The Tourism Product – Challenges, Contributions and Transformation

By Paul Andrew Bourne, M.Sc. (pending); B.Sc. (Hons.); Dip. Edu.



Introduction


"The economic gap between rich and poor countries has widened over the past ten years. However, to create new industries and to transform rural life in Asian, African and the Caribbean and Latin America countries is a gigantic task. The relevance of tourism to this situation is that income from international travel can bring the foreign exchange essential for major investment. There is a widespread awareness of the potential benefits, but little has been done in practice to provide the means for expansion of tourism plant in most of the developing areas of the world. The potential benefits to developing countries may be apparent to many, but discussion of them is invariable confused. Proponents of tourist expansion in developing countries point to the foreign exchange receipts generated by tourism, or a more sophisticated level, to the impact of these foreign exchange receipts on gross domestic product either directly, or through the operation of the expenditure multiplier. On the other hand, critics of tourism expansion point to the various social strains which are caused by tourism development, example being the distortion of indigenous cultural expressions, the conversion of small farmers into wage labourers due to the high land prices which tourism creates and associated alienation of land, perpetuation of racial inequalities and the erosion of dignity." (Bryden, 1973)


Bryden’s analytic outlook of this subject provides an in-depth academic assessment of the tourism product, which is within the purview of sustainable tourism development. He has encapsulated the pre-1980 and the post-1980 schools of thought in number of succinctly coined sentences. He has offered to the discourse a slant that is primarily non-economic, and void of political misnomers. This astute scholar penned a rationale that disaggregated the contributions, the challenges and the alternatives of the post-1980 scholars. As tourism, therefore, is broader than the all-inclusive properties being publicized by many pre-1970 theorists (large investors), who continue to advocate for seclusion of the visitors as against holistic tourism product. The product is more than the property modernization, the gross domestic product’s (GDP) contributions, and the employment of human resources, the needed foreign receipts, and any economic multiplier theorizing that some may argue. As rightfully forwarded by Bryden, the commodity must include the social inequalities, the cultural pluralism that it creates, the social ills (for example, HIV/AIDS), social conflicts due to the perception of beneficiaries, the non-transformation of colonial system in administration of the package and the dislocation of many people from there normal existence. Furthermore, tourism within the last two decades is simply not about the ‘glamorous’ economic benefits as some argue but the product subsumed the environment, the human resources, the economic activities and the social arrangements of people.

Many authors fail to highlight a number of social issues that have arisen as a result of the tourism product as though the negatives are not apart of the package. This is oftentimes overlooked by policy-makers in developing countries, which is at the detriment of the society. This article will not conceptualize the tourism product as the pre-1980 scholars but will present an outlook within the vantage point of sustainable tourism development. The author will charter a path for the future and analyze the present aspect of the product as well as review the product up this point.


Contributions of tourism


ECONOMIC

The single most valued contributor to economic growth and economic development, employment, social services, foreign exchange receipts and taxation revenues to the Jamaican economy leading up to the early 1980s was bauxite and alumina industry. Since the late 1980s, the tourism industry has overtaken its predecessor in all economic indicators. This has seen a thrust in direct investment by way of increases in hotel infrastructure development, construction of private dwellings, businesses, and employment generation, increased commercialization in many localities, and a number of changes in rural communities. Theses geographical areas include Montego Bay, Ocho Rios and Negril. Those localities are defined as major towns (Stone, 1999, p.1). Despite the accelerated growth trends in Jamaica’s tourism resort towns, post-1980, there has been an agenda of complaints and criticisms surrounding the spread of benefits (Stone, 1991). The ecological costs imposed by that industry on local communities and the domination of the earnings by big hoteliers, and the exclusive all-inclusive hotels, are generating increasingly more resentment on the part of local vendors, craft producers, small entrepreneurs and even hotel workers (Stone, 1991). Notwithstanding the previous reality of the product, tourism has drastically changed its traditional construct then when it blossomed in the 1980s to that of community tourism, health tourism, eco-tourism, heritage tourism and cultural tourism but emphasis is still placed on old economic indicators.

Goldsmith (1990) postulated that the benefits of tourism for any developing country are many but he argued within the construct of the pre-1980 school of thought. He argued that the product is analyzed within these themes:

a contribution to the Balance of Payment in the form of hard currency – US dollars, Pound sterling and Canadian dollars;

the dispersion of development to non-industrial regions;

the creation of employment opportunities;

the effect on general economic development through the multiplier effects;

the social benefits arising from a widening of people’s interest generally in world affairs and to new understanding of "foreigners and foreign tastes".

Goldsmith’s postulation is used as the basis for presenting the economic indicators of the tourism product on the Jamaican economy. Over a decade (1994-2004), the tourists’ expenditure from stopover in Jamaica increased by 47.68 percentage points. In 1994, the tourism sector contributed US $973,000,000 to Jamaica’s Balance of Payment whereas in 1995, the figure rose by 9.867 percentage points to US $1,069,000,000 and a further increase of 5.519 percentage points over the following year (see Table 1, below). It should be noted that in 1997, the tourist expenditure rose marginally by 1.064 percentage points but a fourfold increase was in 1998 over the previous year. In 1998, the figure for expenditure in Jamaica by stopover tourists showed an incremental increase of 3.09 percentage points over 1997 but drastic increase followed the year after by 8.1 percent. There were two ironies in expenditure by stopover tourists. They were, firstly, in 2001, receipts fell by approximately 8.0 percentage points over the previous year in comparison to a negative 2.8 percentage points change in 2002 over 2001 and secondly, 13.2 percentage points increase in 2003. The latter value represents the highest increase in expenditure and the former indicates the periods with the only negative change.

On a point of emphasis, the Economic Impact Study that was commissioned by the Organization of American States (OAS) and completed in 1994, found that 37.7 percentage points of the foreign exchange receipts that was received by Jamaica is spent directly on imports. Furthermore, the inflows of foreign exchange from the tourism sector have been one major contribution to the Balance of Payments that has aided in the payments for other imported items. Many authors argue that this source of funds has resulted in the provision of employment for many residents, and is responsible for the development of some rural communities. On other matter, the internal migration to many urban centres from rural Jamaica according to some sociologists has been due largely to the downsizing of the bauxite sector, the shift from agriculture to a service oriented economy and the perception of privilege within urban areas. Moreover, in rural Jamaica, presently the tourism industry mainly has been the main employer of people and so this explain the mass exodus of people to the outskirts of resort towns.


Table 1. TOTAL VISITOR ARRIVALS AND EXPENDITURE, 1994 - 2004
(contact paul andrew bourne - paul.bourne@uwimona.edu.jm)



The tourism product is highly price elastic (Taylor, 1975, p.37) as was observed in 1988 after hurricane Gilbert, the total expenditure from tourist arrivals was US $525,000,000, which represented a 11.8 percentage points decline in receipts over 1987 (see Table 2).





In the last quarter of 1988 (September – December), the Island of Jamaica loss a substantial percentage of its vegetation, utilities, infrastructure, and natural beautification and tourist arrivals because of hurricane Gilbert. The Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica of 1988 indicated that the basic reason for this fall in tourist expenditure was that of Gilbert having devastated much of the island’s tourism capacity. Again, the concept of the tourist high responsiveness was 1997, 2001 to 2002 and in 2004. In 1997, the island of Jamaica experienced an incremental increase in tourist arrivals of 1.06 percentage point, and this was due largely to the social instability of the period. The media coverage of the demonstration, which was fuelled by increases in school fees. In 2004, the increase of 6.44 percentage points, which is approximately 100 percentage points lower than the increase of 2003 over 2002, was primarily due to September 11 in the United States. The bombing of the Twin Towers and the White House created a state of uncertain of safety in travel, and this affect the number of tourist who came to Jamaica and thereby showed itself in the reduction of the receipts. It must be emphasized there that the United States is responsible for the largest market for tourist coming to the Caribbean and Jamaica and so September 11, 2004 in respect to tourist travel affected this island. Furthermore, many tourists who travel to the Caribbean and in particular to Jamaica do so because of the natural environment and this they expect within an atmosphere of socio-political stability, and the political instability of 1997 as revealed by the statistics was the lowest in 1997. Herein lies a possible explanation for the increase in stopover arrival in Barbados in the same period.

When the tourist arrivals to Jamaica are disaggregated, it is startling as to the number of people who come from other Caribbean Islands (see Table 3). Although tourist arrivals from other Caribbean Islands have more than increase by fourfold, there are periods in Jamaica’s history that those numbers have actually declined, and apart from that reality, the percentage points have never been approximately 5 percentage points. This speaks to the high elasticity of the product on the North American and the English markets, and so emphasizes the vulnerability of the present commodity.



The Economic and Social Survey, Jamaica, for 1999, stated that the following are justifiable reasons for the low growth in the tourism product over the years:

negative impact of media publicity following the gas riot of April, and the isolated incidents of violence against tourists;

maturity of the Jamaican product and the inability to compete with other lower priced destinations;

reduced expenditure on advertising and promotion;

reduced rate of growth of stopover arrivals.

The arguments cited by the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) publisher of the Economic and Social Survey are clear justification for the low stopover arrivals of tourist to Jamaica over the years from the Caribbean and other non-British and American market destinations.



(Excerpt)