Certain events have exerted certain effects upon tourism patterns at a range of geographic scales and led to the broad conclusion that tourism is often an unstable industry around which to base economic growth. They are,
• The oil crisis of 1974
• The recession of the early 1980s
• Civil unrest in Northern Ireland
• Attacks on tourists in places as different as Cairo or Miami
• War in the Persian Gulf and in the former Yugoslavia and
• The increasingly poor image of cheap Spanish resorts
Secondly, in the Third World nations and especially in countries like India in particular, tourism development may increase the level of economic dependence upon foreign companies and investors. Ideally, foreign investment provides a catalyst to growth that will foster the subsequent formation of local enterprises. Yet in many emerging nations foreign ownership continues to dominate tourism industries, prompting extensive leakage of revenue that is seen to minimize the local economic gains.
For example, among some of the Pacific micro-states that are popular with Australian and New Zealand tourists, local ownership is minimal. In the Cook Islands, tourism businesses belonging to the local people receive only 17 percent of the tourist expenditure whilst in Vanuatu over 90 percent of the expenditure is gathered by the foreign owned companies. However there are significant exceptions in countries like India. For the national travel agents Kerala state is an unavoidable tourism destination and they are not much influenced by the developments elsewhere. These agents pocket a lion’s share of their income and are able to market the prominent tourism destinations within the country and also abroad
• The oil crisis of 1974
• The recession of the early 1980s
• Civil unrest in Northern Ireland
• Attacks on tourists in places as different as Cairo or Miami
• War in the Persian Gulf and in the former Yugoslavia and
• The increasingly poor image of cheap Spanish resorts
Secondly, in the Third World nations and especially in countries like India in particular, tourism development may increase the level of economic dependence upon foreign companies and investors. Ideally, foreign investment provides a catalyst to growth that will foster the subsequent formation of local enterprises. Yet in many emerging nations foreign ownership continues to dominate tourism industries, prompting extensive leakage of revenue that is seen to minimize the local economic gains.
For example, among some of the Pacific micro-states that are popular with Australian and New Zealand tourists, local ownership is minimal. In the Cook Islands, tourism businesses belonging to the local people receive only 17 percent of the tourist expenditure whilst in Vanuatu over 90 percent of the expenditure is gathered by the foreign owned companies. However there are significant exceptions in countries like India. For the national travel agents Kerala state is an unavoidable tourism destination and they are not much influenced by the developments elsewhere. These agents pocket a lion’s share of their income and are able to market the prominent tourism destinations within the country and also abroad