Book Chapter

Tourism-led development and backward linkages

Christian M. Rogerson, Hunt, Holly, Rogerson, Christian M., Holly Hunt

2013

Overview

In what is recognised as a seminal article in tourism scholarship relating to the Global South, sixteen years ago, Brohman (1996) highlighted a suite of emerging problems surrounding the adoption of outward-oriented neoliberal development strategies. The appearance of this analysis was timely as in the context of existing development discourse tourism was increasingly touted as an important source of outward-oriented growth in many parts of developing Africa, Asia and Latin America (Telfer 2002). During the 1990s, international tourism garnered widespread currency in development literature as one of an array of new 'growth sectors' believed to exhibit much promise in developing countries based upon their so-termed 'comparative advantages' (Telfer and Sharpley 2008). Nevertheless, the development literature pointed also to several inherent dangers that accompanied the embrace of neoliberal planning strategies. Past export-oriented development models had often been associated with vicious cycles of polarisation and repression. During the 1980s, dependency theories showed the existence of high rates of leakage associated with international tourism in developing countries (Britton 1982). The appearance of such dangers highlights that national governments and policy makers must proceed cautiously with tourism-led development strategies, more especially if growth in the volume of international tourism is 'not to be accompanied by many of the problems historically linked with outward-oriented development strategies' (Brohman 1996: 50).

• Publisher: Routledge,Taylor & Francis Group
• Subject: Tourism industry
• ISBN: 9781138081826, 1138081825, 9780415533768, 0415533767