Tourism Development

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Over the last decades, tourism has become a key sector in the world economy: its contribution to balance of payments, incomes and employment has significantly increased over time. While in 1950 international tourism receipts totaled about 2 billion dollars, by 2006 this value had reached 735 billion dollars -- about 2 billion dollars a day (World Tourism Barometer, 2007). Nowadays, the sector originates more than one third of world exports of services and over 70% of those in the poorest countries (European Commission, 2007). Tourism is therefore an important driver of growth and prosperity and, particularly within developing countries, the sector is also important for poverty reduction (World Economic Forum, 2007). Mainly dominated by small-medium enterprises, tourism accounts for 4% of the Euro Area's GDP, with about two million enterprises employing about 4% of the total labour force (approximately eight million jobs). When linkages to other sectors are considered, the contribution of tourism to GDP increases to about 11%, and the employment rate reaches about 12%, creating about 24 million jobs. Besides incomes and jobs, tourism has fostered development in the vast majority of European regions, infrastructures built for tourism reasons contribute to local development, and jobs are created or preserved even in areas suffering industrial or rural decline or experiencing urban regeneration (European Commission, 2007). This book provides new research on tourism development from around the globe.