The impacts of tourism on small island states

Abstract

The objective of this study is to assess the impacts of tourism on small island states (SIS) by utilising a number of global indicators, building on the tourist penetration index as proposed and elaborated by McElroy (1998, 1999, 2003). In addition, the study attempts to establish whether tourism impacts are related to good governance to test the assumption that tourists tend to stay away from territories that are considered badly governed. The main hypothesis of this paper is that SIS in general tend to be more economically, environmentally and socially impacted by tourism than larger countries. A second hypothesis is that good governance is an important factor in attracting tourists and therefore contributes to the impacts. These two hypotheses will be tested using a quantitative approach. The methods used are mainly two: the first is the construction of composite indices, attempting to measure the economic, environmental and social impact of tourism in 136 countries so as to compare the impacts of these factors on all groups of countries, including SIS. The second method is the regression procedure in order to establish whether there is correlation between tourism impacts, population size and governance.