LIMITS OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN PERIPHERAL DESTINATIONS: PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES The limits of tourism development - the problem

The limits of tourism development-the problem Despite many examples of inappropriate tourism development around the world, several destinations are still trapped by an almost inevitable vicious circle which destroys the very essence of tourism. Tourism is supposedly developed in order to improve the prosperity of local people at destinations, mainly through stimulating their local economy. However, unplanned and inappropriate development, often driven by human greed, generates an oversupply of tourism facilities. This is particularly evident in remote, peripheral and insular destinations, due to the decline of non-tourism related activities and the lack of alternative investment and employment opportunities. Several disastrous consequences emerge in this case for both destinations and enterprises: Destinations are forced to develop tourism, which then evolves to mass tourism as planners either fail to limit development or to implement plans against politicians, industry and developers; Principals are unable to attract their intended target markets and they rely on heavy discounting for attracting consumers; Principals also depend heavily on distribution channel members, such as tour operators, for achieving their financial targets. Intermediaries take advantage of the situation and use excessive bargaining power to reduce principals' prices even further in order to achieve competitive advantages in their market; Tour operators in particular demand constant reductions of prices by principals and at the same time they request an improvement of the quality of services and facilities. This is intensified through the vertical integration of tour operators and their geographical expansion, which enable them to concentrate more negotiation power; Destinations are sold on price rather than their merit or attributes, and thus they are easily substituted with other cheaper destinations around the world; environmental and socio-cultural resources face degradation and their sustainability is seriously jeopardised; Facilities and services also suffer because lack of profit prevents enterprises from renovating facilities as well as from hiring qualified personnel and maintaining training standards. They also try to save money by reducing the quality of the ingredients used, and by " cutting corners " (e.g. the times they change linen in rooms). As a consequence the quality of the product is further reduced and consumers are willing to pay less, generating another vicious circle; consumers often misbehave (e.g. hooliganism, drunkenness, sex tourism) and commit crimes in some traditionally peaceful societies, which do not have the police resources to maintain order; Effectively both the destination and principals suffer the consequences as they cannot attract the appropriate …