Multipliers and Life Cycles: A Comparison of Methods for Evaluating Tourism and Its Impacts

Tourism is a multifaceted industry with a diversity of long-term consequences, one that is being pursued on a global basis as a remedy for underdevelopment. Under the circumstances, it is prudent to evaluate its potential and complexities from a variety of methods and perspectives. The life-cycle approach introduces concepts that necessitate circumspect deliberation. Since the model is a simplification, it requires additional understanding and analysis. This can easily include multiplier analysis. Of primary importance is that the limitations of each tool be recognized along with the need to acknowledge the significance of perspective in formulating discussion and research. There is a real danger that governments and local residents in their zeal to get a share of tourism dollars will be persuaded by the numbers generated through multiplier analysis and fail to give sufficient consideration to distribution of costs and benefits. If they also ignore the changing nature of tourism, there is a danger that they will be left worse off than when they started, with hard-to-fill facilities and no-longer attractive sites.