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Tourism as a Mode of Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2017

Extract

Areas of the world classified as less than developed tend to have a relatively inflexible economic system dominated by an agricultural sector with low levels of productivity, a rudimentary industrial sector plagued by inefficient methods of production utilizing antiquated technologies, a semi-literate population with little chance of bettering itself because of sheer numbers and a rigid social system, a high level of unemployment or underemployment, and a limited infrastructure. All of these characteristics contribute to low real per capita income, difficulties in finding export markets, and an environment of economic stagnation. Modernization, which includes both economic development and social mobilization, is difficult to achieve.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1974 

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References

1 Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 34.Google Scholar

2 The revised Senegalese investment code became effective in October 1972, and the Ghanaian code became operative in January 1973. The codes of the Ivory Coast and Togo were revised in early 1973. All of these codes were rewritten, in part, to provide special privileges for tourist development.

3 Personal interview, University of Sierra Leone, Freetown, Sierra Leone, May 1, 1973.

4 See “Tourism, ” New Statesman , March 23, 1973 which notes that in 1972, 1 1/2 million tourists accounted for 71% of the Bahamian GNP, 60% of its total revenue and two-thirds of its labor force.

5 Gray, Peter H., International Travel - International Trade (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath and Co., 1970), p. 140.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., p. 149.

7 “Sunlust” is essentially resort-vacation travel while “wander-lust” is travel motivated by the desire to be exposed to different cultures and values. See ibid., glossary, p. 245.

8 Alistair Hill, “Tourism in Africa; Africa's Tourist Growth Confounds the Experts, “ African Development , 5 (October 1971), p. 75; personal interview, U.S. Embassy, Dakar, Senegal, April 27, 1973.

9 See Economic Commission for Africa, United Nations Economic and Social Council, “Tourism in Africa 1972” (Annual Bulletin). Mimeo, E/CN.14/TRANS/94, March 5, 1973, table 1, p. 6.

10 See, in particular, the discussion in Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (New York: Bantam Books. 1971), chapter 5, “Places'. The New Nomads, ” p. 74ff.

11 Gray, p. 139.

12 Occupancy rates in major hotels in Sierra Leone, Ghana and Liberia often fall below the 60% mark during peak season.

13 “Tourism in Africa 1972, ” table 1, p. 7.

14 Personal interview, U.S. Embassy, Dakar, Senegal, April 27, 1973.

15 Nagenda, John, “Parading the Primitive to Woo Tourists, ” African Development, 3 (August 1969), p. 15.Google Scholar

16 Crowley, Daniel J., “Tourism in Ghana, ” Insight and Opinion , 6, no. 2, p. 109.Google Scholar

17 Editorial, “Influence of Tourism, ” New Nigerian , September 16, 1972.

18 Personal interview, Tourist Development Company, Ltd., Accra, Ghana, June 1, 1973.

19 Pilot Study of Africa's Tourism Prospects” (1966), quoted in Hill, p. 69. For an excellent recent illustration, see “Uganda situation hurts Kenya tourism, ” African Development, 7 (June 1973), p. 5, which notes that a low 60% hotel occupancy rate prevailed during December 1972-January 1973, normally the best two months of the tourist season on- the Kenya coast.

20 Personal interviews, Accra, Ghana, June 1 and 7, 1973; Freetown, Sierra Leone, May 2, 1973.