Impacts Conflict over Place Change

Concerns about unsustainable tourism practices have been a subject of academic inquiry since the earliest days of tourism scholarship. Indeed, it seems that a majority of the papers published in the first editions of Annals of Tourism Research documented adverse social and cultural impacts of tourism. As McKercher and Prideaux (2014: 21) noted: “Wenkman (1975) documented the adverse environmental impacts of tourism on Hawaii. UNESCO (1976) published a literature review of the adverse social consequences of tourism. Rodenburg (1980) condemned large scale tourism in Bali and argued that small, community based tourism is preferred. Farrell (1979) documented adverse host-guest interactions. Jafari (1974) wrote a lengthy article documenting explicitly focusing on the costs, and not benefits of tourism.” Since then, a range of topics has emerged with the sophistication of the research evolving as our understanding of the causes of impacts and possible mitigation strategies have matured. Yet, to a large extent, many of the critical issues remain unresolved, in spite of the emergence of sustainable tourism as a dominant paradigm, as discussed in the next chapter. Hundreds, if not thousands of academic papers have been published examining the impacts of tourism on host communities (Nunkoo, Smith and Ramkissoon, 2013). Deery, Jago and Fredline (2012: 65), though, note that much of this work is derivative, leading them to conclude “research into the social impacts of tourism appears to be in a state of ‘arrested development,’ [where] there is a sense that the advances in understanding the impacts of tourists on host communities is incremental at best, or potentially circular.” The reasons are manifold. Far too much of this research is descriptive in nature, and is typified by a ‘fill in the blank study – Understanding social impacts/community attitudes of tourism in ___________ destination.’ Many papers as well use the same metrics to measure attitudes, and therefore, unsurprisingly, come to the same conclusions. A third issue is that much of this research is of the self-fulfilling prophecy kind, where if one structures the study to look for adverse impacts, they can be found. A fourth and more critical issue is the lack of theoretical basis for most of the research, something identified by Ap (1990) 30 years ago that is still relevant today. This chapter explores some of the challenges in the conceptual discussion of tourism impacts. It begins with quest for theory and then reviews the founda- tional models by Doxey (1975) and Budowski (1976) that framed unsustainable practices within a conflict paradigm. It then looks at such issues as impacts as a function of place change.

Tourism and the Individual

Tourism is a socially selective activity. While we may think that everybody has an opportunity to travel this is clearly not the case. Further, even among those who do travel, social, personal and demographic factors exert a significant effect on both propensity to and intensity of travel. This chapter examines a range of factors that influence tourism propensity and intensity among individuals. It begins with a definition of these terms and them explores barriers to participation, the traditional leisure paradox and how it affects tourism, and finally the role of generational cohort theory and tourism activity.

International Tourism

International tourism is influenced by both small and big ‘P’ politics. Political factors influence who can visit a country and who is not welcome. As Artal-Tur et al. (2015) note, the impact of diplomatic relations on tourism flows is immense. Political relationships influence international air service agreements and through the General Agreement of Trade in Services, controlled by the World Trade Organization (WTO), influence the internationalization of tourism in all areas. To understand international tourism, then, you need a general understanding of the international trade dimensions that guide it and the politics behind some of them.

What is Tourism

Tourism is not absolute. That is what makes it such an exciting field of study on the one hand, and such an exasperating phenomenon to study on the other hand. Life is much easier when things are framed in black-and-white terms: good versus bad; healthy versus unhealthy; left versus right; right versus wrong. Increasingly, as well, people like to have the world presented to them in a simplistic manner where they are faced with apparently easy choices. Life would be easy, if only the world was simple. Yet, in reality the world is a rich tapestry of colours. What on the surface appears to be a simple yes/no choice, in reality becomes a very complex situation when one scratches below the surface. Tourism is no different. We can all come up with absolute examples of what is and what is not tourism and who is and who is not a tourist. Visitors from China who spend five days on a package tour sightseeing and shopping in London are clearly tourists. Their activities and their resultant expenditure are also clearly tourism related. By contrast, if someone goes shopping for groceries in his or her home community, the person is clearly not a tourist. Other absolute categories such as, business travellers, people visiting friends and relatives, special interest tourists, can also be defined. But after that, what constitutes tourism enters a grey area. What if you have a second home and spend every weekend there? Are you a tourist? What if you are studying abroad for 11 months? Are you a tourist? What if you have family living someplace where you grew up and you visit them regularly? Are you a tourist? The answer depends on how tourism and the tourist are defined.

Tourism Planning

In the last few decades of the 20th Century, there was a shift from modernist forms of public administration, where government bureaucracies were given licence to ‘define and act for the public good’ (Dredge and Jamal, 2015: 287), to the current globalist/neoliberal perspective of governance, where governments have downsized bureaucracies and outsourced many functions. The outcome has seen many governments move into an arbiter/enabler role, shifting from public administration to public management. This change significantly influenced think- ing about the role that governments play in planning. The consequence has been that while there is apparent public sector support for development that adheres to the principles of sustainability, the reality is that neoliberal style policy contin- ues to place growth rather than sustainability at the heart of policy formulation. Previous chapters of this book have observed that maintening contemporary systems of economic production and consumption will create a future that will be significantly different from the present. Characteristics of this ‘future’ will include rising sea levels, degraded ecosystems and higher temperatures. Future planning challenges will include responding to the impact of climate change, the depletion of non-renewal resources, ecosystem decline and the need to transition into a new carbon-neutral economy. From a planning context these changes will require rethinking of how tourism planning is undertaken and the objectives that future planning may wish to achieve compared to the current objectives of planning, which are often based on a desire for continuing growth but with a cursory nod to a need for development that is ‘sustainable’. This chapter briefly reviews the role of planning, the relationship between planning and policy, and issues that planning will need to address in the future. Underlying this discussion is the view that a lack of planning, particularly at the strategic level but also at the destination and enterprise level, will result in ad hoc, unregulated, inefficient and reactive responses to calls to supply tourism infrastructure and services.

Tourism as a Complex System

The last chapter examined Butler’s and Plog’s lifecycle models. They suggest that tourism works as a linear, predictable manner, moving logically through a pre-determined lifecycle. While the speed of change may be variable, progression through the stages up to and possibly including decline seems inevitable. These models and the models identified earlier in this book share a number of features in common. They recognize that any tourism system begins with the tourist and that also any system needs some destination features and a linkage between the tourist and the destination. The models all have a number of advantages helping us to understand the constituent parts of tourism and some of the simple linkages between elements. They are also deficient in a number of areas, though, for they do not work in practice. This chapter takes an alternative view to the organization and evolution of tourism by looking at tourism from the perspective of complexity theory. In the last 20 years, complexity theory has made strong inroads into management disciplines, but has only recently gained limited interest in the tourism sector, notably from Rodolfo Baggio (Baggio, 2008; Scott, Baggio and Cooper, 2008; Sainaghi and Baggio, 2017).

The Political Economy of Tourism and Approaches to Forecasting

While there is a vast literature on issues related to political economy, tourism scholars have generally paid little attention to this area of research. This chapter discusses some of the underlying debates related to political economy to provide a window into the fundamental role that economic forces play in the operation, sustainability and profitability of the global tourism system. In the near future, the need to transition to a carbon-neutral production system (see Chapter 15), and the immense difficulties that will be faced in reining in our increasing use of diminishing resources, will generate considerable discussion on the merits of various production systems such as Neoliberalism, socialism, neo-Marxism and post-Keynesian. This chapter also considers a range of models used to forecast tourism activity, a task that is an important element in future tourism investment and planning activities. The current production system is firmly embedded in the market driven capitalist system of economic production and for this reason, the following dis- cussion will focus on capitalism. This chapter provides a neo-Marxist perspective to demonstrate a counter view to the predominate interpretation of capitalism through a neoliberal lens. Degrowth (see Chapter 15) also offers another vision for organizing a future economic system of production. Understanding how we arrived at our system of economic production is important and provides insights into the next stage of economic evolution, which will most likely to be based on a carbon-neutral economic production system. So what is the difference between political economy and economics? Political economy is concerned with the process of production and its impact on national income and wealth, and the conflicts, inequalities and problems that arise in trade, law and government (Bianchi, 2018; Williams, 2004). Scholars generally approach the study of political economy from perspectives that include Liberalism, Keynesianism, Marxism, Socialism and Neoliberalism (and the many sub-branches of these schools). Economics on the other hand is concerned with production, distribution and consumption of goods and services and leaves aside political and social considerations although as Bianchi (2018) observed, the distinction between political economy and economics has become blurred because of the political nature of significant areas of neoliberal thought.

Access and the Spatial Interactions of Tourists

While attractions drive tourism, access, or the ability of visitors to get to and travel within a destination, plays a key role in its success. If tourists cannot get to a destination, then they cannot experience the attractions therein. If they cannot move around the destination easily, their actions will be constrained. Moreover, if access is limited, the ability of the destination to provide viable products is also limited. This chapter examines the role that access plays in tourism.

Why Do People Travel

Understanding why people travel for pleasure has been the focus of tourism research since the earliest days of tourism academia. Iso-Ahola (1983: 50) states “while many questions about recreational travel remain to be raised and answered, perhaps the most fundamental of them all are the ones that deal with motivation.” As Song and Bae (2018) note in their review of the literature, motivation influences destination choice, perceived benefits, satisfaction and on-site experiences. A number of increasingly sophisticated models has been developed over the years that has attempted to develop a comprehensive theory of tourist motives. Initially models were adapted from consumer behaviour literature. Recently, though, tourism specific theories have been developed. The task has been challenging for the underlying reasons to travel are covert, in that they reflect individual’s private needs and wants (Pearce, 2005). As a result, many of the earliest attempts to examine the issue conflated motives with activities pursued and trip purpose (see Lundberg, 1972), while other popular models tended to identify unmet needs as motives, even though they are different (Tasci and Ko, 2017).

Epilogue

This book explored a range of theories, concepts, models and ideas that shape how we think about tourism, the way we do. In doing so, it revealed that tourism is a true multi-discipline. It is informed by such core disciplines as geography, anthropology, sociology, psychology, economics, leisure and demography, as well as by a multitude of other disciplines and fields of study as identified in Chapter 2. Historically, though, tourism studies has been beset by a high degree of silofication – a varied field of study examined strictly within the confines of individual disciplinary silos. Even when attempts have been made to be multi- disciplinary, the results have often been less than satisfactory, for usually one school of thought dominates, while others are placed in subservient roles. Add to this the force field of tourism, and it is not surprising that tourism studies have been labelled as fragmented and disjointed, typified by multiple communities of discourse with historically little cross-fertilization between communities.