ANALYSING THE IMPACT OF TOURISM
One of the major problems facing planners in assessing tourism impacts is the establishment of an appropriate baseline against which to measure the existing and future changes induced by tourism. This is a problem mentioned in scientific studies of Environmental Assessment (EA) which seek to combine different data sources to understand how tourism development affects the environment. EA acknowledges the practical problems of establishing baseline studies and in disaggregating the impact of tourism from other economic activities since it is hard to isolate tourism from other forms of economic development. Mathieson and Wall (1982) highlight the precise nature of the problem since in many tourist destinations it is almost impossible to reconstruct the environment minus the effects induced by tourism.
While it is widely acknowledged that tourism is a major agent affecting the natural and built environments, isolating the precise causes or processes leading to specific impacts is difficult: is tourism the principle agent of change or is it part of a wider process of development in a particular destination? As Mathieson and Wall (1982: 5) argue
tourism may also be a highly visible scapegoat for problems which existed prior to the advent of modern tourism. It certainly is easier to blame tourism than it is to address the conditions of society and the environment.
The complex interactions of tourism with the built and physical environments make it virtually impossible to measure impacts with any degree of precision. Even so, impacts may be large scale and tangible (e.g. where a destination is saturated by visitors) or small scale and intangible.
Further factors complicating the analysis of tourism’s impact are the extent to which the effect of tourism is necessarily continuous in time (i.e. how seasonal is it?) and the geography of tourism (as tourism activity tends to concentrate in certain locations such as destinations where the supply of services and facilities occurs). At this point, one needs to begin to identify specific indicators of tourism impacts chosen to represent the complex interaction of tourism and the destination to guide the impact assessment. Whilst this involves complex methods of analysis which may be aided by GIS and computer modelling, it is clear that impacts are more than just costs and benefits for specific destinations.
One useful starting point in analysing the impact of tourism in a practical context is to establish how to measure visitation levels as a basis for calculating visitor numbers for a destination. Yet one of the ongoing problems with visitor surveys is their value, as they are often undertaken at visitor attractions or based on accommodation occupancy rates as a means to establish the scale of visitors. Their ability to yield a representative sample of visitation at the destination, and thus their reliability, is debatable. Therefore, where visitor information is collected, it needs to be related to other forms of statistical information to establish the volume of tourism.
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An early work by Potter (1978) provided a general framework for impact assessment. This is shown in Figure 12.5where the impacts incorporate environmental, social and economic issues. Potter’s approach has a number of steps, starting with the context of the development and proceeding through making a decision on a particular development that is useful in a planning and management context.
THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF TOURISM
The economic measurement of tourism has a long history in many countries. The study by Ogilvie (1933) , The Tourist Movement, is one of the early attempts to illustrate the significance of outbound tourism’s impact on the national economy. Ogilvie (1933: 135) compiled tourist expenditure by British residents in Europe and outside Europe in the 1920s and early 1930s ( Table 12.2 ) using Ministry of Labour and other official statistics. Ogilvie estimated average expenditure by visitors to show that UK residents spent over £24 million in 1921 using an adjusted Cost of Living Index which rose to over £33 million in 1928 but then dropped due to the stock market crash and subsequent recession. What is interesting from Ogilvie’s study is that he observed a £10– £ 11 million deficit in the 1920s and early 1930s in the balance of UK outbound tourist spending and inbound tourism from other countries. This is one of the most notable studies to make the vital point that tourism is important to the economy of many countries.
Ogilvie’s innovative and landmark study also compiled a number of European sources to develop this point for many of the world’s leading countries in the late 1920s/early 1930s. This not only illustrates the scale of their inbound tourists but also the scale of their outbound markets and the scale of spending, to calculate the impact on national travel accounts as they would later be called. Table 12.3outlines these features for 24 countries and offers further detail for each country. Even in the late 1920s, France was established as the leading inbound destination whilst the USA and UK had a travel deficit, features which still exist today.
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On the basis of this early economic analysis, one can see why tourism is used by many national and local governments as a mechanism to aid the development and regeneration of economies. Politicians and decision-makers see that it offers renewed opportunities for work, income and revenue for the local economy as places are affected by global, national and local economic restructuring. There is a prevailing perception among national and local governments that economic benefits accrue to tourism destinations, which then create employment opportunities and stimulate the development process in resorts and localities. This was shown in Figure 9.1, which depicts the economic development process and how tourism is often used to pump-prime regeneration initiatives in declining areas (e.g. the inner city). For the local population, it is often argued by proponents of tourism development that investment in tourist and recreational facilities provides a positive contribution to the local economy. One very controversial illustration of this can be seen in the debate on the impact of casino development on localities: this is very topical, given the reform of legislation governing the development of casinos in the UK. Taxes levied from gambling generate positive economic benefits for localities in terms of visitor spending and employment, and this is being emphasized by proponents of plans for casino development in Blackpool. In Auckland, New Zealand, a casino constructed in the 1990s acts as the city’s main drawcard. The scale of the impact on the local economy can be gauged from the 12 000 visitors a day it receives, but around 80 per cent of visitors are residents or New Zealanders. Gaming revenue averages NZ$595 000 a day (including goods and service tax at 12.5 per cent) and the operating company employs 2400 people.
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Tourism is not necessarily a stable source of income for destinations because tourists are not noted for their high levels of customer loyalty to tourism destinations. Page and Hall (2002) identify a number of features to support this argument based on urban tourism destinations:
● Tourism is a fickle industry, being highly seasonal, and this has implications for investment and the type of employment created. Tourism employment is often characterized as being low skill, poorly paid and low status, and lacking long-term stability.
● The demand for tourism can easily be influenced by external factors (e.g. political unrest, unusual climatic and environmental conditions) which are beyond the control of destination areas.
● The motivation for tourist travel to urban destinations is complex and variable and constantly changing in the competitive marketplace.
● In economic terms, tourism is price and income elastic, which means that it is easily influenced by small changes to the price of the product and the disposable income of consumers.
● Many cities are becoming alike, a feature described as ‘serial reproduction ’. This means that once an idea for urban economic development is successful in one location, the concept diffuses to other places. The example of waterfront revitalization is a case in point; many projects are similar in structure and character across the world.
Source : Modified from Page and Hall (2003)
Pearce (1989: 192) argued that ‘the objective and detailed evaluation of the economic impact of tourism can be a long and complicated task ’. This is because there is little agreement on what constitutes the tourism industry although it is normally classified in relation to:
● accommodation
● transport
● attractions
●the travel organizers ’ sector (e.g. travel agents)
● the destination organization sector.
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Hospitality and ancillary services are also important. Understanding the economic impact of these disparate sectors of the economy requires a method of analysis that allows us to isolate the flow of income in the local tourism economy. This is notoriously difficult because of attributing the proportion of tourist expenditure on goods and services in relation to the total pattern of expenditure by all users of the destination (e.g. residents, workers and visitors). What we usually need to do is identify the different forms of tourist expenditure and how they affect the local economy. Typically these include:
● the nature of the destination area and its products, facilities and physical characteristics
● the volume and scale of tourist expenditure
● the state of the economic development and economy in the destination
● the size and nature of the local economy (i.e. is it dependent on services or manufacturing or is it a mixed economy?)
● the extent to which tourist expenditure circulates around the local economy and is not spent on ‘imported’ goods and services
● the degree to which the local economy has addressed the problem of seasonality and extends the destination appeal to all year round.
Source : Modified from Page (1995)
On the basis of these factors, it is possible to assess whether the economic impact will be beneficial or have a detrimental effect on the economy. In this respect, it is possible to identify some of the commonly cited economic benefits of tourism:
● the generation of income for the local economy
● the creation of new employment opportunities
● improvements to the structure and balance of economic activities within the locality
● the encouragement of entrepreneurial activity.
In contrast, there is also a range of costs commonly associated with tourism and these include:
● the potential for economic over-dependence on one particular form of activity
●inflationary costs in the local economy as new consumers enter the area, and potential increases in real estate prices as the tourism development cycle commences and tourism competes with other land uses
● depending on the size and nature of the local economy, a growing dependence on imported rather than locally produced goods, services and labour as the development of facilities and infrastructure proceeds
● seasonality in the consumption and production of tourism infrastructure and services leading to limited returns on investment
● leakages of tourism expenditure from the local economy
● additional costs for city authorities.
Source : Modified from Page (1995)
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