The effect of tourism activity in developing countries has been a hotly debated topic for a number of decades. Opinions have fluctuated between the extremes of tourism as the catalyst for socio-economic development and tourism as the basis for neo-colonial exploitation and environmental and cultural decline. The contributions to this timely volume provide a balanced overview of these various perspectives. Key papers that are theoretical, conceptual and empirical, drawn from the literature in the fields of tourism, economics and development studies are contained in this authoritative volume.