The Economic Impacts of Tourism

Abstract

For approximately 40 years from the early 1960s, the ‘impacts of tourism’ was the most researched topic in tourism, and economic impacts were more researched than any other type in this period. When, in the late 1980s, Pearce discussed research on tourism impacts, he stated that the geographical focus of this research, was the tourism destination. As Pearce (1989:2) indicated: Studies of the impact of tourist development on a destination or destinations have been the largest single element of tourism research ... and has concentrated on the effects of income and employment. Despite this quotation coming from nearly 30 years ago, and taking into account the development of many different research areas in tourism since then, it is still the case that economic impact studies are a key focus in tourism research. Although, as has been stated in Chapter 6, economic impacts of tourism are linked to, and cannot easily be separated from, other types of impact, largely in an attempt to assist with understanding, economic impacts are discussed in this chapter separately from other tourism impacts.