Balancing Tourism Development: Challenges and Strategies

739 Words2 Pages

. Britton (1982) pointed out that “a country’s tourism industry would extend and gain more from tourism development if there is a presence of foreign enterprises”. However, despite its boost to tourism development, the increase of FDI has also presented some developmental challenges in this countries.
According to Mazumder, Sultana and Al-Mamun (2013), lack of tourism strategies in some member countries against others reflects lack of integration and implementation that hinder progress. This has resulted in an imbalance in tourism development with some countries showing insufficient for example Laos and Myanmar while others like Malaysia and Singapore show prosperity. Due to the significant changes equally experienced in the developing areas (Telfer & Sharpley, 2008), member countries need to take initiatives like emphasizing and focusing on alternative tourism forms including ecotourism, sustainable tourism, pro-poor tourism, and community-based tourism (CBT) – all of which ultimately aim at generating more beneficial development for local populations (Reid, 2003) and hence a promoting a uniform development between members. Alternative tourism is used as a strategy by countries like Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. This has initiated the participation of communities through community-based-tourism to increase …show more content…

It is referred as “to anything which is not mass tourism” (Harrison 2015, p.64) showing how less its perceived by some members. This leads to an increased pressure on natural resources as Cole (2012) illustrates in regards to water equity and tourism in Bali, Indonesia. Other impacts of tourism in the region that compromise sustainability includes transformations in gender relations (Chan, 2009), cultural commodification (Cole, 2007; Trupp, 2011), and the use of heritage for economic and political ends (Hitchcock, King, & Parnwell,

More about Balancing Tourism Development: Challenges and Strategies

Open Document