The economic importance of
tourism |
Think about it | |
The
economic importance of tourism varies from place to place but can be
seen to make a significant contribution to many countries wealth.
MEDCs benefit massively from tourism in terms of total wealth generated,
even if the % of GDP that tourism generates is small. LEDCs are
variable in their involvement in tourism but most see tourism as an
extremely important way of getting money into their countries.
Some LEDCs are reliant on tourism, and it can create more than 50% of
GDP, more than exporting primary goods such as food stuffs or
manufactured goods such as clothing. This can be problematic, as
war, terrorism, or natural disasters could put people off visiting which
would strip away a huge chunk of a countries income.
These concepts
link with the concepts of economy, sustainability and over reliance;
Economy
-
The system or range of economic (money making) activity in a country,
region, or community
Sustainability
– To maintain something for a long period of time without damaging the
environment or economy
Over reliance
- the state or fact of being too reliant (dependent) on someone or
something
Some major
patterns are evident; 1) Wealthy nations
such as the USA, Spain and France all have huge tourist numbers and
consequently high amounts of money made from tourism as an activity.
However, as a percentage of GDP the contribution of tourism is
small (but not insignificant. These countries receive lots of people as
tourists because they have the infrastructure (hotels, airports, visitor
facilities) to allow tourists to have a great visitor experience.
They are also politically safe places. 2) Poorer nations
receive far fewer tourists and earn less money from tourism as an
activity. However, tourism
can often make up a huge percentage of countries GDP.
This is because those countries have fewer other industries to
make money, and this makes them vulnerable to changes in their tourism
industry. This is especially
evident in Island nations as shown on the graph above, where limited
land space makes the development of other industries difficult. |
Try the
scatter exercise below Read the information opposite and attempt this exercise |
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Coolgeography.co.uk
by Rob Gamesby is licensed under a
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