The role of tourism in the conservation of cultural heritage in Kenya

Due to the declining fortunes in agriculture, mining and manufacturing sectors, many developing countries have turned to tourism as a panacea to the numerous economic problems facing them. However, emphasis in Kenya has been mainly on beach and wildlife tourism, to the total exclusion of cultural tourism.

This paper discusses critically the contribution of international tourism in the conservation of cultural heritage in Kenya. The cultural impacts of international tourism are found to be both positive and negative and much more pronounced at the coast and in Maasailand.

Doxey's irritation index (irridex) is used as the main theoretical framework in the paper. Although Doxey suggests that in the last stage of tourism development the local communities are likely to be antagonistic to the tourists, in the case of the Maasai, the relation between them and the tourists has been rather harmonious. This could be so because the local community is actively involved in tourism development and derives benefits from the industry. The issues discussed in the paper are relevant to other parts of the world including Asia Pacific region. The paper concludes by emphasizing the need for proper visitor management through planning to minimize negative cultural impacts on local communities.     

民族地区旅游业与创意产业耦合发展研究——以张家界为例

民族旅游发展有着巨大潜力,民族地区文化旅游资源的保护开发亟待探索最佳的途径.创意产业能够有效地实现经济增长而得到发达国家和发展中国家的极力推崇和大力发展.在民族地区发展旅游创意产业,能够有效地改变民族地区的经济增长方式,对当地经济、文化、社会发展具有重大意义.本文首先分析了国内外文化创意产业的发展和创意产业与旅游业的融合现状与趋势,其次探讨了我国民族地区发展旅游文化创意的基础与意义,然后提出了旅游创意产业发展应采取集群式发展的模式,最后,以湖南张家界旅游创意产业发展为例,就民族地区发展旅游创意产业给出了对策和建议.     

The effect of international tourism on economic development: An empirical analysis

The expansion of international tourism in developing countries is generally considered to promote their economic development. In this paper, the impact of international tourism on economic development is modelled using an aggregate production function framework. It specifically investigates intersectoral externalities and marginal factor productivity differences between the international tourism sector and the rest of the economy. The net effect of international tourism on GDP per capita is examined via an empirical analysis of 37 developing economies. The results indicate that international tourism may positively affect economic development in these countries.     

The Problems and Prospects of Sustainable Tourism Development in the Okavango Delta,Botswana

The objective of this paper is to assess the problems and prospects of sustainable tourism development in developing countries with special reference to the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Using both secondary and primary data sources, this paper points out that tourism in developing countries does not always adhere to the principles of sustainable tourism development. In the Okavango Delta, the tourism industry is designed to meet the interests of tourists from developed countries and is dominated by foreign safari companies. The tourism industry in the Okavango Delta does not significantly take into consideration the sociocultural, economic and environmental needs of the host economy. It is characterised by: the marginalisation of local companies and investors; leakages and repatriation of tourism revenue from Botswana to developed countries; the failure of tourism to promote rural development and poverty alleviation; and, the failure to observe local environmental regulations to conserve the Okavango Delta as a natural ecosystem. This paper argues that, despite these problems, such destinations have the potential to contribute to sustainable tourism development. This requires a planning process that satisfies the needs of tourists and tour operators while being sensitive to the sociocultural, economic and environmental needs of host countries and destinations.     

Sustainable tourism and its use as a development strategy in Cambodia: a systematic literature review

Governments in many developing countries endorse sustainable tourism, despite associated practical limitations and challenges as a development strategy. Using the case of Cambodia, this paper illustrates how sustainable tourism issues in a developing country may be better understood through a systematic review of scattered relevant peer-reviewed and grey literature. This can help in identifying emergent themes and challenges, gaps in knowledge, and opportunities for future research. Analysis of 77 documents on Cambodia's sustainable tourism revealed themes and challenges relating to: (1) an emphasis on nature-based tourism (ecotourism); (2) calls for greater community engagement for sustainable outcomes; (3) stakeholder perceptions and values as drivers of tourism success; (4) cultural heritage as a key tourism attraction; and (5) foreign investment shaping Cambodia's tourism future. Unequal emphasis is given to key government policies for tourism development and there is limited practical guidance on how to realise a vision of sustainable tourism. There is a lack of consideration of how the socio-economic and cultural context affects sustainable tourism. The evidence suggests that sustainable tourism in Cambodia is questionable until fundamental economic, social capacity and policy issues are addressed, along with greater emphasis given to the tourism system's demand side.     

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.     

Developing indigenous tourism in the bomas: critiquing issues from within the Maasai community in Tanzania

ABSTRACT

With safari attractions dominating the African tourism sector, many tourism studies in Africa have focused on wildlife and wilderness resourced-based tourism, with a secondary body of literature exploring cultural aspects of tourism. Recently many countries in the region, including Tanzania, have started to recognize the potential for stand-alone, culture-based tourism to diversify the tourism industry and for rural, economic development purposes. Drawing upon insights from local stakeholders, primarily members of the Maasai community this study identifies the critical challenges for providing indigenous cultural tourism in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. Qualitative data for the study were collected through interviews and site visits to eight Maasai bomas (cultural tourism villages or settlements). Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed significant limiting factors affecting the development of indigenous cultural tourism amongst Maasai in Tanzania. The findings indicate that achieving success in indigenous cultural tourism is therefore challenging, and needs to incorporate specific community-based strategies which can facilitate the development of Maasai cultural tourism.     

Energy conservation in large-sized hotels: Insights from a developing country

Tourism can drive positive, transformative changes in modern societies, but also becomes a source of significant environmental externalities. This is often the case for developing economies where the problem is exacerbated by immature national sustainability agendas. Targeted research, accounting for the local context, is necessary to enable transition of developing countries towards more sustainable patterns of tourism development. This study targets the hotel sector in Iran, one of the most energy inefficient hotel sectors around the world, to explore its pathway towards environmental sustainability. The dominance of domestic ownership and control and the prevalence of international economic sanctions are the distinctive features of the Iranian hotel sector. The study pinpoints reconfigurations in technology, knowledge, legislation and behavioural norms as the determinants of the sector’s environmental sustainability quest. Domestic hospitality companies should champion transformative pro-environmental changes in the Iranian hotel sector until international economic sanctions are lifted.     

Regional Development Strategy for Increasing Cultural Tourism Business in South Korea

Korea's traditional distribution market is at a turning point, and the international paradigm of distribution is also gradually declining in terms of numbers and sales. As such, the Korean government has developed cultural tourism to revive regional economies, which are losing competitiveness, by expanding the new distribution field, such as large discount stores and Internet shopping. The results of the empirical analysis indicate that several factors have a significant influence on profitability and success: traditional factors, gender and age, the intention to return, products and competitive prices, and amenities. This paper illustrates how Korea's national and local governments oversee cultural tourism business through case studies in Korea. For a developing country, cultural tourism is a valuable policy in terms of regional development and, by extension, of regional economic revitalization.     

Travel,tourism, climate change,and behavioral change: travelers’ perspectives from a developing country,Nigeria

While studies have examined people's understanding of climate change and its relationship to tourism, these focus largely on developed country populations. Much future tourism growth will come from developing countries following economic development; often countries where climate change will be strongly felt. Do tourists from developing countries have the same knowledge gaps about travel, tourism, and climate change as in the developed world? Will behavioral change policies be successful in encouraging more environmentally friendly approaches to climate change and tourism in developing countries? This paper presents findings from 20 in-depth interviews with active Nigerian tourists, analyzing their understanding of climate change, the links known, or not, between their travel and climate change, and their willingness to change their tourism patterns. Understanding of climate change was limited and there was conceptual confusion. Participants did not view their own travel as a cause of climate change and many were embedded in air travel practice. Participants were unwilling to change their tourism patterns to reduce their contribution to climate change. Significant structural barriers limit low carbon tourism travel in Nigeria (and other developing countries), including reliability, availability safety, and speed. Behavioral change will be difficult to achieve.     

The Contribution of Sustainable Tourism Development in Poverty Alleviation of Local Communities in South Africa

ABSTRACT

For more than fifty of the world's poorest countries such as Thailand, Zambia, and Egypt, tourism is ranked first, second or third in terms of their economies, and tourism is the only service industry to show a positive balance of trade with flows from first world countries to developing countries exceeding those in the opposite flow by US$ 66 million. Yet tourism has only very recently been recogised by some aid donors, some international funding agencies, and some segments of the industry as an appropriate instrument for poverty reduction (WTO, 2000).

This article addresses the role of tourism as a development strategy in poverty alleviation, discussing the possible strategic senarios for future tourism in South Africa with special focus on local community involvement.     

Cultural tourism policy in developing regions: The case of Sarawak,Malaysia

There is a need for empirical data that can be used to confirm or disconfirm literature that makes a case for functional linkages between cultural activity, inbound tourism and wider economic activity. This motivates a case-based investigation using Sarawak, a culturally rich state of Malaysia and which is currently trying to diversify and uplift its economy. Using interviews of tourism operators, artists and cultural brokers, visits to art venues and examination of documentary material, the paper identifies Sarawak's cultural and tourism policies, the ways they have been operationalized, and some of the concrete outcomes. The findings are interpreted by parsing Adorno's concepts of significance and function into their normative, representational and material dimensions. Tourism planners, it is found, have exoticized and marginalized local communities at the cost of developing a diversified economy. The policy dilemma extends to policy objects. How can artists relocated to urban areas be enabled to be productive on their own terms, and how can faraway communities lend support to their artists? Solutions might be sought, it is argued, using a participatory approach to cultural tourism planning.     

Protected Areas in an era of global–local change

This review article advances debate and research on the global–local nexus that shapes, and increasingly determines, the existence of Protected Areas (PAs) and their function as areas of high conservation value as well as tourism destinations. The demands on PAs have grown from an initial focus on facilitating recreation experiences and species and habitat protection, to more inclusive and participatory approaches that seek to safeguard ecological services whilst also supporting regional and national livelihoods. We propose that the simultaneous analysis of global and local drivers of change will generate a deeper understanding of impact processes and response implications. To this end, a draft framework for better understanding the global–local nexus of PAs is developed and tested through a Delphi sketching approach to 20 experts in least developed, newly industrialised and developed countries. Key challenges, implications and opportunities for PA management and governance, and for tourism development at local and global levels (and their interactions), are discussed in follow-up papers to this review, including research priority areas, the measurement of tourism numbers, economic impact modelling, private PAs, the changing roles of zoning, the need for flexible, inclusive and accountable governance structures, and for better understanding of tourist behavioural change mechanisms.     

Tourism and inequality: A relook on the Kuznets curve

The study explores the impact of the tourism industry on income inequality upon a panel set of countries, classified in accordance with their levels of economic development. The countries are classified into three clusters based on their per capita GDP, the volume of international trade, and foreign direct investment inflows. The income inequality was measured using the GINI score. The long-run relationship between tourism receipts and GINI income inequality was explored for a panel set of forty-one countries over the period 1995 to 2016. The study concludes that earnings from tourism have varying impacts on the three clustered sets of countries. The inequality index of the highly developed countries remains unaffected by the earnings from tourism. The developed countries show Kuznets curve behaviour as far as the relationship between tourism and inequality is concerned. The developing countries exhibit an inverted Kuznets curve behaviour between tourism receipts and inequality of income.     

生活方式型旅游小企业的特征及研究启示

近年来,生活方式型旅游小企业已成为国际学术界关注的热点,西方学者对生活方式型旅游小企业的研究较为丰富,但国内对此领域的研究极少。文章首先对生活方式型旅游小企业的概念进行了界定,从创立动机、经营目标、信息媒介、地点选择、主体来源、经营业态、经营业主七大方面揭示其特征;其次,指出在发达经济体和发展中/转型经济体下生活方式型旅游小企业意义和价值的差异性,并从经济、社会、文化三方面阐释生活方式型旅游小企业对旅游目的地的影响;最后,作者对国内外该领域现有文献进行了回顾与梳理,并在此基础上指出了未来可能发展的走向。     

Safety,security and peace tourism: The case of the DMZ area

It comes as no surprise that peace and tourism is an important topic today in tourism literature. Despite the strength of global tourist demand, many destinations, especially in the developing world, are facing fluctuations in tourist arrivals, due to unsafe political conditions. This study discusses the symbiosis between tourism and peace and its opposite, war, and the likely impacts of each condition on several tourist destinations. A turbulent security environment, caused by international and civil wars, coup d'etat and terrorist attacks has already demonstrated its negative impact on tourism development in many countries around the world (Taylor & Quayle, 1994). The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between safety, tranquility, peace, and successful tourism, using surveys completed by both international and domestic tourists. More specifically, it is about the effects of the absence of safety, security and peace on domestic and international tourism in the Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ) area. The general findings demonstrate that the subjects of the study view the implication of the existence of a peaceful environment on tourism favourably.     

Global–local relationships and governance issues at the Great Wall World Heritage Site,China

Heritage preservation and tourism use are inevitably intertwined at heritage sites and are characterized by both symbioses and tensions, particularly at World Heritage Sites, where international initiatives interact with local priorities. The international designation impacts heritage preservation, tourism development and community well-being at the local level, especially in developing countries. This paper examines global–local relationships, as well as involvement and governance at intermediate scales, and their implications for preservation and development at Badaling Great Wall World Heritage Site in Beijing, China, through examinations of its management structure, heritage preservation and development plans, and the opinions of the local business community. Interviews were conducted with key officials of the Management Office and questionnaire surveys were distributed with local business operators. It is shown that multiple stakeholders operate in a hierarchical, multi-departmental management structure. International linkages are weak and via central government. Positive economic impacts from tourism are highly valued. High awareness of heritage preservation and positive attitudes toward tourism are identified among local business operators with relatively high tolerance for negative environmental impacts. Potential conflicts between global priorities by World Heritage designation and local needs for tourism development are illustrated. Practical implications for heritage and tourism planning and management are discussed.     

Service-oriented,sustainable, local food value chain – A case study

Many developing countries depend on tourism as their main engine for economic development, but sustainability is often a concern. In the absence of inter-sectorial linkages between tourism and other industrial sectors, opportunities for trickledown benefits to host communities are stymied. For decades, researchers have been contending with issues related to strengthening agriculture and tourism linkages as a strategy to maximize economic linkages. This service-oriented approach to the local food supply chain is posited as a new model in which agriculture and hotel linkages can be advanced. We collected data about local food hotel supply through interviews with key stakeholders. The findings from our exemplary case study confirm that strengthening inter-sectorial linkages have benefits for stakeholders. This case study suggests that there are opportunities for tourism policies that foster local food linkages with high-end accommodation properties as a strategy to spread the economic spin off from tourism and also to encourage youth involvement in sustainable tourism development.     

旅游与人类学及其在中国的实践——来自中外学者的对话

文章指出,在当今世界,各学科都具有跨学科的特点。旅游人类学也如此。人类学与旅游学之间的关系不存在学科独立的问题,而应该是互补关系。人类学介入旅游研究已成为必然。唯有如此,旅游学才有更广阔的发展前景。     

Archaeological sites,modern communities,and tourism

Archaeology is a major component of the tourism industry in both developed and developing countries, which has especially significant implications for indigenous people and other disenfranchised groups. Archaeological tourism celebrates the cultural richness of a region’s history and has the potential to bring local or descendant communities financial gain. But what is the role of the archaeologist in the sustainable and responsible development and maintenance of archaeological tourism? Drawing upon their own field research, the authors suggest that when tourism and archaeological sites meet, archaeologists avoid arguments about ownership and act as facilitators for frank conversations about the consequences of tourism development for all parties involved.