Tourism has increasingly become a vital element in the economic development of the Indian Ocean region. This volume brings together leading tourism and economics experts from the region to discuss the wide range of problems and issues raised by the increasing significance of tourism such as: tourism and development; dimensions of and assault on rural and urban poverty; empowerment of women; women's property rights; access of the rural poor to services and resources; political and economic impediments to human resources development; management of energy and environmental resources; and electronic commerce and development. These issues and proposed policies are examined theoretically in the first section of this book, with comparative empirical case studies from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Botswana, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, the Maldives, Mauritius, the Seychelles, China and South Africa illustrating these arguments in the second section. A conclusion sums up the problems found in current policy and practice and puts forward innovative proposals and prospects for tourism and development in the region.
About the Author: Dr Robin Ghosh is Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia (UWA). Prior to his voluntary early retirement (1995), he was Head of the Department of Economics and Director of the Centre for Migration and Development Studies at UWA. Before migrating to Australia, he taught at the University of Delhi and at Visva-Bharati at Santiniketan in India. Professor Ghosh's two main research interests are the History of Economic Thought and Development Economics. A prolific writer, he has published a number of books and written many articles for learned journals. Dr Abu Siddique is Senior Lecturer and Director of the Centre for Migration and Development Studies which is located within the Business School at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia. He previously taught at the University of Rajshahi in Bangladesh, where he obtained his early degrees in Economics (BA Honours, MA, and Phil). He also obtained a post-graduate diploma in Development Economics from the University of Hawaii in 1975 before proceeding to do his PhD at the University of Western Australia. A frequent contributor to learned journals, Dr Siddique's principal research interests relate to trade, migration and economic development with special focus on the Indian Ocean region and sub-Saharan Africa. Dr Rony Gabbay is Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Economics, the University of Western Australia and is a Visiting Professor at the Notre Dame University Australia. He has published extensively in the fields of marketing, banking and finance, and socio-economic issues relating to the Middle East and the Indian Ocean region. He has also acted as consultant to the Economic Commission of Europe, the Iranian Government, the Seychelles Marketing Board, the UNICO International Group, the Swiss Banking Corporation and others.