Tourism In Tourism

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Tourism has been widely considered one of the world’s largest and fastest growing sectors for contributing to economic development (United Nations World Tourism Organisation [UNWTO], 2011). In many countries, tourism has an important role in creating direct and indirect employment and contributes to income generation. Tourism in developing and least developed countries is one of the main sources of foreign exchange earnings, and one of the significant tool for reducing poverty (UNWTO, 2013) and achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (UN MDGs) i.e. to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (Scheyvens, 2007; Zhao & Ritchie, 2007). Besides, the Secretary General of the UNWTO, in 2006 stated that the tourism industry could play…show more content…
There is a dearth of research concerning perceptions of local people, particular local enterprises on tourism’s contribution and income distribution. It is important to understand people’s perceptions of the impact of tourism on inequality as it can influence their attitudes towards tourism development and wildlife conservation (Williams & Lawson, 2001) notably in a World Heritage Site (WHS) like Yakushima Island. This is particularly meaningful in the case of a developed country like Japan, where material differences may be less significant than perceived differences. Besides, it is rare to consider this topic in the case of Japan, where also is facing with poverty and income distribution issues. As stated in D. R. Medina-Muñoz, Medina-Muñoz, and Gutiérrez-Pérez (2015), Truong (2014) most research on tourism and poverty alleviation is conducted in developing countries (e.g. Africa was dominant, followed by Asia and Pacific regions). Besides, in the review of Croes and Rivera (2016), Mahadevan and Suardi (2017) regarding empirical studies on the impact of tourism on poverty and income inequality, most data…show more content…
This study contributes to the gap in the research field of tourism on poverty and income inequality since less attention on conducting research in advanced nations. Unlike previous studies on tourism and income distribution, this paper focuses on the attitude of local enterprises who directly participate in tourism industry, which may influence to making tourism development policies in a certain destination. The reason for choosing Yakushima and Japan for this study is that firstly, Japan is noticed that one of the nations with the high rate of income inequality among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Secondly, Yakushima belongs to Kagoshima Prefecture where witnesses the poverty rate is relative high in the comparison with Japan nationwide rate. Thirdly, although tourism development in Yakushima has a significant contribution to local economy, it creates the inequality in terms of income distribution among stakeholders and spatial differences among villages in the

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