This thesis represents a systematic attempt to analyse the economic impact of international tourism in Iceland. While tourism has long been seen as an important source of foreign exchange and employment for the country very little detailed information is available on the role that the industry plays in the national economy. / To fill this 'information gap' two questionnaires were used to gather data on tourist expenditure characteristics and the cost and revenue structures of various tourism businesses. This data was then analysed using a simplified multiplier model. A series of findings are presented, including: the economic impacts associated with various 'tourist types': the ability of different tourism businesses and sectors to generate local income and employment, and; the links that exist between the industry and the rest of the economy. Each of these data bases is then used to provide an overview of future policy options facing the Icelandic government. / The research reveals that international tourism plays a major role in the Icelandic economy and is potentially an important tool for regional development. The data provides an important foundation upon which future tourism development strategics and research can be based.

Because of the large supply of information is today's leisure travelers very enlightened and have firsthand knowledge of what can be demanded on a hotel stay. Along with business travelers, who are not price sensitive, they place higher demands on the standards and service they require. It has become increasingly important to attract the visitors in a unique way. The purpose of this study is to reveal those aspects which hotels focus on in their business in order to keep their guests, despite the strong competition and the new demands of the changing hotel industry. The study has examined more closely if the hotels have specific concepts in their approach, if their servicescapes (the environment where the service is assembled) are designed in a unique way to attract visitors and if the hotels have special relationships with their guests. The study is qualitative and in order to answer the purpose has observations of the selected hotels and interviews with managers and receptionists been made. One of the conclusions that we reached is that the most important aspect in the hotels business is their relationship to the guests. Each respective hotel strives to have a special and unique relationship with its guests conveyed by its staff. But even if the hotels have the same purpose, they use different ways to create a unique relationship to their guests. As for concept, we have concluded that none of the hotels work with thematisation, but that they instead use various concepts to make their guests' experiences more positive. The servicescapes are valued not quite high by the hotels, however, they are designed in different ways that convey certain emotions.

Economic activity is becoming not only more internationalised, but, more significantly, it is becoming increasingly globalised. Globalisation is always regarded as a product of the liberalisation that has been the hallmark of economic policy throughout the world during the past two decades. Globalisation and liberalisation feed off each other and the former has certainly set in motion forces working to accelerate liberalisation. Both globalisation and liberalisation have increased the potential for international trade to further establish itself as an engine of growth and an important mechanism for integrating countries into the global economy. Tourism is not only the dominant service in world trade, it has also become one of the most important industries in the world and its economic impacts are vital for many countries. The tourism industry has long supported the idea of services agreements and has become a major force of the globalisation of international trade, particularly in services. The significance of tourism as a source of income and employment and as a major factor in the balance of payments for many countries has been attracting increasing attention. Governments, private sector entities, regional and local authorities, and others with an interest in international trade and economic development have recognised the role to be played by tourism. If the barriers to worldwide travel were eliminated or reduced substantially, international trade in tourism services is likely to increase dramatically. The globalisation of production and the liberalisation of trade offer opportunities for all countries and enable developing countries to play a more active role in the world economy. However, these newfound opportunities do not come without a price and this is to be found in the increasing complexity associated with interdependence including instability and marginalisation. Therefore, the net result is one of trade off between economic gains and costs. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the only international body dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the trading nations of the world. Its main functions, as defined in article III of the Agreement, are to facilitate the implementation, administration and operation of the Uruguay Round Agreements (GATT, GATS, TRIPS, act) and to provide a forum for negotiations among members. The WTO's overriding objective is to help trade flow smoothly, freely, fairly and predictably. There is no doubt that the WTO and the GATS have assisted the growth of international trade in goods and services. However, the success of such instruments relies upon markets behaving in a Ricardian manner incorporating the fluidity and transparency that form the substance of those markets. The purpose of this research is, through analysis, to gain insight into the impacts of liberalisation brought about by the GATS on tourism development in Egypt and to explore stakeholders' perceptions of tourism liberalisation. This research aims to analyse the terms, codes and practice of the WTO and the GATS and their implications for the tourism sector. This examination is intended to enhance understanding of how the General Agreement is intended to work and how it may help governments exploit the system to their own advantage, especially in the developing countries. The research has five broad objectives. The first is to evaluate the level of openness in Egypt's trade in services in general and tourism in particular. The second is to examine and display the main features of Egypt's GATS commitments. Third, is to explore whether the macroeconomic environment offers the necessary conditions for tourism liberalisation and for private business development (foreign and local alike). Fourth, to determine whether the institutional climate is amenable to the growth and competitiveness of private firms. Finally, to evaluate the potential impacts of GATS on tourism development in Egypt. This research also has the objective of developing policy options that embrace and reflect all the major relevant concepts of tourism liberalisation. There are likely to be transitional impacts of trade liberalisation through WTO and GATS. The World Bank (2000) states that globalisation and liberalisation do not benefit everyone equally. Developing countries and the least developing countries are always the least able to take advantage of the opportunities that GATS presents, and globalisation and liberalisation may lead to an increase in inequality in these countries. The future of tourism development in Egypt, as well as the ability of Egypt to integrate successfully into the global trading system will depend upon its ability to strengthen its capacity to produce internationally competitive services and upon the extent of liberalisation in the services sectors in general and the tourism sector in particular. In today's globalised market, a country competes with every other destination in the type and price of tourism it offers. The main findings of this research indicate that if Egypt is to be successful in competing in the international tourism market, standards of excellence must be introduced for its products, particularly for infrastructure and accommodation and services. Management and administration of the sector must improve. Governments must shift to policies that encourage tourism. For example, the sector cannot develop without improvements in public health and personal safety in tourist areas. Air policies that support ease of access and traffic growth are also critical. Governments must also invest in expanded human resource development and institutional capacity building, and improve environmental mitigation and protection. The value to the final consumer is determined by the quality of all these components of the tourism package. Given its cross-sectoral nature, tourism will only develop in a sustainable manner if it is integrated into the country's overall policies and economic and physical planning mechanisms and if linkages are created across the many sectors spanned by tourism. Partial policy measures will be inadequate to address vested interests, underlying economic relationships and generic social or physical constraints. The creation of highly competitive products through good management of natural and built tourist assets is most likely to convince the international industry to promote one country over another in the global market place. Countries can influence these external industry managers through an effective and continuing promotion and marketing campaign, but will be successful only if there is a highquality, competitive product to sell that competes in value and not just price. It is hoped that these findings, which offer an understanding of the impacts of GATS and WTO on tourism development, may help address national and regional tourism development policy-making and strategies in developing countries.

Tourism supply and demand varies from one region to another and from one season to another in many destination countries. These variations provide certain benefits as well as problems and disadvantages. The developing countries need balanced development more than others as they need scarce resources of tourism, such as the natural environment, today as well as in the future, to be able to sustain the economy and the nation. The first chapter explains the need for this study, its aims and objectives together with detailed information about general outlook of Turkey and tourism development. As a developing country, despite its short history of mass tourism movements, Turkey has experienced massive growth in tourism and the effects of variations in time and place since the 1980s.Spatial and temporal variations in Turkish tourism have increased and tourism movements are concentrated increasingly in the coastal regions of the Mediterranean and Aegean and in the peak season between May and October since the late 1980s,while other regions and off-season are neglected. This reflects partly the basic structure of tourism demand towards Turkey and most importantly a lack of a national tourism policy and the failure of present policy and strategies to combat the potentially damaging effects of tourism on social and environmental resources and increase and spread the benefits of tourism as much as possible The second chapter tries to put temporal and spatial imbalance in general and in Turkey into perspective. Turkey has great unspoiled natural,cultural and historical resources and potential which will allow Turkey to develop supply-led tourism products as well as demand-led products and to combine both products in order to create market-led products, improving the uneven temporal and spatial distribution of tourism. After describing the methodology in the third chapter, the fourth chapter identifies the demographic and motivational characteristics and the reasons behind their seasonal and spatial preferences which indicate that each shoulder and each destination has its own segment. Regional tourism development policies, strategies and plans with goals to reduce both spatially and seasonally uneven distribution of tourism should be introduced. The tourism industry indicates great importance for Turkey and specifically for less-developed tourism regions of Turkey due to its unique advantages. The fifth chapter discusses the effects of temporal and spatial disparity in Turkey, explores the development and marketing options available for developing tourism destinations to follow, such as, encouraging tourism in certain regions by giving incentives, completing infra- and super-structure and promoting and marketing currently available and potential tourism products in those regions or encouraging tourism in all regions regardless of the type and location of products. It is obvious that there is a relationship between temporal and spatial imbalance. Therefore, understanding these relationships can and will help to achieve better balanced tourism development and management in Turkey, as well as other developing destinations.The development of Turkish tourism is still at its early stage and appropriate actions against present and future problems can prevent or avoid tomorrow's difficulties. This study aims to identify and diagnose spatial and temporal problems and the relationships between these two problems and contribute to the tourism industry by developing effective development and marketing strategies.

Tourism Trip Decision Making at the Sub- Regional Level: with special reference to Southern England The research investigated aspects of the decision making processes which influenced the choice of day trip tourism destinations for a sample of the population within the Southern Tourist Board area. The aims were to understand characteristics of day trip activities, to assess the effect of socio-demographic constraints on day trip behaviour, to examine the reasons for day trips, to develop household profiles and to reveal likely patterns of day trip activity. The final aim was to construct a model of day trip decision making. 71be research is based on two questionnaire surveys which produced a range of quantitative and qualitative information. Results from the first survey indicated that social class, age, group type and location of residence were important in understanding general trip \characteristics because of their particular influence on activities, cost, distance and reasons for a trip. The second survey was a longitudinal study of residents of the sub-region. The results showed that there were seven dominant reasons for a day trip, namely, for exercise, to visit friends and relatives, to act as host to friends and relatives, to be with the family, for the children, for a specific purpose and for personal reasons. The results of the diary survey allowed the production of household profiles based on day trip types. Socio- demographic variables which were found to be important influences on trip behaviour were social class, age of the household and the presence of children. A final development of the research was the construction of a model of decision making which showed the relationships of the various aspects which led to a day trip visit.

The research is aimed to examine the implementation of the GATS and its impact upon tourism development, particularly in Korea. The GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) agreement has been implemented in order to liberalise World Trade in services. In this respect, the research examines the performance of GATT to see how successful GATT has been in securing and fostering world trade in manufacturing industry and then moves on to examine the implementation of GATS and, by drawing upon findings from other trading agreements (such as the NAFTA and EU) estimate the likely impacts that such agreements will have on tourism services and the manner in which they are delivered. The GATS agreement is a long-term undertaking in which major trading countries are likely to become members. GATS sets up a legal and operational framework for the liberalisation of international trade in tourism as well as other services. The principle of GATS is the liberalisation of exchange of services and it is adapted from the GATT (General Agreement on Tariff and Trade). The GATS has been established as part of the multilateral trade negotiations and introduced new rules for services to complete overhaul of the GATT trade system. The rapid growth of tourism is the product of liberalisation which has been the hallmark of economic policy throughout the world, during the past decade. The UNCTAD report (1999) states that both globalisation and liberalisation have increased the potential for international trade in goods and services to become an unprecedented engine of growth and an important mechanism for integrating countries into the global economy. However, the GATS has many implications for tourism, particularly for tourism policymakers since it covers many different areas and sectors in tourism. Unlike other services, tourism is not a specific type of service, but a mixture of different services consumed by tourists. Therefore, it is essential to understand the rules and the principles of GATS as applied to tourism sectors in international trade. The overall aims of the study are: 1. To examine the factors that influence world trade in goods and services. 2. To examine the influences that GATS is likely to have on the scope and magnitude of world trade in services. 3. To determine how GATS impacts on tourism development in developing countries and act as a catalyst to enhance the development of developing countries. 4. To examine what are the likely effects. of GATS upon tourism development and delivery in Korea. Since one of the research objectives is to examine what is the likely effect of GATS upon tourism development and delivery in Korea, the case study was a useful technique. In particular, the case study seemed an appropriate strategy to answer the research question because the research area is relatively new. Therefore, descriptive research design was adopted for this particular study. Moreover, the research adopted an explanatory research design, in order to investigate relationships by giving answers to problems and hypotheses. Through explanatory research, this study seeks to explore aspects of tourism development as a result of liberalisation and globalisation in Korea. In particular, this study investigates specified areas such as: how will GATS help future tourism development in Korea? Why are there different perceptions of GATS between the private and public sector? How do government policies and regulations affect future tourism development? by using interviews and questionnaires. For this study, the semi-structured interviews were used and questionnaires were designed to gather information about the impacts of GATS on tourism development in Korea before conducting the survey, but it failed to obtain the necessary information. It is hoped that these findings enhance an understanding of the role of international trade in services particularly tourism industry, which may assist national and international tourism policy makers to consider the complexities and difficulties of understanding the rules of multilateral trade agreements (such as GATS) not only to develop tourism but also to develop other service sectors, especially in developing countries.

In recent decades tourism development has expanded on most Mediterranean islands. Focusing on the island of Crete, this study recognises tourism as a highly visible and controversial component of change. The existence of the necessary infrastructure, the natural beauty, the climate, the culture and the history have contributed to tourism expansion, with Crete now attracting approximately 25 percent of foreign tourist arrivals and 55 percent of the total foreign exchange earnings of Greece. The perceptions of the local community in tourism were studied using personal interviews with three community groups: local authority officials, residents and tourism business owners and managers. The aim was to examine their views on tourism development, in an attempt to establish overall desired directions for tourism development and to suggest effective tourism strategies and policies to reinforce positive outcomes and alleviate problems resulting from previous unplanned tourism development. The research findings identify much agreement among the three community groups suggesting that it is feasible to further develop tourism with the support of the community. Although the areas used in the sample were in the maturity stage of Butler's (1980) life cycle model and therefore it might be expected that the community would be at the antagonism stage of Doxey's (1975) model, this was not suggested by the findings. Tourism is viewed positively as a development option, and further tourism development, with conditions attached, is supported. The expansion of tourism has brought economic gains, employment creation, increased population, enhanced community infrastructure and cultural and environmental preservation. However, there is limited co-ordination of tourism activities and insufficient collaboration between the public and private sector. In addition, the island is dependent on foreign tour operators, and the tourism industry is uneven geographically and seasonally. Tourism has modified traditions and has affected the environment and society. Since community perceptions match reality (what is on the ground from development), problems are real and it is necessary to find solutions for their amelioration. As a result, policy implications emerging from the results presented in this thesis are discussed and future strategies are suggested.

Foreign tourists' images and ratings of Iceland before and after a visit to Iceland were investigated. Two self administered questionnaires were used to gather the data. Of 372 tourists, mainly from the USA and Great Britain, answering the first questionnaire 243 answered the follow-up questionnaire. / The tourists come mostly because of the scenery and particular landscape features and there is evidence of further tourist potential having to do with history and perhaps culture and customs. Changes in image during stay were considerable. The image of cost, which is the most negative aspect of the country, worsened, but the image of many landscape attributes improved. The importance of attributes changed in some instances. / The evidence supports the hypothesis that the greater the negative difference between expectation and experience of an destination attribute and the more important the attribute is to the tourists, the likelier they are to become dissatisfied.

Ecotourism is a form of travel which minimizes the negative impact of tourism on local communities and environments. Ecotourism is considered the fastest growing market in the tourism industry, with an annual growth rate 5% worldwide. Around the globe, ecotourism is quickly becoming one of the most popular travel options available. This study examined the factors related to responsible environmental behavior of visitors to Thailand's popular national,parks. / Thesis (DoctorateofBusinessAdministration)--University of South Australia, 2008.

Thesis (M.H.C.S.) -- University of Pretoria, 2007.