Is tourism beneficial to developing countries?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Is tourism beneficial to developing countries?
Position1 of 2›: Yes, tourism is beneficial to developing countries
Argument‹3 of 4›: Tourism pulls in revenue

Visitors provide chances to pull in income to developing countries.

The argument

Supporters of this position begin from the claim that a developing country's prospects rest on the state of its economy: without a significant and reliable flow of cash there is little with which to build anything, and advancement stalls. On this view the decisive question about any activity is whether it brings money into the country that would not otherwise arrive at all, rather than merely moving existing money between domestic hands. Tourism, proponents argue, is precisely such an activity. Visitors earn their income elsewhere and spend it locally, so the revenue they bring is additional rather than recycled, and it arrives without the country first having to possess the capital needed to generate it. Proponents point to Rwanda, where tourism is the country's largest source of income from outside sources, and to the village of Mayange, where it is the main source of cash flow. These are offered as illustrations rather than exceptions: on this account many developing places are improving because of the spending of vacationers and visitors, and the same mechanism is held to operate at both national and village scale, a national economy gaining external earnings while a single community gains a livelihood that depends on no other industry. The argument then runs counterfactually. Were tourism absent, supporters hold, such countries would likely not have the money required to improve themselves, to become more modern, or to build economies of their own; the cash flow tourism supplies is the precondition for everything else. Revenue generation is therefore treated not as one benefit among many but as the foundational one, since it is what allows a developing country to fund its own advancement rather than wait on capital it does not have. It is on this basis that proponents conclude tourism is beneficial to developing countries.

Premises

[P1]A developing country's advancement depends on its economy and significant cash flow. [P2] Tourism brings in substantial revenue that would otherwise not enter the country, as in Rwanda, where it is the largest external income source, and the village of Mayange. [P3] Without tourism, such countries would likely lack the money needed to modernise and build their own economies. [C] Therefore, tourism pulls in revenue, benefiting developing countries.

Counter-arguments

The revenue may not necessarily be going directly to the towns. Tourists also may prevent citizens from creating their own ways of bringing in economic profit and result in an economy solely dependent on outsiders.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] If income doesn't go to the right places, it will not lead to development.