Tourism As A Development Strategy In The — страница 2

are not so straightforward. Thus, however ambiguous a definition, the term `Third World’ is used as a euphemism for the Developing World, the Less Developed Countries (LDC’s), those portraying many characteristics of poverty, debt, hunger, malnutrition, poorly developed economies, low levels of education, high percentage of rural agriculture, rapid urban growth and high population growth. Finally, a more in depth consideration is necessary to determine the, “most slippery concept of all,” (Lea, 1988, p. 4) that is the notion of development. The focus of this work is `tourism as a strategy for development’, thus it is essential to define development, in order to determine whether tourism is achieving this developed state that it’s supposedly striving for. No single

term can define absolutely the developmental condition of a country or region, since it is a complex economic, social and political phenomenon. The conceptual meaning of development has been fragmented and re-defined for over a century and still displays ambiguity and causes confusion. From environmental determinism and development being fundamentally evolutionary in the nineteenth century, to the theories of modernisation being the paradigm of the mid-twentieth century. This conviction was that the apex of development was the Western lifestyle, that development was copying and catching up with the West. The 1960’s saw the advancement of the theories of underdevelopment, built on Marxist thought that imperialism, as a result of the capitalist system, causes a concentration and

centralisation of capital and therefore uneven development in the world. Expanding on this, Andre Gunder Frank in his Theory of Third World Dependency, believed that the development of the Third World countries would only be possible if they disconnected from the global economy and pursued their own national strategies of import-substitution, in order to meet local needs from local resources, and in turn break the chain of interdependency. Since the 1970’s, the ideas of these theorists of development have been, “refined, revised and in many cases, rejected, ” (Corbridge, 1991 p. 17), but all different views tend to be accepted as paradigms of their generations. In current studies, the whole issue of development in the Third World seems to deal out less blame; to generalize

less about whole regions, move away from grand theories, considering specific problems in specific places; not to reject the idea of core-periphery co-operation and not to ignore capitalist development as a possibility in some areas of the Third World. This new outlook is altering the meaning of development to the academic and the criteria by which development is defined. The dominating view in the past, was that development was synonymous with economic development. This idea has been updated and many other aspects are now considered as essential for development. The World Development Report (1991) defines development as, “…a sustainable increase in living standards that encompass material consumption, education, health and environmental protection. ” (p. 31) Currently, it

is being considered in a broader sense and there is a tendency to include other important and related aspects, such as, “…more equality of opportunity, political freedom and civil liberties. The overall goal of development is therefore to increase the economic, political and civil rights of all people across gender, ethnic groups, religions, races, regions and countries.” (World Development Report, 1991, p.31) In short, definitions of development today encompass a wider range of social and environmental criteria, as well as economic. It is evident therefore, that the whole concept of development, with its definitions, theoretical approaches and indicators in the past and present, is a complex and ambiguous field of study, one large enough itself to comprise an entire

dissertation. However, in this context, it will be taken for granted that the Third World aspires to develop, economically and socially, (although this in itself is a contentious issue) and an attempt will be made later on, to determine whether tourism is a successful agent in this process for the Third World, and specifically Oaxaca State, Mexico. CONTEMPORARY LITERARY REVIEW 2.1 – INTERNATIONAL TOURISM International tourism is a growing global business. In general, people in the Developed World have more leisure time and disposable income at hand, so more people are travelling. Tourism is now the third largest item in world trade (Harrison, 1994, p. 232) and is distinguishable from other industries for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is an invisible export industry where