the role of tourism in natural resource management in the okavango ...

international industry. The model is infinitely flexible, allowing the incorporation of
different forms of tourism, while also demonstrating their common elements. Lastly,
the model demonstrates a crucial principle of tourism studies, that all the elements of
tourism relate and interact with each other. It is the study of a system of customers
and suppliers who demand and supply the tourism product and services, and it is the
realisation of their interrelationships that provides a true understanding of tourism
(Leiper, 1990; Cooper et ai, 1998).
2.4 Tourism as an Industry
When reviewing the concept of tourism in its entirety, the term 'travel industry' needs
to be examined more closely. As Williams (1998, p.6) states, "...there are problems
inherent in the definition of tourism as an industry, even though there are clear
practical advantages in delineating tourism as a coherent and boarded area of
activity". It has been argued that defining tourism as an 'industry' establishes a
framework in which tourist activity and its associated impacts may be measured and
recorded and, more critically, provides a form of legitimisation for an activity that has
often battled to gain the strategic recognition of political and economic analysts
(Williams, 1998).
Tourism in practice is an opaque area and the idea that it may be conceived as a
distinctive industry with a definable product and quantitative flows of associated
goods, labour and capital has in itself been a problem (Hoggart et ai, 2002).
Generally an industry is defined as a number of firms engaged in the manufacture of
a given product or service. In tourism, however, there are numerous products and
services, some tangible (provision of accommodation, entertainment and the
production of gifts and souvenirs), others less so (creation of experience, memories
and social contact). Often the firms that service tourists also provide for local
inhabitants as well. Tourism therefore cannot be considered an industry in any
conventional sense. It is in reality a collection of industries, which has varying levels
of dependence upon visitors, a dependence that changes through both space and
time (Williams, 1998).
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