The Overlooked Leakages of Tourism

Conventional wisdom is that yo-yo tourism - where the tourist money gets quickly exported out of the destination - is only something that happens to all-inclusive resorts on tropical islands. But such leakages are plaguing nearly all destinations. And no one is really talking about this! DMOs are counting visitors, REV PAR and even visitor spending, but typically not the money that stays in the destination. That's an enormously important metric that's getting overlooked. Doug Lansky takes a deeper look at these leakages with Dutch professor Ko Koens, Adam Sacks from Tourism Economics, and consultant Roger Allen, CEO of RLA Global. Once destinations know where and how the money is disappearing from their cities, regions and countries, they can better take appropriate action to change policy and practices to improve the local economic impact of tourism.