A Travel Balance Approach for Examining Tourism Area Life Cycles: The Case of Singapore

Abstract

This article reviews the product life cycle and its extension to the tourist area life cycle (TALC) concept and its operationalization, proposes an alternative travel balance approach (TBA) based on changes in net travel balances, and then calibrates the TALC and TBA models with tourism statistics from Singapore. Using the TBA as a preferred alternative to the TALC, the proposed model suggests that Singapore is about to enter the decline stage, based on computations of income and price elasticities of demand, as well as the level of economic development. The authors then outline the advantages of the TBA model over the TALC and conclude with the hope that their model will be empirically validated with tourism statistics from other countries.