Tourism, globalization and development: responsible tourism planning

Tourism is booming worldwide -- it makes up a massive part of the global economy.

Donald G., Reid's book focuses on tourism in developing and less-developed countries.

He examines its social and environmental impact and offers a timely critical analysis of the part it plays in globalization.Many of the world's poorest countries rely on the tourist trade for the major part of their income.

However, all too often, the local communities involved do not reap the benefits of this trade.

Developers often exclude local communities from the initial planning and decision-making process, viewing them either as a benign resource to be exploited, or as an impediment.

Reid presents a rigourous critique of corporate-led tourism development and lays out alternatives that would give planning and control to the local communities involved.

He argues that only in this way can the vastly differing requirements of each community be addressed, and social and environmental issues can be dealt with properly.

The book includes a discussion of macro planning theory, and offers three case studies of locally controlled projects that show clearly how communities developing a tourist trade can benefit from it. "Donald Reid's book has exposed the underpinnings of a tourism industry that is totally committed to consumerism and the destructive reality of a market economy, and offers the potential instead for an industry based on social and ecological sanity within the framework of a more moral economy.

Stephen Wearing, University of Technology, Sydney Australia