Tourism In Developing Countries Essay

1. Introduction

Tourism is the provisional transfer for people to destinations outside their his/her ordinary environment of work and habitation for less than a consecutive year for any main purpose including holidays, leisure and recreation, business, health, education or other purposes (Holloway and Taylor, 2006).

Tourism has made a significant contribution to the global economy. The statistics released by the World Tourism Organization revealed that there were 1138 million international tourists’ arrivals in 2014, which accounted for 6% of the world 's export volume and totally made 1.3 trillion US dollars. It also showed that there was 1 person working in the tourism sector for every 11 people worldwide (World Tourism Organization,

While the resources and tourists’ attractions in the developing countries have not yet been deeply-explored, resulting in a very high potential to develop tourism in developing countries. Over the years, there is an increasing proportion of tourists choose to visit less-developed countries, of which data will be cited in section 2.2.

Sadly, most people may exaggerate the economic benefits enjoyed by the developing countries with their growing tourism industry, but overlook that bad effects in other aspects also gradually appear as these countries are opening up and getting more in touch with foreign visitors from different regions with various cultural backgrounds through the expansion of tourism.

In view of this, this study aims at discussing the current situation of the tourism development inside the developing countries, analyzing both positive and negative effects brought by tourism to these countries, by giving relevant examples, mainly in Africa and Eastern Asia. In the last part, the study will provide suggestions for strengthening their tourism development and make the

In fact, motivation is one the important contributing factors to explain tourist behavior and choice of destination (Pearce, 2005). The two largest motivations for tourists to visit the less-developed regions are the change of their taste (detailed discussion below) and the participation in volunteer tourism to help build a better life and environmental for the local people in need. To narrow the scope, this study will focus on three classifications of attractions and entertainment, they are Culture tourism, Heritage tourism (Sharma, 2005) and Wildlife tourism (Shackley, 1996) in the developing countries.

To be specific, popular tourists’ destinations in developing countries include Cambodia, Nepal, Vietnam, India, South Africa, Morocco, Botswana, Egypt, Kenya, etc. (World Bank, 2013). Visitors’ needs and expectations to travel in these countries are discussed