| Abstrakt: |
Spurred on by rising disposable incomes (in Pacific Asia primarily), emergence of aggressive, low-cost airlines, new source markets (India and China) etc., tourism is fast emerging as one of the world's largest and rapidly growing industries. Statistics from the last two decades indicate that the Asia Pacific destinations constitute the fastest growing tourism region in the world. Today, their tourist arrivals and receipts are almost twice the rates recorded in the traditional destinations of Western Europe and the Americas. This has led some to conclude that the Asia Pacific region has been gaining market shares at the expense of the North. This paper will disagree with this notion and argue that the boom in East Asian tourist traffic is primarily a local phenomenon. Strong economic performance is the reason for a newly wealthy, Asian middle class, taking to the skies in record numbers, thereby fuelling the regional tourist trade. Our examination and testing of data over the period 1995-2008 provides strong evidence of an inverted or parabolic shape, defining the relationship between per capita GDP and tourism receipts growth. This suggests that tourism revenues grow rapidly in countries with modest GDP growth; however for high income destinations (Western Europe, Canada and the U.S.A), tourist growth moderates. This implies that all countries, developed and developing are able to share in the growth of the global tourist trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
