Tourism, Modernisation and Development on the Island of Cyprus: Challenges and Policy Responses

By R. Sharpley. 2003

143 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The role of tourism as an agent of development in small island states is virtually universal. Indeed, for many islands, tourism is the principal source of employment and foreign exchange earnings and the dominant economic sector. Nevertheless, many commentators suggest that island tourism is characterised by dependency, a condition which, according to development theory, restricts development. As a result, sustainable tourism development is widely seen as a solution to the problem of island tourism. This paper, however, argues that this is not necessarily the case. Based on a case study of Cyprus, it demonstrates that, despite its inherent dependency, tourism has proved to be an effective vehicle of development. Moreover, it is the development of mass tourism as a modernising growth pole that has contributed to the remarkable socioeconomic development of the island since the mid-1970s. Therefore, it suggests that, far from being a solution, the current policy for promoting sustainable or 'quality' tourism is not only inappropriate but may actually hinder the further development of Cyprus.

Subfields: Demography, Sociology and Political Science, Transportation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d6c5d38312de2324b035e6f639bfb5b233cb0dc5

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Demography

1. David C. Bojanic
2. Melody Lo

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Jaume Rossello Nadal
2. J. Capó
3. David C. Bojanic
4. Antoni Riera Font
5. Melody Lo
6. Lung-Tai Yeh
7. Yi-Bin Chiu

In Transportation

1. David C. Bojanic
2. Melody Lo
3. Lung-Tai Yeh
4. Yi-Bin Chiu

Citations in the corpus

• Dutch Disease in Tourism Economies: Evidence from the Balearics and the Canary Islands (2007, background): “As a result, many governments and politicians support investment in tourism-related infrastructure and promotion because, in the short term, they see it as a source of economic growth (Brown, 1998; Curry, 1990; Hampton, 1998; Martin de Holan & Phillips, 1997; Sharpley, 2003).”
• A comparison of the moderating effect of tourism reliance on the economic development for islands and other countries (2016, background): “The studies focused on island nations in specific regions around the world (Shareef & McAleer, 2005), including Caribbean countries (Craigwell & Maurin, 2007; Griffith, 2002) and European countries (Chen, 2006; Sharpley, 2003).”