
literature on the relationship between crime and tourism, and noted that
The literature on crime as an externality of tourist development is not
large, but most is empirically based. McPheters and Stronge (1974) and
Pizam (1978) indicate a positive correlation between tourism and crime in
studies of Florida. Certainly many residents perceive a link between tourism
and crime, for it seems to them that, as tourism increases, so too does crime
(Rothman, 1978; Milman & Pizam, 1988; Lawson et al., 1998). In their study
of Miami, McPheters and Stronge (1978) note the relationship between
increases in crime and the tourist season. Pizam and Pokela (1985) indicate
that residents are highly aware of links between the sexualisation of their
community and drugs and organised crime due to a legalisation of gambling in an attempt to attract tourists. Certainly, in terms of Mediterranean
reports, there is almost a folklore about young men on scooters stealing
handbags from the shoulders of tourists, whilst in Paris the pickpockets
flourish during the tourist season. Mathieson and Wall (1982) comment:
In summary, it appears that tourism contributes to an increase in crime,
especially on a seasonal basis. It does this through the generation of
friction between the host population and tourists which may be mani-
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fest in criminal activities. In addition, the target for criminals is

expanded and situations are created where gains from crime may be
high and the likelihood of detection small. (Mathieson & Wall, 1982: 151)
Prideaux (1996) locates these types of interactions between resident
community and tourists within two parameters: the destination lifecycle
and the nature of the resort. He argues that, as destinations grow, so too
does an ambience that makes it easier for crime to develop. As Ryan (1993)
argues, tourism destinations are characterised by large movements of
temporary residents, which makes it more difficult for the policing authorities to observe out-of-the-ordinary actions. However, Prideaux adds the
other component: the nature of the resort. He argues that more hedonistic
resorts, when compared to equally mature but more family-oriented ones,
tend to have higher levels of crime. To support his contention, Prideaux
provides differential crime statistics for the Queenland resorts of the Gold
Coast and Sunshine Coast; the former being defined a hedonistic resort
and the latter a family resort. There is certainly evidence that resort destinations that are characterised by bars, discos and clubs attract high levels of
petty crime associated with drunkenness, and more serious crimes associated with drug taking. In June 2002 leisuretourism.com reported that Ayai
Napa in Cyprus had reversed its policy on clubs. In the years immediately
prior to that date, the resort had become well known for its dance club scene
and club culture. However clubbers were not only getting drunk, they
were also attracting sellers of the drug, ecstasy. The mayor, Barbara
Pericleous, therefore announced measures that included the banning of
pub crawls, a strict enforcement of bar and club licensing hours, the
deployment of undercover police to identify drug dealers, and the closure
of clubs that flouted noise regulations and/or failed to take measures to
combat drug dealing. In its place, the mayor was reported as wanting to
attract nice people and young families.
What this case tends to illustrate is a possible new theme in the intervening years since Mathieson and Wall (1982) undertook their study;
namely the victim is not always the tourist. For several years since the 1980s
the trade and daily press of Europe has been reporting that tourists may be
the aggressors as well as the victims. For example, on 4 July 1989 the
Independent newspaper reported that:
The British package holiday subtly dominated the news at the
weekend. There were fresh scenes of congestion at airports ... and from
Majorca came reports of five Britons remanded in custody after the
death of a taxi driver. (cited in Ryan, 1991a: 159)
Throughout 1988 and 1989, drunken behaviour by holidaymakers on
aircraft and at Spanish destinations led to officials of the Association of
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British Travel Agents (ABTA) meeting with representatives of the Spanish

government to discuss means of handling the issue. In the summer of 1988,
a British government minister, Tim Eggar, flew to Spain to discuss the
problem further, but seemingly with little effect, as the same stories of
violence were to be heard the following year. In 1989 the Spanish authorities reinforced the police force at the main resorts, not to protect the tourists
from the Spanish so much as to protect the tourists against their own drunkenness, and to avert, if possible, worse cases of violence. The stories have
continued with each passing year, as is easily confirmed by a search of the
Internet. Two examples of writers observations on different websites illustrate this, the first relating to an ecovillage in Ibiza and the second to a
review of Amsterdam night life.
Ibiza is an island of excess. The annual tourist invasion strains the
island in many ways: Hooligan behaviour strains the nerves of the
locals, drunk tourists clog the inadequate roadways, and the enormous,
high-priced resorts cater to those who decadently waste water that, in
summer, is in short supply. (http://www.personalchoices.org/004,
June 2000)
54 corpses were fished out of the canals of Amsterdam last year. While
about half of them were later determined to have been locals mostly
junkies and bums the rest were drunk tourists who fell in and
drowned while pissing. (www.pavementmagazine.com, June 2002)
A problem that has also emerged is air rage when drunk passengers by
their actions not only threaten the well being of cabin staff but also place in
jeopardy the whole of the aircraft. In January 1999 the BBC (BBC, 1999)
reported that 50 incidents took place at Manchester Airport in 1998, and a
Disruptive Passenger Protocol is now enforced by police, airport and airline
staff. Airline companies around the world have sought a clarification of law
relating to jurisdiction, and generally it would appear that the defendant
would be answerable in a court of the home base of the airline concerned.
The variables that are significant in these situations appear to be:
(1) tourists whose cultural norms include:
(a) peer group cohesiveness,
(b) intolerance of those outside their group,
(c) values that justify behaviour patterns that include excessive
drinking, indulgence in violence and casual sex where possible;
(2) perceived freedom from normal constraints;
(3) expectation of a good time that conforms with their norms. Such
expectations are shaped by:
(a) perceived images of holiday destinations and companies shaped
by past experience, stories and media activity e.g. publications
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such as Beach Party: The Last Resort (Benny Dorm (pseudonym),

1988), which confirms derogatory stereotyping and activities
such as happy hours (where drinks are sold half-price) and pub
crawls organised by couriers,
(b) belief that they can impose their own values on the host community
and other tourists;
(4) holiday destinations that are not foreign i.e. the general milieu is in
fact a familiar one to this type of tourist, and is primarily one of pubs,
clubs and discos.
Studies relating to football hooliganism may be pertinent to such
behaviour and, if this is the case, the stereotypes of young, low-income and
uneducated groups of men would not be totally valid as a description or
explanation of this phenomenon (Chittenden, 1989). If this type of crime is
to be understood, reference has to be made to sets of norms, values and
ethics that generate a predisposition to violent action. Ryan and Robertson
(1997), from a study of students, argue that much drunken and hooligan
tourist behaviour is a part of adolescence and in essence the holiday simply
offers a transfer of venue for behaviour that is not uncommon every
Saturday night in many city centres. Ryan and Robertson also undertook a
cluster analysis that showed that much of the bad behaviour emanated
from just 16% of the sample, who were continually over-represented in
figures relating to drug taking, hangovers, vomiting, unprotected sex and
the like. The issue might be that some resorts, such as Ibiza or Ayia Napa,
because of their reputation for the club scene and hedonistic life style, tend
to attract higher concentrations of such people.
It should not be thought that such behaviour is restricted to young
adults. Wickens (1997) records the exploits of thrill-seeking adult females.
However, a combination of less-public displays of hedonistic behaviour
with higher income, and that these women are able to indulge in such
behaviours in locations where they are less likely to be picked up by the
police, mean their cases feature less in court proceedings.
Tourist crime may take many different forms. Hamilton (1988) reports
the case in which customs officers at Bristol Airport detained a holidaymaker returning from Ibiza with a suitcase of 500 Ibiza wall lizards. An
endangered species, the lizards were valued at 30 each. Arguably, this is
not tourism crime per se in that the motivation had presumably little to do
with holidays, but it nonetheless indicates the opportunities that easier
travel related to tourism brings.
There is one other aspect of crime that has received little attention from
researchers, and that is exploitation by corporations. Indeed, within
Doxeys Irridex (1975), it might be argued that one factor that generates
antagonistic attitudes towards tourism is the feeling of exploitation that
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members of the host society might feel. Hoosie (1990) reports that a government history of the building of Cancun, the Mexican tourist resort, relates
how a Mexican lawyer disguised himself as a local landowner with a casual
interest in buying land in Cancun. Consequently the tourist agencies were
able to buy the land at extremely low prices. In 1984, 50 acres of land at
Huatulco were purchased for approximately $US3000; by 1989 the value of
the same land was estimated as being about $US3.5 to 4 million. By that
year, Cancun attracted more than a million visitors and earned about
$US0.6 billion from tourism. The original landowners received little of this
money. However, Hoosie (1990) also reported that the lessons had been
learnt, and Fonatur, the Mexican tourist agency, was taken to court by the
former residents of Huatulco seeking compensation for low land prices.
However, in 2001 Weiner was repeating the same charges, citing the case of
Xcacel (pronounced Shkah-SELL), a beach 67 miles south of Cancun, which
is one of the worlds last sanctuaries for green and loggerhead sea turtles,
both endangered species. In 1998 a Spanish hotel company, Sol Melia,
purchased the beach in a deal brokered by Mario Villanueva, who was then
governor of Quintana Roo and yet, in 2001, was a fugitive, having been
charged with protecting cocaine traders. Environmentalists sued to stop
the companys plans for a 1400-room hotel next to the turtle sanctuary and
called on the government to ban the development. In July 2001 the Environment Ministry, after a major campaign by NGOs and conservation groups,
reversed its earlier decision and banned the development of the beach. This
case illustrates how the already complex issues of tourism environmental
planning and the need to meet the needs of many stakeholders can become
yet even more confused when corruption and crime syndicates are part of
the political and social fabrics of resident cultures. In such instances both
corporates and residents can become embroiled in what can only be
described as messy and unsatisfactory relationships.
Tourism is not only a cause of crime, but is a victim of criminal actions.
Ryan (1991b, 1993) provides examples and a model of the crime/tourism
relationship. He notes examples where tourism has attracted the attention
of terrorist-criminal organisations who seek publicity for their aims, and in
some cases require cover for money laundering or for acquisition of money
through attacks, drug smuggling, and the like. For example, the Basque
movement, ETA, has bombed tourist sites on a number of occasions since
the 1980s and did so again on June 2002. While, for the most part the objective has not been to injure tourists, the media coverage gained during
periods of peak holiday demand helps publicise ETAs demands. In the
case of the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement in the 1980s in Peru,
tourist targets were more explicitly attacked as a means of undermining the
government, stopping tourism policies that offered alternative employment and income to cocaine-growing in rural areas (which both funded
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arms purchases and caused social ills in the USA), and killing representatives of capitalist structures. It was therefore of little surprise to find that
overseas visitor numbers declined from 300,000 to 30,000 in this decade.
Tourism and Prostitution

One subject that has attracted some attention from researchers is the relationship between tourism and prostitution. Thre are a number of reasons
for this, including a sense of moral outrage, the international adoption of
conventions against the trafficking of women and the commercial sexual
exploitation of children, and the growth of feminist literature. The result
has been that what was once regarded as a comparatively homogenous
phenomenon of tourist patronage of prostitutes is now regarded in a multiplicity of ways. To state a number of truisms, first there is general repugnance that children should be sexually exploited for any reason, much less
simply commercial reasons. Second the trafficking of female labour for any
purpose, not simply for purposes of prostitution, is universally condemned. Third, the link between tourism and prostitution is well established. For example, within European cities such as Hamburg and
Amsterdam the brothels have long been a tourist attraction, and the streets
are often thronged by curious tourists who wish to see the girls.
However, the period since 1990 has seen an ever-more complex set of
explanations and analyses emerging. The first period of research was
broadly initiated by Christian groups in areas such as the Philippines and
Thailand in a series of conferences in Penang (1974), Manila (1980), Chiang
Mai (1984), Bad Boll (1988) and London (1989). It was noted that, while tour
operators and agents in the tourist-generating countries showed varying
degrees of openness about the nature of some of the bars in places such as
Patpong, within the hotels of Bangkok itself literature was easily available
for any interested tourist (Wyer et al., 1988). Christian groups such as Asian
Women United, a Protestant group, researched tourism in South East Asia,
and arrived at high estimates of the number of women working in prostitution and in related activities such as masseuses and bar hostesses. Breen
(1988) reported a finding that the number of prostitutes in South Korea may
be between 600,000 and 1,000,000 in a country of 41 million; whilst one
report (OGrady, 1981) estimated that in 1985 there were approximately
500,000 prostitutes in Thailand. It is also thought that there may be as many
as 100,000 hospitality girls in Manila. Most of these estimates date from
the early 1980s, fuelled in part by speculation about the possible consequences of AIDS.
By 2002, however, some authorities were questioning the nature of the
link with tourism, and the actual numbers of those involved in tourism.
Aramberri (2000) in particular has questioned the unaccepting estimates
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of numbers of prostitutes and has argued that the economic impact of sex
tourism on economies like that of Thailand has been significantly overestimated. He suggests that sex tourism accounts for little more than 1% of
GNP. Beddoe, Hall and Ryan (2001) report the difficulties of obtaining
statistics on this issue. But, while agreeing that figures may have been overestimated, they nonetheless continue to maintain that the problem is significant and characterised by high degrees of corruption. Indeed Ryan and
Hall (2001) specifically state that the trafficking of women is simply evil.
Yet the same authors have also supported the perspective that prostitution
should be decriminalised. How can such seemingly incompatible views be
sustained?
What has become evident is that tourism is not the sole cause of these
wrongs. Prostitution, the trafficking of women and the abuse of children
are embedded in a framework of values and social structures within the
respective societies involved. These structures are ones of unequal power
and income, and a combination of corruption, poverty and an unwillingness to face the issue that women and children are seen as inferior all lead
to a denial of human rights to women and children. From this perspective
the commercial sexual exploitation of women, men and children is but part
of wider problem that is also evidenced by child labour in other industries
and the slavery of women for domestic and industrial work. The evidence
of such practices is mounting, and as Brown (2000) clearly shows, the worst
areas are not those patronised by tourists but are those used by local male
populations, particularly in countries like Pakistan. Fundamentalist Islamic
and Buddhist attitudes toward women have been identified by some
commentators as creating a pervasive culture that at worst condones some
of the practices, or does not wish them to be made public as they are shameful (e.g. see Truong, 1990; Hill, 1993; Brown, 2000). In the case of the exploitation of children for commercial sexual purposes, Ryan, Hall and Beddoe
(2002), as part of a report for the World Tourism Organisation, were
required to analyse the situation within developed countries. It was
suggested that a framework for understanding the situation specific to the
commercial exploitation of children was provided by the diagram illustrated in Figure 9.5.
In short, simply trying to isolate such practices from the wider framework would, it is argued, prove ineffective. Government and nongovernment agencies are increasingly accepting the need to work with
bodies such as Sex Workers Collectives, who generally resist the notion that
sex workers are simply victims. This is a view being expressed not simply
by those collectives that exist in countries such as the UK or the USA, but
also in what might be regarded as developing countries (e.g. see Kempadoo
& Doezema, 1998; and Kempadoo, 1999). The legal position of the members
of such collectives is important in that they can claim full human rights
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under various legislation and international conventions. This is one reason

why the claims for decriminalisation have been growing.
The reason why prostitution has become so closely associated with
tourism is evident. There is the historical heritage of the effects of the
Vietnam War, and further evidence from many other parts of the world. In
South-East Asia, it would appear that in places such as Thailand prostitution
had always existed on a larger scale than in Western European countries.
Indeed, the concept of the courtesan, as evidenced by the original tradition
of the kisaeng and geisha, as cultured young ladies who provided musical
entertainment, allocated to such girls a respected place in their societies.
However, the impetus of the wars in Korea and Vietnam in the 1950s and
1960s with first French and then American involvement reinvigorated the
tradition through the provision of R & R (Rest and Recreation) facilities for
the armed forces away from the battlefield. The contrast between the
wealth of the foreigner and the poverty of the girls also generated a series of
misconceptions and hopes amongst the prostitutes. Cohen (1982b) reports
the motivations of the girls as including the hope of meeting a foreigner,
Sex
workers
collectives
Commercial
sex tourism
Legislative and
jurisprudence
systems
Role of law
enforcement
agencies
Social support systems

and agencies relating
to child abuse
Commercial
child sex
Other social support
systems relating to
poverty, education, etc
Political and
power systems
Figure 9.5 Interested groups involved in commercial child sex exploitation.
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getting married, and then emigrating to an affluent Western society.

However, the essential reasons for the girls entering into prostitution are in
many ways no different in type (although possibly different in degree),
from that of their European and American counterparts. The main reason is
poverty, particularly the poverty of the rural areas from which many of
the girls come. In addition, there is the need for women to maintain their
children after desertion by their husbands. In this respect there is a
cultural difference between Europe and many parts of Asia, in that such
women, and indeed widows, are seen as no longer being eligible for
marriage (Jones, 1986). With no social welfare benefit system, and if the
women possess no marketable skills for use in commerce and industry,
prostitution may well seem to be the only means of supporting their
families. In addition, the demonstration effect, whereby only those girls
who are working in the bars appear to have money, will also reduce their
opposition to such activities. Indeed, as Cohen (1982b) comments, the
peer group of fellow prostitutes may be the only support group that these
girls possess.
Whilst there is a growing literature on the relationship between tourism
and prostitution in South-East Asia, some of which is speculative, there was
relatively little research into the subject in developed countries such as
Britain, the USA or Australia until the last decade or so of the twentieth
century. In 1991 Ryan (Ryan, 1991a) cited the work of Kinnell (1989), to
tentatively suggest that the relationship between tourism and prostitution
was generally weak. In work funded by the Birmingham Health Authority
in the UK, Kinnell stated:
It is evident that prostitution in Birmingham is not a service industry to
visitors from outside the region who seek commercial sex because they
are away from home, or as a form of tourist entertainment. Approximately 60% of clients in both data sets lived in the City of Birmingham,
and 8395% within the West Midlands Regional Health Authority
boundaries. (cited by Ryan, 1991: 162)
However, whether or not because of the emergence of more liberal attitudes, more research or simply a growth of the phenomenon to new groups
of clients (including women), these conclusions might now be questioned.
In countries such as Australia, where legalisation has occurred, there is
evidence that specific areas are successful in attracting clients. In some
cities, such as Auckland in New Zealand, it has become evident that a
process of licensing massage parlours has created a more open situation,
and a de facto openness about sex work was, at the time of writing, being
considered by New Zealand legislators in a bill to decriminalise sex work.
This bill, at the time of the first reading, had overwhelming support in
Parliament.
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One factor that has emerged is what might be termed a liberal feminist
perspective on sex work. As with many attitudes, a continuum of views
may be discerned. At one extreme is a view that sex work is not simply an
economically gainful form of employment, but is in fact a liberating force
for some women, who nurture both their own sexuality and a sense of
masculinity (see for example the work of Kruhse MountBurton, 1995, 1996).
For many commentators however, a more pragmatic perspective is that sex
work provides financial security for many women who would otherwise
face severe financial difficulties when seeking to support families. While
not a choice of work for all, it is a perfectly logical decision for many caught
in low-income situations. It is at this stage that the argument for
decriminalisation occurs. Decriminalisation permits sex workers to enjoy
full human rights. They are not doubly penalised for poverty by being
declared criminals, a situation often made all the worse by a tendency to
take legal action against the generally female sex worker but not against the
male client. Additionally, if sex work is decriminalised, it permits easier
and open access to medical support facilities, and arguably creates an open
situation that makes more difficult the exploitation of those under the age
of consent.
It has also become increasingly evident that the predatory tourist
seeking sexual pleasures is not always male. As early as 1988, Yamba
claimed that the largest group of Africans in Sweden consisted of 1500
Gambian boys imported into Sweden by mature Swedish women who
befriended them on holiday. As the Gambian culture tends to disapprove of
sexual relations between males and older women, the boys tend to tire of
their older girlfriends and seek relationships with girls of their own age.
Yamba argues that the result is often that the boys are then thrown out onto
the streets (Yamba, 1988). Subsequent work in the Caribbean among beach
boys revealed the rent a dreadlock syndrome and the practice of North
American and (increasingly) European females of holidaying in the area for
purposes of engaging in sexual liaisons. The term romance tourism was
coined to describe sexual relationships where payments were made, not by
the hour, but in terms of favours and gifts, and where often both males and
females would return over a number of years (e.g. see Pruitt & LaFont, 1995;
Kempadoo, 1999). In some cultures it appears that males have an expectation that European females who holiday alone or in all-female groups are
seeking sex and complex patterns of relationships and motives are
exhibited. Cohen (1971) and Bowman (1988) recount how young Palestinian
shopkeepers in East Jerusalem gossip about bargaining with wealthy European and American women for sexual favours, and then, in order to establish the required male supremacy after receiving payment, will abuse them.
Within Athens, professional playboys, the kamakia (or harpoons) earn
money from commissions paid by owners of discos, bars, restaurants and
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tourist shops for taking female tourists to these outlets. On Rhodes, in 1989,
the kamakia formed an association whereby their members carry a card
showing a negative AIDS test result; this card also entitles the holder to
discounts at local cafes, bars, restaurants and discos.
It can be concluded from this short review that the relationship between
prostitution and tourism is complex, and academically the analysis has
been evolving from a simple perception that prostitution is criminal in
purpose and therefore to be treated as a subset of the crime/tourism relationship. Nonetheless, in Prideauxs (1996) terminology, it can be perceived
as part of the hedonistic tourism phenonomenon. In a sense this echoes the
earlier assertion listed by Mathieson and Wall (1982: 149) that the processes
of tourism have created locations and environments which attract prostitutes and their clients, whilst in addition the hedonistic nature of the
holiday might also have a role to play. It can be noted that sex has for long
been the fourth s (the others being sun, sea and sand) and sex from a
romantic viewpoint has often been utilised in the selling of the holiday
product. Equally, the promise, or potential, of sex in a more explicit manner
is not unknown in the promotion of holiday products. Nor has it always
been the tourist who has been the seeker of sexual pleasure. Another of the
stereotypes of the Mediterranean has been that of the Latin lover. From
the research that has been undertaken it appears that the practice of prostitution differs in different areas with reference to such factors as:
(1) whether it is locals or people coming from outside the tourist zone
who provide the service,
(2) whether it is a service being provided for the indigenous population
within a tourist zone with some tourist participation, or
(3) whether it is primarily aimed at tourists.
Equally, not all prostitutes are drawn from poor backgrounds. In the case of
the cool mimos of Nairobi, it appears that several are drawn from women
with university backgrounds, although a motivation is to obtain money to
help finance their studies. If, therefore, there is no consistent impact related
to tourism on such practices, it might be argued that there is nothing
inherent in tourism per se to cause the problem, but rather that tourism
might simply confirm patterns that already exist. Equally, the very flows of
tourism to some areas have helped to draw attention to the problem, and
may cause counter-measures to be taken against prostitution or, as in the
German and Dutch cases, cause it to be regulated.
Conclusions
In looking at the potential impacts of tourism it would appear that a
number of variables are important. These include:
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(1) the numbers of tourists;

(2) the types of tourists and exhibited behaviours;
(3) the stage of the destination lifecycle reached and tourist development
that has taken place;
(4) the differential in economic development between tourist-generating
and tourist-receiving zones;
(5) the difference in cultural norms between tourist-generating and
tourist- receiving zones;
(6) the physical size of the area, which affects the densities of the tourist
population;
(7) the extent to which tourism is serviced by an immigrant worker
population;
(8) the degree to which incoming tourists purchase properties;
(9) the degree to which local people retain ownership of properties and
tourist facilities;
(10) the attitudes of government bodies;
(11) the beliefs of host communities, and the strength of those beliefs;
(12) the role of intermediaries, and the degree to which those intermediaries identify with tourists or residents;
(13) the degree of exposure to other forces of technological, social and
economic change;
(14) the policies adopted with regard to tourist dispersal;
(15) the marketing of the tourist destination and the images that are created
of that destination;
(16) the homogeneity of the host society;
(17) the accessibility to the tourist destination;
(18) the original strength of artistic and folkloric practices, and the nature
of those traditions;
(19) the current power structures and political processes; and
(20) the equality or inequality of income existing within the resident
population;
(21) the degrees of economic and cultural difference between residents and
visitors.
It is possible for societies to retain patterns of life that are different from
those of visitors. In this respect the Amish and traditional Mennonite
communities of the USA and Canada are examples where communities,
bound by a strong sense of commonality and purpose, are able to sustain
their lifestyles in the very midst of what might be termed mainstream
North American cultures. Equally, the Navajo Indians have been able to
reassert their lifestyles to the degree that they wish, albeit the discovery of
raw materials on their reservations has helped the establishment of
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323
economic stability (even though the long-term questions have yet to be

answered).
Cultures change because the environment within which the culture
exists changes an environment that is both physical and social. Many of
the cultures studied exhibit processes of change independent of those
thought to be associated with tourism, and tourism is but one means by
which acculturation (borrowing from one culture by another) occurs.
However, where tourism might differ from other sources (such as exposure
to ideas, images portrayed by mass media and business practices) is in the
fact that the source of change is there, physically, in the heart of the host
society. It is this factor that has attracted attention, along with the transitory
nature of many individual relationships. What may be concluded is that,
whilst tourism can be a catalyst for change, the nature of the change cannot
always be predicted if host societies are aware of the potential that tourism
has for such change, particularly if, at an early stage, they seek to make decisions upon the volume and type of tourism they want. If, however, the host
community leaves the development of tourism to outside bodies, in many
cases the models of large resort complexes will emerge with the now alltoo-familiar refrain of societies reacting to changes that are imposed from
without. It is perhaps this factor more than many others that accounts for
the differences in tourism development between such areas as, say, the
Costa del Sol (with its ready access for tourists) and the Maldive Islands
(where tourist flows are restricted to certain islands), or between Nepal
(with its fairly open access to tourists) and Bhutan (where only limited
numbers of tourists are permitted, and then only in groups). If it is said that
the freedoms enjoyed by societies have the price of perpetual vigilance, this
is also true of tourism.
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Chapter 10
Concluding Words
The previous chapters have argued that the essential component of the
tourist product is the tourist experience of a location and its people. In part,
the degree of satisfaction gained from that experience relates to the expectations of the tourist, the degree of reality on which those expectations are
based, the ability of the tourist to adapt to perceived realities, and the nature
of the critical encounters that shape that reality. In a sense, therefore, the
previous chapters have looked at three zones, as illustrated in Figure 10.1.
These three zones are discussed below.
The tourist-generating zone. This is only in part a geographical entity. It
is geographical in the sense that the tourist comes from a place, but that
place is also a network of social and political institutions that shape
patterns of thought. In addition, it is a resource bank that determines
the ability of the tourist to travel.
The tourist receiving zone. Again, whilst this is obviously geographical,
it, too, consists of a network of social and political institutions and
resources that shape the residents attitudes towards tourists. With
reference to its geographical location, it is not simply the tourist destination itself, but the wider framework within which the zone of interaction resides, and upon which it may draw a migrant labour force and
peripheral tourist attractions.
The zone of interaction and interpretation. This is physically the tourist
destination zone but, as previously noted, such zones change both
temporally and spatially. It is the place of interaction between the
tourist and host. It is not simply a geographical entity, but also a
psychological and social one that exists within a geographical space.
The tourist-generating zone is the source of demand, whilst the host
zone creates a set of resources and attitudes on the part of residents within
which the tourist will reside during the holiday period. These tourist inputs
begin to interact with the tourist prior to the tourists arrival, because those
social and physical resources will be the basis of an attitude-formation
process on the part of the tourist that helps to shape the decision to visit.
Obviously, however, the manner in which those resources reach the tourist,
through marketing channels and other media, and the way the tourist interprets the data received, is partially dependent on the functioning of the
tourist-generating zone. As it is, Figure 10.1 simplifies the previous discus-
324
328
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Concluding Words
325
sion in that it is seen from the viewpoint of the tourist. It omits, for example,
the shaping of the hosts perceptions of the tourist and the touristgenerating zone. The tourists themselves are transmitters of information
about the tourist- generating zone, and their behaviours and attitudes will
help shape, in turn, residents perceptions of that zone in both its geographical and social senses. Indeed it goes further, in that tourist demands and
Tourist generating zone
A network of psychological, economic,
social, political and legal frameworks
Demand for tourism
Travel inputs
On the tourist
On the tourist destination
Zone of interaction and interpretation

Impacts
Self perception
through leisure
and recreation
Perception
of places
Economic
Revenues
Tourist
generating
zone
Tourist
receiving
zone
Social
Costs
Positive
Ecological
Positive
Negative
Events/happenings
Social resources Cultural resources

Based on norms
Urban
Rural
Environmental resources
Zone of interaction and interpretation

Host zone
Supply of the tourism resource
A network of psychological, economic,
social, political and legal frameworks
Figure 10.1 Tourism: An overall view
329
10 April 2003 11:32:40
Negative

326
behaviours also help shape residents own understanding of what constitutes the tourist-receiving zone or space. Nonetheless the diagram reinforces the primacy of the zone of interaction and interpretation that is the
essence of the tourism product. It also presents the vulnerability of
tourism to future mega-trends that may be pessimistic in nature. The deterioration of the globes natural environment may mean a decrease in our
material standard of living and, in reaction to this, leisure policies may
become guided more by responses to environmental, social and economic
reforms than simply by a demand for touristic opportunity. Within this
framework, the psychological framework may change in terms of the location of recreation and the role of the holiday within leisure. On the other
hand, concern with environmental, stress-free living patterns may place
leisure and holiday activities within a framework of stress-avoidance
techniques that is, the avoidance of both personal and environmental
stress.
Schwaninger (1984, 1989) argues that the following trends are both
apparent and long term:
(1) further increasing differentiation and pluralisation of demand;
(2) emergence of new specialised markets and market segments;
(3) decrease of physically and culturally passive forms of vacation in
favour of more active pastimes; and
(4) a shift towards maximising individual liberty in recombining elements
for custom-made holiday packages (modular product design).
Further, Schwaniger (1984, 1989) argues that the need for the nonstandardisation of services arises from:
(1) the quest for self-determination and do-it-yourself;
(2) the advanced level of travel experience in the population that leads to
a more critical and quality-orientated approach, as well as a growing
sophistication and rationality of choice;
(3) an increasing desire to relate to nature;
(4) higher levels of environmental consciousness and sensitivity to the
quality of life in general; and
(5) the increasing effort to learn, which often manifests itself in serious
attempts to get to know foreign cultures.
All of these themes have emerged in this book, and it can be argued that
these trends are not solely determined by the presence of economic growth,
and thus could resist a downturn in the economic environment. Yet they all
point to the growing importance of societal marketing within the tourism
industry. Greater segmentation of markets allied with the increasing
sophistication of databases must mean that such marketing will play a
greater role in the future of tourism.
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Concluding Words
327
However, since 1991 there are signs that some of the assumptions
implicit in Schwaningers list must be re-examined. For much of the 1980s
and 1990s, tourism academics seem to have assumed that the general
public shared their concerns about environmental issues, and it is certainly
true that such issues have been to the forefront of public discussion. But the
reality might be that there exists neither a political will nor a public willingness to change patterns of life, and that the much-vaunted ecotourism and
cultural tourism movements are simply commodifications wherein tourists justify their explorations in terms of assuaging guilt rather than a
serious concern about environmental issues. In short, to revert back to
Rivers writing in 1974, there is a crisis in mobility (Rivers, 1974a, 1974b).
The changing attitudes towards environmental issues are well expressed in
the reluctance by some nations to fully adopt the Kyoto Convention, and
there are criticisms that tourism has not just failed to deliver a more understanding world, but is part of the problem. In 2002 Die Arbeitsgemeinschaft
fr Nachhaltige TourismusEnwicklung (DANTE), a Pan-European network
of organisations suggested that tourism had failed in fulfilling ten principles
(see http://www.tourism-watch.de/dt/21.dante/content.html). These
principles relate to poverty and social justice, sustainable mobility,
biodiversity, water conservation, social justice and human rights. Yet one
interpretation of these failings is that no one should travel, and the issue is
whether that in turn would not exact a cost of its own. Such criticisms of
tourism are in part a criticism of the capitalistic structures and processes of
globalisation, and demonstrations against globalisation at World Trade
Organisations have revealed the depth of feeling. Yet perhaps these demonstrations are reflective of an increasing desperation on the part of those who
demonstrate. For the actual behaviour of the silent majority simply
demonstrates that people still wish to have their jet travel, their luxury
hotels and their visits to natural settings under conditions that show the
sights.
Finally, it must be noted that, if the nature of the tourism product is an
experience of place at a particular time, with either different groups of
people or alone, then any study of tourism is bound within a psychological,
geographical and cultural milieu. The role of mood in the shaping of the
perception of the tourist experience is important (Pearce, 1988; Yardley,
1990). The complexity of the tourist experience becomes increasingly
apparent to researchers. Whilst Cohen (1979a, 1979b, 1979c) discussed the
concept of authenticity in terms of a gap between perceived and objective
authenticity, Pearce (1988), in his work, The Ulysses Factor, discussed a ninestage model of authenticity. Today the emphasis is on experiential authenticity (Wang, 2000). In marketing terms the market has moved from
market segmentation to individualism where each product makes a
promise and the individual tourist selects what he or she wants from a
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328
range of potential experiences. The package holiday still exists, but is

repackaged to meet individual need. Tourism represents a tension
between the consumerism and hedonism of a society used to economic
progress and the costs of that progress in terms of environmental impact
and power inequalities. For optimists the missing item in this scenario,
technological change, represents a means by which this tension will be
solved. Transport will become more fuel-efficient, alternative sources of
power such as wind and solar power are becoming more economical, and
the dire forecasts of the Club of Rome about world famine have not been
fulfilled. For the pessimists, the technological answers are part of the
problem. Genetic modification is to be feared, a world linked by the
Internet is a world of both surveillance and the immediate gratification of
base wants, and higher needs of a simple nature are perceived to be
replaced by empty gloss and advertising hype. Tourism, as a social
phenomenon reflects all of these tensions. It can offer the life-changing
cathartic moment, and the drunken hedonism of the moment. From a
purely academic perspective it is these tensions and aspects that create a
rich subject for research and analysis. For those concerned with the future
of the world, if offers both hope and dismay. What may be stated with any
degree of certainty is that it is the nature of the human condition that such
tensions will continue, even as the expressions of those tensions change.
332
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Index
Acceptable change, level of, 83, 255
Accessibility, importance of, 19, 257-258,
261-262
Accommodation, role of in demand
formation, 36-37, 93
Agenda 21, 232
Air pollution, 224-225
Airlines, air transport, See Transport
technologies
Allocentrics, 80-82, 85
Architecture, 300-302
Aristocratic travel, See Grand Tour
Attitude measurement, 89-91, 284
Authentic, authenticity (role of), 9, 20-22,
95-97, 115-119, 292
Backpackers, 83
Balance of payments, 189-191
Banff Valley, 287
Beaches, Blue Flag scheme, 223-224
Benefits of tourism,
ecological, 204-208
economic, 146-150, 161
Canmore, community tourism, 287
Career paths, 173
Car parks, 260
Carrying capacity, measurement, 238, 246
Chaos theory applied to tourism, 12
Classical Greece and tourism, 1-2
Classical Rome and tourism, 2
Clothing (as souvenirs), 297-298, 303-304
Collingwood impact study, 235-236
Communities, importance of, 274-284
Community Forests, 250-251
Compensation hypothesis 56-57
Coney Island, 12-13
Confirmation-disconfirmation paradigm, 89-91
Consumption functions, 29-31, 161-164
Cosmopolitan attitudes, 88
Costa Brava, 292
Costa Rica, 233
Crime, 311-321
Cultural capital, 109-111, 313
Cultural impacts, 268, 294
Cultural tourism, 86, 304-309
Cycling, 13-14
Damage, ecological, 201-204
Definitions of tourism, 23-26
Demand for tourism, economic, 23-49
Demand modelling, 27-38, 48
Demand theory, 27
Demographics, role of, 32, 58, 64-70
Destination,
attributes, 132-134
multiplier values, 177
Destination life cycle, 125-131, 269-276
Dispersion of tourism flows, 244-246
Economic impacts, 148-196
data requirements, 168-169
determinants of, 152-158, 191-193
Econometric approaches, 41-44, 144-145
Eco-tourism, 226-234, 254
Elasticities of demand (income and price),
39-42
Employment, 155, 169-177
and wages, 171-174
Entrepreneurs, role of, 11-12
Environment, natural, impacts, 197-266
management of, 234-236
measurement of, 209-210, 237-239
Events (touristic), 114-118, 167-168, 170
Exchange rates, role of, 37, 38
Expectations, 106-107, 119-121, See also
Confirmation-disconfirmation
Expenditures, classification of 167
modelling, 179-180
Experiences, collection of, 88, 92-121
Experiential capital, 107-111
Flora and fauna, impacts on, 198-200,
215-219
Flow theory, 113-114
Food, 299-300
Foot and mouth, impact of in UK, 289
Footpaths, 259-261
Forecasting,
econometrics, 41-44
time series, 44-46
Forests, recreational resources, 250-251
Fuel costs, role of, 33
Garden Festivals, 158
Gastronomy, 299-300
Gay markets, 67
Gaze, in nature based tourism, 228
Gold Coast, 12
Government, role of, 151, 156
Grand Tour, 3-5, 83
Gravitational modelling, 137-140
Greek Islands, impact on, 288
Green Globe 21 certification, 230-232
357
Index
358
Green tourism, 249-252, 264
Guide books, early, 3, 4
Guests, tourist as, 98-101, 276
Handicrafts, 296
Heritage, 304-309
History of tourism, 1-22
Holiday homes, 15, 263-264, 309-311
Honeypots, 243-244
Hotels, ownership of, impacts of, 154
Illness, 102, 104-105
Image,
and destinations, 132-134, 136
and films, 16, 70, 71, 72, 118
and pseudo image, 21
and romance, 6, 19, 20
and tourist gaze, 71
Impacts of tourism, economic, 148-196
Income, role of, 27-32, 68
Input-output analysis, 180-184
Inuit, 97
Internet, 92-93
Irridex, 274-276, 283, 314
Kelly triads, 136-137
Keynesian economics, 160-173, 194-196
Laker Airways, 17-18
Languages, 298
Learning (by tourists), 101-106
Leisure and tourism, 50-64
Leisure time, trends, 58-59
Maori, 96, 292
Medieval period and tourism, 2-3, 10
Motives for tourism, 3, 61, 73-91
Multipliers,
calculation, values, 158-168
types of, 164
National Parks, 201, 242
management techniques, 254-265
Nature based tourism, 14
Nearest Neighbour Analysis, 140-144
Outdoors and tourism, 14
Outsider, tourist as 111-112, See also Guest
Perception of place, measurement, 136-137
Planning (destinations), 145-147
Pricing, 258
Productivity measures, 174-176
Prostitution, 5, 76, 316-321
Pseudo-image/event, 21, 115, 116, 294
Psychocentrics, 80-82, 85
Push-pull motives, 84-86
Railway, See Transport technologies
Risk, 105-106
Recreational Opportunity Spectrum, 255
Religion, 302-303
Residents,
importance of, 277-278
contact with tourists, 278-279, 285-287
Resorts, 10, 122-147
Responsible tourism, 118
Roles, 22, 86, 94
Romantic perspective, 6-7, 10
Route 66, 16
Rural tourism, 226-227
Satellite accounts, 185-189
Satisfaction, 119-121, See also
Confirmation-disconfirmation
Sea bathing, 10, 13
Seaside resorts, 130-131
Sewage, issues over, 222-224
ServQual, 89-91, 112
Shopping, 78-79
Signposting, 258-259
Social determinants of demand, 50-72, 75
Social impacts, 267-323
Spatial patterns, 103-104, 122-124, See also
Destination life cycle, Gravitational
modelling
Spill-over hypothesis, 57-62
Tairoa Head, 82
Thomas Cook, 8-10
Time, types of, 291
Tourism, definitions of, 23-26
Tourism culture, 280
Tourism-leisure ratios, 50
Tourism Optimisation Management Model
(TOMM), 256
Tourist typologies, 79-83, 86, 157
Trade-off hypothesis, 52-56
Traditions, 299
Transport technologies, 8, 11, 15, 16-17,
34-35, 225
airlines (no frills), 35-36, 60
Tramping, trampling effects, 203, 210-214
Travel costs, role of, 33-36
Uniqueness, measures of, 134-137
Urban forests, 250-252
Urban renewal, 151-152, 253
Victorian Period, 5-13
Visitor Activity Management Process
(VAMP), 256-257
Visitor Impact Management (VIM),
255-256
Wages, wage levels, 171-173
Water, quality of, 219-224
Wilderness, definition, 242
Women,
single holidays, 67
in tourism industry, 293, 295
Work, importance of, 63
Zones,
classifications, 239-242, 247-248
mapping of, 122-124

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

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methods. It is perhaps a weak argument for tourism when (eco-) tourism

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A History of Tourism in the EnglishSpeaking World

The Classical World

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The Period of the Grand Tour

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The Nineteenth Century: From Middle to Working Class

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early nineteenth centuries were a period of rediscovery of the natural as a

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locations of difference. Surrounded by funfair delights, they represented

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motorway building in the United Kingdom, holidaymakers could travel

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month of round-the-clock flights, taught the independents a lot about

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development. The theory of the moving periphery that is, of destinations

Implications and New Directions

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