Tourism as a supplement to communities' economy
By Elisha Mayallah
The only need, which a
community needs to remember about tourism, is its demand for constant change.
Tourism is a highly competitive business, dependent on many external and
internal causes over which a destination area has little or no control.
Success can be influenced by cultural heritage, weather, changing consumer
tastes, economic cycles, government policies and security, among others. But if
we step back from the immediacy of such events, whether they are positive or
negative, it is possible to detect some predictable patterns in the tourism
business.
Despite the effects of weather, and changing government policy, many successful
destination areas appear to experience a series of cycles. Most are fairly short
and highly visible, others are much slower in developing and need more careful
observation and research to detect. They all reveal, however, that in a
competitive and open system every destination area must face the prospect of
changing circumstances.
We still remember the effects of the terrorist attack of the September 11, Gulf
War II and many more security concerns, which had disturbed the in flow of
tourists. It has even taken more than two years after the terrorist attack for
the tourist arrivals to increase and possibly it will take a couple of years
again to create a normal movement of tourists from one area to another.
Unfortunately in Africa, and in particular East Africa there is continuity of
the signs of a slow return of the tourists: simply because the feeling, among
others, is the security concern which continues to be a real threat.
Tourism development has most appeal for many communities because of expected
economic benefits, such as increased income and employment. Besides,
infrastructure improvements like the road from Makuyuni to Ngorongoro, which is
expected to be completed early next year, this road will create economic
benefits to the community along the road.
And equally so, a visitor buying a loaf of bread at a local bakery, say at
Karatu, is injecting new economic gains into the community, making that bakery
part of the tourism industry. But, otherwise, mainly the bakery is there to
serve local needs and the baker is unaware of the tourism part of his trade.
To tap these economic benefits, communities and individual entrepreneurs should
plan to invest in both consumables and non-consumables services. Sings of such
investment are a major development in peripherals and economically backwards
regions. Based on the promise that tourism can use their resource base and bring
prosperity in the process.
And then, any assessment of tourism development should include consideration of
the costs to host communities and corporate net benefits.
With these economic issues in mind, most economic strategies in tourism have to
be geared to developing the greatest return from the tourist products. As for
economic development, most strategies now stress tourism's potential as a
supplement to the existing economic base and lifestyles of a community.
Evidence of this can be seen in promoting farm tourism – take an example of the
various farming in and around Karatu Township, among other areas - and second
home for peripherals regions. Both are designed to complement and support local
community life and expected to empower the communities' economies. It is also
hoped that more local resources and labour can be used and generate increased
income for destination areas.
E-mail contacts:
ermayallah@yahoo.com,
ermayallah@hotmail.com
