- Position1 of 2›
- Yes, tourism is beneficial to developing countries
- Argument‹4 of 4
Tourism fosters independence among citizens
Tourism encourages the creation and growth of self-made businesses.
The argument
Tourism does something for a developing economy that aid and single-sector investment do not: it allows a country to form a brand. Once a place is known internationally for something — a landscape, a culture, a city — it acquires an identity visitors seek out, and demand arrives without each business having to generate it for itself. That recognition is what allows the business structure beneath it to develop fully. Around an established destination there is work for guides, drivers, guesthouses, restaurants, craftspeople and everyone who supplies them, and these are enterprises that can be started small and locally. Locals are therefore able to create their own businesses rather than waiting to be employed in someone else's, and independence is formed in the process, since each operator holds a direct relationship with the customer and with the income that follows. The pattern compounds as the economy develops. As the nation's own economic brand begins to emerge, more people in developing countries are able to create their own businesses, and each is able more easily to foster a source of personal income. What changes is not only how much money there is but where the decisions about it are taken: a household with earnings of its own is less reliant on other people's arrangements and more able to act on its own. That shift is what drives the wider effect. As independence grows, so does the economy, because growth built on many small owners is distributed rather than concentrated, and puts spending power directly into the places where the enterprises sit. The country is thus able to develop more quickly and much more efficiently than it could through a single industry or an external benefactor — which is the case for tourism being beneficial to developing countries.
Premises
Counter-arguments
There is no guarantee that everyone will benefit from the income, or that locals will even put in the effort required to stimulate their growing economy. It requires a lot of action from all parts of the country, and none of that is a guarantee.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P2] There is no guarantee that people would establish personal businesses, let alone grow the economy.