My cautionary end-piece ‘rule of thumb’ commentary is that annual offshore
visitor numbers to a region of attraction should trigger defence strategies when
the number of visitors considerably exceeds local population numbers, allowing
that shorter or longer duration of stay, and visits to ‘spot’ attractions of the
Niagara, Fiordland, Banff, Ayres Rock kind leads to management of visitor
numbers well in excess of that figure. A supplementary concern can also be
expressed when receipts from the tourism venture become more significant than
the combined receipts from rest-of-region primary production. What can be
described as dependency tourism is not able to provide economic coverage during
inevitable periods of adverse trading health scares, climatic chaos, unruly conflict,
terrorism or economic downturn. On the other hand, sustainable-in-spirit, socially
acceptable, authentic-experience tourism has a degree of fiscal substantiality,
induces social wellbeing, and enhances environmental conservation. This model,
with its emphasis on expansion of the basic-export sector, is available over the
longer-haul for multiplier employment and income generation.
Unemployment alleviation
Increasing the proportion of employed persons in a state, provincial or
regional population is the major challenge to growth pattern management. It is
achieved by ‘somehow’ increasing the proportion of the employable population
engaged in gainful employment, which also includes those packaged into
job experience schemes, and those engaged in marginally legal and maybe
illegitimate projects. Claiming that unemployment is solely a national or a local
matter does little to alleviate a problem which is of vital concern to urban-with-
rural regions.
The eradication of unemployment is clearly not part of any realistic agenda,
but project generation in line with the guidelines provided in the earlier Project
Propagation passage (buttress, betterment, discovery) are available options,
along witha consideration of adjustments to work durations and
patterns. The direct job-generation prospects associated with low
capital cost per job place for agricultural, forestry and tourism
activities are other policy options. Reductions in the number of
hours and days in the working week, also job-sharing and
pragmatic job-generation, offers other prospects for enlarging
upon employment options. Furthermore, mindful of the signifi-
cance of basic-export multiplier benefits (figure 4.1: Multiple
spiral for development) there arises a case for exercising export
choice preferences for job promotion. This passage reviews the
alleviation options which radiate out from those multiplier
recommendations.
The most regionally significant yield of social wellbeing is that
which arises from secure employment, not only as individual
levels of disposable income, but also in terms of mana and self-
respect. Subjectively, fuller employment is a major regional objec-
Growth Pattern Management 181In the Northland region
of New Zealand, where I
live, cannibis-growing
is often claimed to be
the region’s most
economically significant
product. There are
advocates claiming much
for the economic
support and
employment this
provides to the
otherwise jobless; on
the other hand, there
has been created in the
eyes of other beholders,
a substance-producing
and guilt-ridden
sub-culture.