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

Despite the various economic benefits of tourism, researchers have become more
and more sceptical about the industry's real contribution to the economic
development of destination areas. Since the early 1970s analysts have increasingly
highlighted the point that the earlier guarantees of tourism multiplier effects have not
materialised in most Third World destinations. The predominant form of traditional,
western-oriented mass tourism that has been established in so many less developed
countries makes demands for services and products that can rarely be
manufactured locally due to many of these destinations having extremely narrow
resource bases (Ioannides, 1995). This results in the tourism industries of many less
developed countries relying heavily on imported foreign foods, liquor, furniture, air
conditioners, and building materials, which lead to high leakages of capital and a
reduction in the balance of payments (Wilkinson, 1989).
Tourism is both a labour intensive, as well as a capital intensive industry, and
creates external costs which tend to escalate as the industry develops. These
include operational costs for research, promotion and personnel, as well as
educational costs associated with the training of service employees, business
owners and community residents (Hudman and Hawkins, 1989; Schneider, 1993).
However, most developing countries have insufficient capital available to support the
development of tourism. To address this problem governments often reduce the cost
of tourism investment by granting exemption from taxes on the costs of capital
goods, granting public subsidies which reduce investment costs, offering tax
incentives, which make interest on capital investments tax-deductible (especially on
foreign capital), enabling losses to be written off for the purpose of tax levied on
tourist activities, and taxing incentives for foreign investment in tourism (Hudman
and Hawkins, 1989).
2.8.3 Social Benefits of Tourism
Not only is tourism a matter of economics and income, it is also a social issue since
it requires that community residents share their hometown with outsiders. Numerous
social advantages exist for a community that has a tourism industry. It facilitates a
cultural exchange between hosts and the visitors, and brings new ideas for
improvement to the community. This can modify or improve local attitudes towards
their culture. In fact, there are cases in Ireland where tourism supported the survival
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