Financial leakages in tourism
Any meaningful discussion of the benefits of tourism to a host country must address the issue of 'financial
leakages'. Minu Hemmati and Nina Koehler explain this important concept.
What are financial leakages?
FINANCIAL leakages in tourism occur when revenues arising from tourism-related economic activities in
destination countries are not available for (re-)investment or consumption of goods and services in the same
countries. Financial resources 'leak away' from the destination country to another country, particularly
when the tourism company is based abroad and when tourism-related goods and services are being
imported to the destination country.1
Financial leakages occur in many economic sectors, not only in tourism. However, the issue should be
addressed as tourism development is being portrayed as one of the few profitable economic sectors for
developing countries. The figures suggest that this can only be the case if tourism development is planned
and implemented appropriately.
The tourism industry is one of the fastest-growing industries and creates more than 10% of global
economic output and one in nine jobs with estimated annual revenues of US$1,550 billion (World Tourism
Organisation) by the year 2010. Unfortunately, these figures do not inform us about how much of the
benefits of tourism are actually benefiting the country where the holiday is spent. The economic benefits of
tourism development to developing countries are limited.2 A significant percentage of the revenues arising
from tourism - common estimates suggest approximately 60 to 75% (e.g. Wheat 1998; Kersten 1997;
Sinclair 1991) - leaks away from developing countries because of foreign ownership of the industry,
imported resources, foreign tour operators and airlines and other reasons. And: 'The poorer a developing
country, the higher the probability that the gross expenditures for tourism are greater than the earnings out
of it' (Scherrer 1986, p160, translation by the authors). 'Furthermore, the more a developing country relies
on luxury tourism, the greater is the danger of high expenditures for imported luxury goods' (Maurer et al.
1992, p58, translation by the authors). It is also stated that the more established a country becomes as a
tourism destination, the greater the proportion of revenue which leaks away (Wheat 1998, p27). According
to Vorlaufer (1984), 35% of tourism earnings are lost due to investment in imported goods in countries
which are big and economically developed, whereas especially in small island developing states, the
leakage is about 40% to 60%. The leakage can even be up to 90% in remote and scarcely developed
countries (German Forum for Environment and Development 1999).
Linkages between the tourism industry and other sectors of local economies is an under-researched area.
Issues like package tourism, imported food or linkages to agriculture are more frequently being addressed
than foreign direct investment or education and training of local and indigenous communities. Comparable
statistics are rare as there are various units based on which tourism's contribution to the economy can be
measured. Different countries have different ways of estimating GDP, export expenditures, and so on.
Measuring leakages is another problem; for many countries, there are no such data. Travel receipts are
commonly used as a proxy for tourism earnings (Sinclair 1991) but it is sometimes unclear if only direct
earnings from the tourism sector are taken into account or if earnings from indirectly related sectors are
being included. However, though based on different sets of data, authors' estimates of average percentages
of leakages are fairly similar.
A new way to overcome these problems is satellite accounting. A Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) is a set
of economic accounts which are being integrated with each other and with an overall system of national
accounts (UN & WTO 1994; Frechtling 1999). The World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), the World
Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and other organisations are developing this method to obtain
information about the economic effects of tourism (WTTC 1999).
Various causes
Financial leakages in tourism have various causes, depending on the country and the kind of tourism
involved. Some of the issues which need to be looked at when aiming to decrease financial leakages are
outlined below.
Foreign direct investment is crucial for developing countries, also in the tourism sector. Yet investment
from local sources is a very important prerequisite to avoid revenue leaking away; lack of local resources is
a significant reason for financial leakage. For example, foreign investment has been welcomed in Kenya
although there was an official encouragement of greater local ownership. 'By 1988 there was foreign direct
investment (in Kenya) in approximately 78% of major hotels in coastal areas, 67% of hotels in Nairobi and
66% of lodges in national parks and reserves, the percentage of coastal and city hotels and wildlife lodges
which were entirely foreign-owned being 16%, 17% and 11% respectively' (Sinclair 1991).
Package tours which are offered and sold by one wholesaler tend to imply little revenue remaining in
destination countries. Package holidays are increasingly all-inclusive deals, making it unnecessary for
tourists to spend money outside the resort. 'The tourist purchases a cheap package holiday to The Gambia,
for roughly 300 and sometimes less for a week's stay in luxury,' says Monica Morris-Jarra, who works with
African Heritage, a locally-owned hotel in The Gambia. 'But by far the greater part of the money stays in
the country where the ticket was bought, and as little as 4 per night goes to the hotels. There is no economic
sense in this sort of tourism for our country.' (Wheat 1997)
Many local tour operators cannot compete with the financial back-up, marketing, and logistics of
internationally operating tourism companies based in developed countries. Local operators lack access to
and information about the developed-country markets, marketing expertise and infrastructure such as
Internet access and foreign language capacities. Dealing with remittances from overseas can also cause
problems for local tour operators. Regulations such as the European Package Travel Directive provide
consumer protection measures which simplify travel to developing countries and hence increase the market
size. However, due to package travel arrangements dominated by developed country-based businesses,
developing countries do not benefit as much as they could. Local suppliers can suffer enormously as
international operators tend to work with established international businesses for car rentals, food supply
etc. and/or buy local businesses whereas through direct sale local operators are able to negotiate prices.
Food accounts for about 30% of all tourist expenditures. Import of food decreases foreign exchange
earnings, thus reducing opportunities for development of local production. The regional impact depends on
the varying availability of resources in different regions. For example, in many small island developing
states there has been no increase of agricultural production in relation to increasing tourism development.
Usually food imports increase and market prices, also for domestic products, rise substantially in these
states (Vorlaufer 1984).
Among the barriers to stronger linkages with the local economies are strong linkages between foreignowned hotels and overseas suppliers, particularly in the form of hierarchical monopolies in the tourism
sector. Other barriers are tourists' preference for similar food as at home; imported food being cheaper;
imported food being of better and more consistent quality; and more reliable supplies by importers. Barriers
of communication and understanding between foreign tourism companies and local producers are also
identified as one of the causes behind large amounts of imports. In addition, tourism development has led to
declines in agriculture and greater dependence on imports of agricultural products in many cases. Tourism
developments compete with agriculture in terms of land and labour and can increase the local consumption
of imported food as well as inflate food prices (Maurer et al. 1992), which creates particular burdens for
women (Hemmati 1999).
Importing luxury goods for tourist consumption is another significant cause of financial leakage because
the amount of imported goods is high and it is necessary to maintain a sophisticated infrastructure (German
Forum for Environment and Development 1999). For example, Belisle (1984) found that Jamaican hotels
imported three-quarters of shrimp consumed (Wall & Telfer 1996). According to a Bangkok University
study, imported luxury goods were responsible for a loss of income of about 56% in the tourism sector and
related industry sectors in Thailand in 1987 (Maurer et al. 1992).
Many employees in the tourism sector need specific qualifications, such as foreign language proficiency.
However, local people in destination areas often don't have such qualifications and education and training
facilities are not present in many areas. For example, the Sheraton Hotel in Santa Cruz (Mexico) required
100% English language fluency for front desk applicants and 80% fluency for maids, which was not met by
the majority of community members (Long 1991). Highly qualified and well-paid positions are usually
occupied by managers from developed nations, particularly with international hotel chains, whereas
unqualified and low-paid jobs are offered to local people. Gender segregation of the labour market prevails,
with women in unqualified and low-paid jobs. Under these circumstances, the income of employed
foreigners will largely leak away (indirect economic impact), and tourism development will over time not
increase the living standards of local people and development levels of their communities.
The above is extracted from an article that was first published in Sustainable Travel & Tourism (2000, pp.
25-29). Minu Hemmati can be contacted at minu@minuhemmati.net and her website is
www.minuhemmati.net.
Endnotes
(1)
The percentage of tourist expenditure remaining abroad (in the tourists' countries of origin) has
sometimes been termed 'foreign exchange leakage', although the term is also used to define the percentage
of tourists' expenditure within the destination country which is lost in the form of payments for imported
inputs, or to refer to the evasion of foreign currency controls (Sinclair 1991).
(2)
Acknowledging that this is a serious problem, the multi-stakeholder working group established on
the basis of a decision by the UN Commission on Sustainable Development decided to work on 'assessing
financial leakages from tourism' as part of its work programme 2000-2002.
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