Abstract
Tourism involves people taking trips to a place or places outside their home communities for any purpose except daily commuting to and from work. Essentially, tourists are adventurers. And the travel industry would certainly be much smaller if people were not interested in touring—spending leisure time relaxing, sightseeing, and participating in their favorite resort and vacation activities.
A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.—J. B. Priestly
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- 1.
Smith (1995, p. 20) suggests that there is still no universally accepted operational definition of the words tourist or tourism even though both words have been a part of the language since the early 1800s. Also, the World Tourism Organization has grappled with guidelines and definitions. For statistical purposes, we can consider a tourist as a visitor whose visit is for at least one night and whose main purpose of the visit may be classified as (a) leisure and holidays, (b) business and professional, and (c) other tourism purposes. See also National Tourism Policy Study (1978).
- 2.
See Carter and Gilovich (2010).
- 3.
Quoted from Candela and Figini (2012, p. 12).
- 4.
Lundberg (1985, p. 7).
- 5.
Also, in Europe and North America more than 80 % of tourism is domestic, whereas in the Pacific or Asia regions the domestic component tends to be much lower.
- 6.
Taplin (1997) estimates ordinary elasticities of demand for vacation travel and accommodation in Australia. The estimated income elasticity for vacation air trips overseas is 2.1, for overseas hotel use is 2.2, and for domestic hotel use 1.0. Price elasticities of demand for vacation air trips overseas were −1.7, for overseas hotel use −1.28, and for domestic hotel use 0.54.
- 7.
Other classification systems, for example, one developed by SRI International , include additional features such as values and lifestyles (VALS) and are designed to identify different types of consumers and their concerns.
- 8.
Some frequently encountered ratios in tourism studies include:
Average length of stay. L = the total number of nights (N) divided by the number of arrivals (A);
Saturation index, SI = A divided by P, the resident population of the destination region;
Per capita spending, SPC = Tourism expenditure, TE divided by A;
Net propensity to travel, Xn = the number of tourist in the region, T, divided by the totalregional population, P.
- 9.
Melinda Laverty, senior program officer at the American Museum of Natural History, in an October 2005 Columbia University Business School Social Enterprise Conference said “Ecotourism is responsible travel to natural areas that preserves the environment and improves the wellbeing of local people.” The Wall Street Journal of January 28, 2006, says “the term itself means different things to different people. About 75 certification programs now award seals of approval to ecoresorts, though many just put the resorts on the honor system.” Certification groups include Green Globe 21 (greenglobe21.com) and Blue Flag (blueflag.org). There is also the Ecotourism Society (ecotourism.org) and a Global Sustainable Tourism Council.
- 10.
Quotation is from Becker (2013, p. 64–67).
- 11.
Beyond this, Kusler (1991) and Lindberg (1991) have also attempted to categorize ecotourists by type. Kusler’s groupings, as described in (Fennell 1999, p. 56) include do-it-yourselfers, ecotourists on tours, and school or scientific groups. The first category enjoys great flexibility, the second is highly organized, and the third sometimes involves relatively harsh site conditions. Lindberg, however, uses four basic tourist-type categories: hard-core nature, dedicated nature, mainstream nature, and casual nature. See also the Ecotourism Society’s Website at www.ecotourism.org and McLaren (1998), whose insights are valuable but whose conclusion against a capitalist and consumer-oriented economy is plainly misguided.
- 12.
Additional sub-segments would further include educational-related (in Duhs 2013), medical, architectural, shopping, culinary, sports, space (eventually to the moon and beyond), religion, and sex tourism (e.g., in Thailand), which is reviewed in Singh (2014, pp. 134–144). See Beeton (2005) on films, Weed and Bull (2009) on sports, and Fourie et al. (2015) on religion.
- 13.
- 14.
The virtues of virtual reality as related to tourism are covered in Blascovich and Bailenson (2011, pp 221–226).
- 15.
Tour operators, as explained in Candela and Figini (2012, pp. 247–248), use several contract types.
In allotment (or allocation) contracts, tour operators bargain with service providers such ashotels and have a negotiated right in the release back period to return unsold rooms before a deadline. In free sale contracts, there is an immediate purchase of services and commitment to pay. And in commission contracts, none of the parties are bound to terms of dates or availabilities, thereby reducing the tour operator’s risk.
- 16.
See Mathieson and Wall (1982, p. 38).
- 17.
In contrast, demand for tourism services is derived from many different needs and segments, but the commercial implications of addressing each need and segment are, from experience, fairly well understood and can be more readily coordinated.
- 18.
For inbound (export) tourism, Smeral (1994) calculated that income elasticity between 1975 and 1992 averaged around 2.1 for the U.S. and Japan, but was below 1.0 for the U.K. and Germany. Price elasticities over the same period were around −0.4 for the U.S., −0.7 for the U.K., −0.9 for France, and a high −1.7 for Japan. Estimates of income elasticities of outbound (import) tourism for 1978–2008 (in Smeral 2010) were highest for the U.S. at 3.4, for Japan, 3.3, and for 15 countries in the European Union, 2.2. In general, elasticities of tourism imports with respect to changes in relative prices tend to cluster around −1.0. This is also reviewed in Vanhove (2011, Chap. 1).
- 19.
Quotation from Throsby (2001, p. 129).
- 20.
See Throsby (2001, pp. 46 and 84–85). Of course, there are always going to be positive and negative economic externalities that need to be balanced. On the positive side, employment and business opportunities are enhanced by the presence of such attractions, which may have a bequest value for future generations and which confer prestige value to the society in which these are located. But there may also be a downside that comes from excessive pollution, traffic, and crime. Throsby (2001) also introduces contingent valuation methods (CVMs) which attempt to elicit information concerning the minimal level of compensation required by an individual to forgo consumption of a public good or the maximum amount an individual would be willing to pay to obtain a nonmarket amenity. In this regard, see also Van Kooten and Bulte (2000, p. 113). Nicolau (2010) finds that tourists interested in cultural attractions tend to be less sensitive to price.
- 21.
The most common forms and structures provide government planning, policy, and investment initiatives, vocational training, research and statistical data, and support for promotional and marketing campaigns. In the United States Congress in 1981 passed a National Tourism Policy Act that for the first time established a national tourism policy. In Canada, the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) was formed in 1995 to create a business/government partnership for the purpose of enhancing the growth of Canadian tourism. And in Japan, four agencies including the Department of Tourism and the Japan National Tourist Organization share responsibility for developing growth in this area. Gee et al. (1997) review the National Tourism Administrations (NTAs).
- 22.
See Singh (2014, p. 127).
- 23.
Jackson (2011) provides a brief overview survey of such models. Demand models fall generally into three categories: Linear Expenditures Systems (LES); Translog Demand (TL), i.e., Rotterdam; and Almost Ideal Demand systems (AIDS). In LES models every good is a substitute for every other good, there are no inferior goods, and no two goods are compliments. Clements and Selvanathan (1988) further explain the Rotterdam model.
On tourism determinants see Jackson (2011, pp. 224–234). Divisekera (2013a, b) providesadditional explanations of the different models and approaches and distinguishes between (uncompensated) Marshallian and (compensated) Hicksian price elasticities of demand (PEDs). Uncompensated PEDs are based on marginal utility functions under a budget constraint, whereas compensated PEDs are based on minimizing expenditures at a fixed utility level. See Song and Li (2008), Song et al. (2010), Goh and Law (2011), and Divisekera (2013b, p. 78).
- 24.
See also Stabler et al. (2010, pp. 240–241).
- 25.
As is already evident, multiplier models may be classified into several major types. Cooper et al. (1998, pp. 132–140) suggest, for example, that such models are typically based on either Keynesian, input–output, base, or ad hoc theories. The Keynesian depends largely on estimated marginal propensities to spend; input–output rests more on general equilibrium approaches; base theories assume that relationships in spending, income, and pricing are relatively stable over time; and ad hoc include mixtures of Keynesian and base theory assumptions designed to study specific impacts. See Stynes at: msu.edu/course/prr/840/econimpact/pdf/ecimpvol1.pdf), in which multiply have been categorized as:
Type I sales multiplier = (direct sales + indirect sales)/direct sales,
Types II and III sales multiplier = (direct sales + indirect sales + induced)/direct sales.
Type II includes households, whereas Type III treats households as exogenous.
Most models suffer from data deficiencies, static assumptions about relative factor pricing, and supply constraints, as sectors are unable to increase output. Tourism development is also often done at the expense of another industry’s growth potential, an aspect that is often overlooked in multiplier studies. The capture rate is a ratio of local final demand to tourist spending. See Archer (1982, 1984).
- 26.
For many countries this incremental capital to output ratio (ICOR) will range between 2.5 and 4.0, although the ratio varies over time and at different stages of tourism industry development.
- 27.
- 28.
Such imports, related to foreign-guest preferences, might be for food, entertainment, electronics devices, types of cars, etc. Import and export data are in the U.S. Census Bureau FT 900 reports available at: www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/current_press_release/ft900.pdf.
- 29.
Cost-benefit analyses that focus on externalities are the province of a separate field of tourism study, ecotourism (or green tourism), which goes beyond the economist’s prime concerns about money flows and outputs. Ecotourism attempts to understand tourism’s full impact on a region’s ecology, including quality of life issues. It is based on the notion, supported by Krippendorf (1987) that tourism development should be consistent with its environment and arise naturally from the activities that are natural to the area. See also Ryan (1991, p. 104) and Vanhove (2013).
- 30.
In 2014, global tourism receipts of US$1133 billion (€985 billion) compared to total world merchandise exports of around US$19,064 billion and to total world commercial services exports of US$4974 billion. See www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/world_trade_report14_e.pdf, World Bank at http://search.worldbank.org, and also IMF World Economic Outlook, Table A9, at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/02/pdf/tables.pdf.
- 31.
At BEA.gov, Exhibits 3 and 4 show export and import services by major categories, including travel for all purposes. See also the outbound overview section of the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI). OTTI data available at: www. tinet.ita.doc.gov. Another source is the Travel Industry World Yearbook, published by Travel Industry Publishing Company Inc., PO Box 280, Spencertown, NY 12165.
- 32.
As Wassily Leontief said at a 1973 press conference after the announcement of his Nobel Prize for development of I/O concepts, “When you make bread, you need eggs, flour, and milk. And if you want more bread, you must use more eggs. There are cooking recipes for all the industries in the economy.”
(Harvard University Gazette, February 11, 1999).
- 33.
Quotation from Okubo and Planting (1998, p. 9).
- 34.
As described by Fletcher (1989) and also in a Fletcher article in Witt and Moutinho (1994), the I/O tables can be broken down into many sectors and categories, possibly including types of visitors, purposes of visit, and so forth. Smith (1995) has indicated, the tourism forecasting models that might be used in conjunction with multiplier estimates include hypothesized behavioral and attitudinal relationships (expectancy-value models) that have been developed by psychologists. According to Smith (1995), most such models are based on work by Fishbein (1967).
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Vogel, H.L. (2016). Tourism. In: Travel Industry Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27475-1_7
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