attributed to visitors; yet not to be overlooked are the likes of
third-party commercial signage, put up in the countryside the
tourist have paid to come and enjoy, by members of the host
community!
In order to win-win with tourism one predication is that there
must be everlasting growth-on-growth for the providers andcon-
tinuing satisfaction-upon-satisfaction for the tourist participants.
The implications are economically, socially and environmentally
significant. On all three counts the impacts are intimidating, par-
ticularly for the most rapidly growing tourist-receiving regions of
the world: South-Eastern Asia, the western US–Canada region,
and Oceania–Australasia. Arrivals for this latter region have
grown from 1 per cent of all international movements in 1960, to
3 per cent in 1970, 7 per cent in 1980 and 11 per cent by 1990, with
the aggregate volume of this trend set to continue toward 15 per
cent by 2010.^35 Two interconnected points to register are firstthat
there is a marked degree of tourism market interpenetration into
nations from their neighbours and, in the transpacific New World
context, from other parts of the Pacific Rim; second, that growth
in visitor numbers is dependent upon industrial and commer-
cial prosperity at home (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China,
Singapore relative to North America and Australasia) and continued visitor
satisfaction.Qualitative targets have a tendency to go awry within the tourism industry,
markedly so when the number of annual visitors reaches or exceeds double that
of the overall population size of the region being visited – with ‘spot’ attractions
of the Niagara Falls kind excepted. Environmental impacts can be mitigated and
diluted to some extent by a channelling and diversion of tourists towards new
gateways and alternative destinations; but the onslaught of numbers eventually
impacts adversely upon the destinations and events selected. The socio-cultural
impact, unless carefully factored as an acceptable risk, is prone to introduce
complications.
Visitor demand expectation is there to be met, not only through a planned
supply-side provisioning of ‘guidance transportation accommodation and vict-
ualling services’ but also through the mitigation of adverse environmental impacts
and the amelioration of sociocultural conflicts. Inbound (from offshore) tourist
numbers per annum, when boosted to the equivalent size of the receiving state or
provincial population, puts that region into a situation of tourism dependency, and
induces a satiation which gives rise to socio-cultural conflict arising, particularly,
on account of the intensive servicing demands of the industry. These overloads can
also occur within free-access National Park and Reserves landscapes. These are
some of the conflicts. In contrast, market force response mechanisms work well to
meet transportation, accommodation and victualling demands.
Flagging the complications ahead for a growth-on-growth compounding
increase in tourism indicates the need to backtrack into patterns and characteris-172 Practice
Intensive:Playing fields,
courts, public pools,
public golf courses.
Extensive:parks,
waterspaces, public
woodlands, national
parks, public reserves.The overhead gondola
has not been included in
the listing of transport.
With careful placement
to ameliorate visual
impact and meticulously
controlled site
construction, this
conveyance mode has
the potential to mass-
transport sightseeing
tourists through and in
close proximity to a
spectacular landscape
with controlled impact.