Roles for geographers in the international tourist industry

International tourism is an industry that is second only to petroleum as a commodity in world trade. There are many positions available in the international tourist industry to geographers who wish to pursue them. Nearly every geographic specialization, topical or regional, can be accomodated. There are opportunities for members of the discipline with experience ranging from the undergraduate to the post-doctoral levels in research and planning, information and marketing services, and technical services. Types of activities include development research and planning, location analysis, teaching, cartography, and others.     

U.S. tourism in Mexico: An empirical analysis

This study estimated demand functions for tourism by U.S. residents in Mexico border areas, the Mexican interior, and overseas. There was no evidence that U.S. tourists substitute Mexico for more distant destinations as transportation costs rise. Border tourism is income elastic when the share of U.S. income of the border states is held fixed. Tourism in the Mexican interior is also income elastic. Tourism along the border is price elastic, while tourism in the interior is elastic with respect to U.S. and overseas prices but inelastic with respect to Mexican prices. The rise in the share of the Mexican interior in U.S. overseas tourism is not related to price factors. Recent devaluations of the Mexican peso are unlikely to provide benefits to the Mexican tourism industry.     

Social planning for tourism in the developing countries

The usual perspectives on tourism planning have been economic. This paper argues for the need to take much more explicit account of non-economic costs (and benefits) in this field, and links the discussion to questions that have preoccupied those concerned with general issues of development in recent years. It emphasises that planners act in specific socio-politocal contexts, and that it is especially the dynamics of class structures and theis expression in the power relations at local and national levels which influence outcomes in this field. Practical issues of social planning for tourism are discussed, and the dangers of development which is too massive and too fast are stressed. Some attention is also paid to the role of transnational enterprises in the tourism field, and to the question of bargaining at the international level.     

The evolution of tourist arts

Tourist arts with ethnic content are at the nexus of changing tourism, ethnicity and art in the modern world. This paper explores the range of varieties of tourist arts, the dynamics of change between various types of artifacts, and the interaction between tourist arts and notions of ethnic self-perception. The analogy between language and art is pursued to illuminate the nature of the various communication codes embodied in tourist and ethnic arts. The paper concludes by stressing that tourist arts are not an end-point, but one possibility within the fluid relationships between material symbols, outsiders' demand, and the defense and reformulation of ethnicity. It also concludes that the evolution of ethnic awareness, combined with increased education and travel opportunities, is bringing a uniformity of attitudes towards tourism, material heritage, and museums among the middle classes of all nations. Thus minority ethnic symbols have become the manipulated “totems” of touristic identity.     

Tourism and cultural dependency in the West Indies

Traditionally dependency has been viewed as an economic and/or political relationship, but this article focuses instead on the concept of cultural dependency and then examines tourism as a possible agent for facilitating its development in the West Indies, probing in the process the interface between cultural and economic/political dependency. Scattered ideas from the tourism literature are gathered into four “implicit theories”—Trickle Down, Commodization, Mass Seduction, and Black Servility— which are then evaluated. The article recommends the use of a Commodization/Mass Seduction synthesis for future research to generate hypotheses which, if empirically verified, will represent not only a contribution to dependency theory and tourism studies in particular, but also to International Relations theory in general.     

Politics,power, and tourism in Thailand

This paper examines the political system in Thailand with particular attention given to the location of the power in the system and its effect on the tourist industry. Noted also is the environment within which the system must operate. It is shown that while power lies with the political leaders and the bureaucracy, they are limited by the faction-ridden competitive system with the need to maintain support and offer material rewards. This has left the industry with considerable freedom to exert its power and develop. There is little opposition to development but defects in the system need to be rectified or the power balance could move, to the detriment of the industry.     

New management tools for the successful tourism manager

The purpose of this paper is to outline some new managerial tools for the tourism industry. The thesis pursued here is that the managers of service operations face a number of challenges distinctly different from those encountered by managers of goods-producing activities; and therefore that tourism managers require management technologies designed for their special needs. Services and service delivery, i.e. service production, differ in their essential nature from goods and manufacturing processes. These differences are outlined and then the management implications and new insights for tourism are drawn out. These insights relate mainly to tourism operations management and the marketing of tourism.     

Policy choices in South Asian tourism development

Government tourism initiatives in developing countries have been applauded by tourism scholars as a means of assisting a private sector that has insufficient resources and assuring public control of the industry's future. This article reviews the tourism development experience of seven South Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldive Republic) on five policy options: public versus private tourism development; domestic versus international tourism; class versus mass tourism; centralization versus decentralization; and integrated versus enclave tourism. All of the governments in the region have been involved in tourism development to some degree, but they have shown considerable variation in their responses to these policy choices. Which choices are made by a specific country, it is suggested, will depend as much on political and cultural considerations as upon economic factors.     

Course content and structure in the geography of tourism the Canterbury example

This paper outlines the structure and content of a graduate course in the geography of tourism which was introduced at the University of Canterbury in 1976. Attempts to structure the course and considerations regarding its content are set against the fragmentation and general lack of coherence which characterize much tourism research and literature. Although this paper refers essentially to the Canterbury experience, many of the issues discussed should be relevant not only to geographers but also to those teaching courses on other aspects of tourism.     

Geographical aspects of state travel marketing in the USA

Almost all of the formal Federal and state government involvement in domestic travel marketing in the United States has been undertaken by state travel offices. Of particular interest to the geographer are state-to-state variations in the size and activities of these travel offices. In this discussion, differences in the total budgets of state travel offices are presented and compared to differences in state population and domestic travel expenditures by state. A three-fold classification of state travel marketing strategies with a geographical basis is then introduced. While the overall discussion provides some explanation for the differences observed, the conclusion is reached that political and other considerations regarding state travel offices are too subtle to be explained by just a few variables.     

The political impact of tourism dependence in Latin America

This research seeks to test empirically the validity of hypotheses drawn from dependency theory that suggest that economic reliance on tourism creates political dependence. Specifically, it seeks to determine whether the Carribean region, strongly dependent on U.S. tourism, is demonstrably more compliant politically with the United States than other, less dependent, Latin American nations. In addition, the paper examines the relation between political compliance and other indicators of dependence, e.g., investment, aid, and trade. Compliance is measured basically by correlating each nation's voting behavior in the UN General Assembly with that of the United States. A series of tests on a number of relevant economic and political variables yields no confirmation of the dependency argument in the political realm.