Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues

The development of tourism is frequently justified on the basis of its potential contribution to the broader socio-economic development of destination areas. Indeed, tourism is generally considered an effective vehicle of development, yet the meaning and objectives of ‘development’, and the extent to which it can be achieved through tourism, is rarely questioned. Moreover, the relationship between tourism and development remains an under-represented area of study and research.

This book addresses this gap in the literature by challenging many of the widelyheld assumptions about tourism’s developmental contribution. In the first part, a theoretical link is established between the discrete yet interconnected disciplines of tourism studies and development studies. More specifically, the meaning of development and successive development paradigms are considered within the context of tourism. This provides a conceptual foundation for the second part of the book, which addresses a number of fundamental issues related to tourism’s potential contribution to development. These include issues of economic development, regional development, socio-cultural development and environmental development. Finally, the third part focuses upon barriers to tourism-induced development, arguing that a new political economy of tourism, the consumption of tourism and the dominance of the sustainable development paradigm represent significant counterpoints to overly simplistic models of tourism’s potential contribution to development.