نقش بانک جهانی در توسعه صنعت گردشگری

Over the last four decades, commitment to tourism as a development strategy for developing economies has fluctuated within the World Bank. This article reviews the bank’s experience from 1966 to the present as it has evolved through various phases of its own institutional role towards development. Today, driven by strong country demand, there is renewed interest within the bank in the role of tourism in the fulfillment of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The paper analyzes the role and approach of the World Bank toward this development aim.

This paper synthesizes internal World Bank commissioned research (Mann 2005) using evidence from over 300 reviewed projects and project-related documents in 86 countries to chart the role the bank has played since the mid-60s in using tourism as a development tool. The study shows that differing development themes (such as structural adjustment and sustainable development) have influenced the way tourism’s role in development is perceived within the agency and how this in turn has shaped a country-level dialogue with governments, the private sector, and other development partners. It documents the ebb and flow of tourism-related lending from the bank over the past 40 years—showing some correlation between the categories of projects it has financed (for example, economic growth or cultural and environmental preservation) and the prevailing development theme of the time. The discussion focuses on current practices in order to benchmark these in the literature and analyze their merit with respect to the growing demand from developing countries for lending and advice (Mann 2005:1–3). Beyond the institution, the growing demand to develop tourism is also reflected in the wide range of development institutions (George Washington University 2004) supporting projects and programs in this field, and providing technical advice in developing countries. Multilateral institutions, including the African, Asian, and Inter-American Development Banks, the Inter American Development Bank, the European Union and United Nations agencies such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization, the United Nations Development Program, United Nations Education Program, United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the United Nations Conference of Trade and Development, are all involved in related development activities from a range of perspectives driven by their individual institutional development objectives. A range of bilateral institutions including Australia’s Agency for Internal Development, Austria’s Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Canada’s International Development Agency, Denmark’s International Development Agency, France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Germany’s Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, Ireland’s Irish Aid, Japan’s International Cooperation Agency and Bank for International Cooperation, the Netherlands’ Development Organization, Norway’s Agency for Development Cooperation, Switzerland’s Agency for Development Cooperation, the United Kingdoms’ Department for International Development, and the United States’ Agency for International Development, also have targeted development programs, and a range of nongovernmental organizations too many to mention here, have specific tourism development objectives. However, despite this broad support to this industry there is little research on the role of external (non-national) institutions in the process of developing tourism; this is one gap this paper addresses by examining the role of the World Bank historically and currently. The premise for the paper is that the bank plays an influential role in the way governments perceive the role of tourism in their economies. Reflecting on the long list of development partners that support the industry, it is posited that the bank is better placed than other development agencies to play the role of “honest broker” in galvanizing governments and development partners toward a more systematic and inclusive approach in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the economic, social, and environmental impacts of tourism development interventions geared toward sustainable development. The discussion highlights that opportunities are being missed within the institution to harness the ever-growing economic force of global tourism for realizing desired poverty reduction outcomes and that increasing demand from developing countries for related development loans and technical advice and assistance is not being met in a systematic and coordinated fashion.

Through the development and the tourism lens, this paper examines the role and the approaches of the World Bank to tourism development over the past four decades. It looks at trends in diagnostics and analysis related to project design and implementation, showing a move toward increasing depth of detail and understanding emerging from the current approaches. One critical factor underpinning this trend is that there is significantly more tourism-related work happening across the institution and in different regions; evidence suggests that demand for lending and advice is increasing with the political economy and growth of tourism in developing countries. However, the institutional foothold required to leverage the considerable intellectual and financial resources of the agency to develop an effective tourism business line is as yet missing. This implies that there are still questions about its role in development and the extent to which the bank should be facilitating this. Tourism, along with nuclear energy, is among the few activities that the bank’s Board of Directors has elected to halt, and this remains a significant institutional milestone to overcome. It is unlikely that it will be considered an industry of its own in the immediate future. Tourism has been judged unstable and volatile, with destinations at the mercy of trends and fashions for their popularity, dependent upon fluctuating political and economic conditions worldwide, and impacted by natural/human-made disasters and political instability. For the Board, individual country and project managers, and governments, these are challenging externalities on which to base the allocation of scarce development resources, particularly without a strong strategic rationale linked closely to the bank’s core business of poverty reduction. There are important lessons from the past that Richard Scobey, the bank’s Director for Environment in the Africa region, noted at a 2004 Tourism Policy Forum at George Washington University (Scobey 2004). He claims his organization “dropped the ball on tourism after the mid-70s”. He lists past oversights as, first, giving up on tourism, second, not developing analytical expertise and inter-sector relationships, and, third, insufficient knowledge-sharing. Scobey notes that the fragmentation of interventions is apparent from his analysis of ongoing project documents, which often show inconsistent approaches to tourism issues and ad hoc intervention strategies. It may be necessary at this stage of the bank’s evolving role to question some of the assumptions which underpin its funded projects. For example, are the outcomes from the expanding portfolio of tourism-related work actually beneficial to the poor, and can they be measured? A crowded craft market may be a visual testament, but how much money is actually being earned and how many are actually employed? Will increased tourism be a threat to the sustainability of natural and cultural protected areas or can safeguards initiated by governments mitigate the potential negative impacts? Will market forces alone increase tourism or are targeted market access or policy interventions needed to ensure the right kind of growth? The multi-sectoral nature of investments remains a challenge to coordinate and sequence (for example, a critical road leading to an important resource or banking sector reform that facilitates lending to small and medium tourism enterprises). Is the bank sufficiently organized to work multi-sectorally when this approach to development programs has failed in the past due to high transaction costs? A stronger case needs to be made to demonstrate the positive linkages between tourism development and poverty reduction, based upon an economic model of productivity documented with empirical data. In addition, assets (or comparative advantages) such as scenery, clean rivers, lakes and shorelines, biodiversity, cultural heritage, infrastructure, security, and environmental health, should be considered as public goods as well as essential foundations for developing a competitive destination. It is also important to interpret tourism growth as a performance measure and focus on how such growth might actually be achieved. For instance, though the Millennium Development Goal imperative is driving individual country development strategies, these indicators are often not relevant to the political agendas of individual government leaders or ministers. The Minister of Tourism in any given country now is being asked to deliver a range of outcomes, including economic growth that can be empirically related to a poverty reduction strategy; however, economic growth does not necessarily result in poverty reduction (Ravallion 2004). A key problem to address is not simply how economic growth can be realistically attained but also how growth benefits can be distributed fairly among a wider group in society to achieve poverty reduction goals, or at least improved results. Targeted pro-poor policies supported by good practices and case studies are needed. It is hoped that this paper provokes additional research on the role of other development agencies in tourism development, including an analysis of approaches, entry points, and lessons learned. A retrospective analysis of the World Bank’s interventions during the 60s and 70s in selected, and now successful (at least from an economic perspective) destinations such as Bali, the Dominican Republic, Kenya, and Cancun would add to the debate highlighted in this paper around the frameworks of ownership and comparative versus competitive advantage. Dissecting the nature and influence of these dimensions is an important area of research that will lead to a deeper understanding of how tourism can be a useful development tool.