~&Mic tour de force TOURISM ANALYSIS: A HAND=

by Stephen LJ. Smith

LonQmW Harlow. UK 1989. 312 pages, fl8.83

This book grew out of the author’s desire to provide his own students with ‘relatively clear and detailed ex- planations of the use and limitations of some of the more important and use- ful quantitative procedures used by tourism analysts’ (p ix). It is *un- ashamedly a methodological book’ (pxi), which, Smith asserts, should ‘de6nitely be in a student’s or profes- sional’s library’ (p xi). Tour&rn Anafy- sib: A Handbook is certainly one of the three handbooks in the to&m field that this reviewer would choose to pack if he were sent to a faraway place to hatch up with his reading.

In the first of his 10 chapters, Smith reminds us that tourism research may focus on tourism as a human expe- rience, as a social behaviour, as a geographical phenomenon, as a resoume, as a business and as an iudusUy.Andtourismasanagentof change - impacting on destinations in many ways - surfaces in more than one of these early pamgraphs. The author then briefly examines five major challenges to improving data collection - including the lack of credible measures of the’ size and 5 economic impact of the industry, and the need to assess future costs and benefits more accurately (180 that they may be %anaged succemfully~ ’ @ 14)). Six major themes of tourism planning and policy analysis are then identified, and these form the framework for the methods discus& ln this text, each chapter addremmg one theme or aspect of it.

A consequence of using this struc- ture is that there is no progression in the book from simpler to more soph- isticated quantitative methods. In Chapter 3, for instance, which deals with ‘segmenting the tourism market’, we are into multivari+ techniques - indeed, factor-cluster segmentation is

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the second method presented in the book. And no fewer than five of the first seven methods in Tour&m Andy- & are what Smith rates Level 3 (the most complex) which ‘typically re- quire access to machine-readable data sets and computer-based statistical routines’ (p x). If it is a gentle intro- duction to quantitative methods in tourism that the reader seeks, he or she should perhaps move directly to the chapter on ‘describing tourism re- gions’, where eight of the total of 11 methods are rated Level 1 (procedures ‘that require minimal quantitative skills’ (p x)). But, of course, Smith can remind us that his book is a hand- book.

Chapter 2 notes that tourism analy- sis may emphasize either the traveller or the trlp and presents some ‘com- mon descriptors’ (p 37) for both. As noted, segmenting follows in Chapter 3, with 11 prioti segmentation, the first method presented in the book. Chap- ter 4, the second of three chapters that emphasize marketing, is entitled ‘understanding the tourist’. The con- cern is with attitudes and motivations and the analysis of consumer choice behaviour. After noting types of scales, the author explains five scaling techniques (no difficulty levels are in- dicated) and then expectancy-value models and conjoint measurement, both rated Level 3. In the chapter summary the reader is advised that: ‘No single choice model is appropriate for all circumstances. Ultimately you will need to sort out the relative merits andcosts.. . and then match them to the problem you are studying’ (p 94).

Forecasting and demand are intro- duced in Chapter 5. Trend extrapola- tion, the gravity model and the prob- abilistic travel model are among the methods explained. One wonders why tbeexampleonp123wasnottakena step further to show (to the unsoph- isticated) the influence of unequal dis- tances to each destination. In any case the non-quantitative Delphi techni- que, relying heavily on expert opin- ion, rounds off the discussion.

Turning to tbe supply side of tour- ism, Smitb c43nsiders methods relevant

to ‘selecting a site for business de- velopment’. The overview of location theory is well done - though it might have noted the concept of suboptimal- ity and margins to an area of profita- bility. It is followed by an account of ‘more practical site-selection guide- lines’ (p 136). We have the cheeklist method (and the by ‘now familiar for- mat for each method continues: de- scription, procedures and example),

( adogue method, analysis of residuals and inductive reasoning (‘more a re- search strategy than a specific technl- que . . . simply put, inductive reason- ing is generalization’, (p 152). This sixth chapter concludes with the thought that most social scientists do not have the business skills to make final recommendations about site seWion.

In Chapter 7, the theme is definition of ‘the geographic structure of the industry’. Smith focuses on the tourist region; and he notes that a region may be an 4 prbri region or a homo- geneous or functional region. After explaining three types of regionaliza- tion logic - synthetic, analytic and dichotomous - he moves to ‘regiona- lixation in tourism research (p 171). All this - and the several regionalll- tion methods that are presented in this chapter - p0rGcularly aroused this re- viewer’s interest, since he moved into the tourism field when he chanced upon clam GumI% work on regions and physical planning. It seemed, and still seems, like geography (or one aspect of geographical enquiry). However, one is not sure that the methods considered here suggest how we may identify those portions of a given space where tourism develop- ment is at an ‘appropriate’ kvel, those areas where it is ‘excessive’ and those areas where it has ‘potential’. (Such an exercise Calls, of course, for assump- tions - and one should also consider alternative styles of tourism develop- ment.) I am expreming here a geog- rapher’s disappointment that there seem to be no quantitative methods to identify spatial structures, or ‘test’ spatial strategies.

Assuming that the analyst has found or defined one or more tourist re- gions, how may he or she describe them? This is the concern of Chapter

TOURlSM MANAGEMENT March 1991

8. According to Smith, ‘some of the more useful descriptive tools available to tourism analysis’ (p 194) include the mean centre and standard dis- tance, and the standard deviational ellipse. In this, the longest chapter, we are also taken, via description, proce- dures, and example, through Defert’s Tf; a compactness index and the connectivity index; Lorenz curves (categorical and bivariate); nearest neighbour analysis and linear nearest- neighbour analysis; the spatial associa- tion index; peaking and directional bias indices; and, finally, a tourism attractiveness index. The latter, as presented by the author, is developed for given regions and is based on the evaluations of experts. There is much meat in this chapter; but no methods that enable one to compare regions in terms of, eg developmental levels or input levels.

‘A common challenge facing policy- makers and managers who are re- sponsible for allocating resources is that there are usually more uses for a resource than the supply can support’ (p 243). Smith’s ninth chapter is enti- tled ‘determining the value of public resources used in tourism’, and Smith begins by clarifying some basic con- cepts - willingness to buy and willing- ness to sell. The survey method (or contingent valuation method) is sug- gested as a useful process, and the travel cost method - based on the development of a model for predicting site use from observed consumer be- haviour - is interestingly discussed. The chapter concludes with the dif- ferential cost method, and the exam- ple cited is a survey of big-game hun- ters in British Columbia.

‘Estimating the local economic mag- nitude of tourism’ is the title of the final chapter of this handbook. It may well, one feels, be the first chapter that community leaders and tourism planners will turn to - and they may well wish to get a handle on the econo- mic multiplier, that handy ratio. They will, however, immediately be advised to beware of extravagant claims for the economic impact (positive, that is) of tourism - ‘claims made by tourism boosters’ (p 271). The local impact model is then presented, the basic data coming from local businesses sell-

ing accommodation (beds/rooms) and tourists (who are asked to reveal their expenditure patterns). The example given for this method is hypothetical. Then we are informed about the Kreutzwiser methodology, using secondary data sources to estimate aggregate spending. On the final page (p 288) there is a nod in the direction of cost assessment, but one is left wondering about net economic bene- fit, surely of significance to communi- ties embarking (at their peril, in many instances) on tourism development.

My general conclusion about Tour- ism Analysis is that it is a considerable achievement - even a tour de force - and Dr Smith is to be warmly com- plimented on the outcome of his leng- thy labours. It is a work likely to be of value to both students and professors of tourism, as well as professionals in the field. It deftly and interestingly relates 40-odd quantitative methods to tourism questions and, where possi- ble, to theory. Though concise (and many who refer to Tourism Analysis will feel that’s a virtue), the explana- tions are generally clear.

Books

By no means, then, is it merely a ‘cookbook’. Whether it always in- forms us about the latest and best models and methods, I am not so sure. And it does contain the odd mislead- ing typo. Other readers, in other Ioca- tions, may wonder why Smith, who is based at the University of Waterloo, Canada, chooses to use so many parochial examples. One supposes he anticipates heavy usage among his own students: if they are required to work through all of Tourism Analysis, they would certainly be one subset of handbook users qualified to comment on its utility. My own undergraduate students, sensing that I might require them to acquire this book to balance my essentially non-quantitative approach to tourism studies, reminded me that Towistn Analysis: A Hand- book does not come cheap. At over C$50 a copy, they do have a point.

Bruce Young Wilfrid Laurier University

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3CS

Tracing Thai tourism BEYOND THE MASK: TOWARD A TRANSDISCIPLINARY APPROACH OF SELECTED SOCIAL PROBLEMS RELATED TO THE EVOLUTION AND CONTEXT OF INTERNATION- AL TOURISM IN THAILAND

by W. Meyer

Verlag Breitenbach, Saarbrucken, Germany, 1988, 533 pages, DM 58

The main focus of this book is interna- tional tourism in Thailand. Readers will soon become aware, however - as the long subtitle indicates - that the author intends it to be a good deal more than the standard ‘development studies’ mix of broad brush sociology laced with political-economy. Indeed Meyer writes that he wrote Beyond he Mask ‘in the conviction that much effort is needed to improve transdisci- plinary and integrative methodologies’ (p 503). Thus in addition to a histori- cal account of the ‘evolution of the

Thai social system’ (chapter l), there are periodic and fairly lengthy psycho- logical or theological introductions to selected topics. Examples of these in- clude a discussion of tourist motiva- tion, preceded by a fullish commen- tary on the implications of Laing’s ideas on the ‘divided self’, and a chap- ter on prostitution introduced by a substantial section on the yang and yin positions of Thai women.

Following the opening chapter, the historical development of internation- al tourism is traced. It is argued that its origins lie in the ‘open door’ poli- cies of the Thai royal family in the mid 19th century. These enabled foreign merchants to settle and operate from Bangkok. Furthermore, following King Chulalongkorn’s ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe in 1897, international travel acquired considerable symbolic pres- tige. More recently the use of Thai- land as an R and R (rest and recrea- tion) base during the Vietnam war, and the contemporary tourist regime

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