商品簡介
?Tourism is one of theworld's largest as well as fastest growing industries and the Gulf CooperationCouncil (GCC) member states are expected to be increasingly important enginesof such growth, and tourism promotion is often considered an integral elementof their economic strategies. The sector is generally publicized as a vitalsource of employment, revenue, foreign exchange benefits, publicinfrastructure, diversification and inducement in reviving national pride.Nevertheless tourism as a catalyst for economic development can be acontroversial device. While certain short term economic benefits clearly arisefrom an expanding tourism industry in the Gulf economies, its unsustainablerapid development has had detrimental environmental, socio-cultural andsecurity impacts, particularly because this industry is dependent on and amajor user of natural resources and habitually collides with the values,skills, and aspirations of GCC nationals.This book develops new strategies to avoid pasterrors and proposes remedial actions to those currently unsustainabledevelopment pathways. In consideration of the fact that all types of tourismwill eventually have a negative impact on the fragile environments of the GCC,we will take a closer look at the net social benefit of tourism development, toencapsulate economic, social and environmental benefits and costs, and askwhether benefits outweigh costs overall. Such an approach will includenonmonetary values and will allow the necessary trade-offs across economic, socialand environmental domains. Concurrently, research indicates that in theiraggressive pursuit of tourism development, Gulf governments either failed toaddress or deliberately ignored the critical question of local employment, ergoit is also crucial to assess the status quo, discuss why tourism has or has notbeen able to succeed with the set policy goals and especially elaborate thepolitical rationale behind these deficiencies.?
作者簡介
Andy Spiess is the founder president of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Network for Drylands Research and Development (NDRD), a regional scientific organization with the core objective to establish a science-policy interface to increase response capacity and mitigate environmental change in the Arab Gulf states. Besides this honorary position, Andy’s research in pursuit of a cumulative habilitation (full professorship in Germany) is analyzing the state of human security in the GCC member states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates) from multiple perspectives and in particular on the future implications of the environment-security nexus. This transdisciplinary approach is based on the hypothesis that declining ecosystem services will act as a driver of social destabilization and already prevailing threats to security will be further amplified. While currently concentrating on a second monograph evaluating the concept of tourism development through the lens of human security in Saudi Arabia, Andy has authored numerous scholarly articles, has a long record of voluntary academic service and serves as a reviewer in several peer-reviewed journals.
