dossier sur le tourisme et le développement durable

8
The tourist offer
the existence of over-abundant accommodation accelerates a drop in price when there is a
decline in visits, since the tour operators have all the more reason to negotiate a discount.
1.4. Tourist flows are unevenly distributed in the Mediterranean region
Uneven distribution among the countries of the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean is characterised by an uneven distribution of international visitors (Figure 3)
with a consequent uneven distribution of tourism receipts and thus an uneven contribution of
tourism to employment and development.
Source: WTO
Figure 3 : The arrival of international tourists in 2000 and the evolution since 1970
In 2000 France, Spain and Italy welcomed more than 166 million tourists, i.e. 75% of the
international tourists in the Mediterranean region and about a quarter of the worldwide tourists.
This proportion was 82% in 1970 and 79% in 1980.
The situation of the other countries can be divided into three groups. There are some countries,
including Malta, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt, whose tourist
development was behind that of the countries of the northwest. Between 1970 and 2000, their
share went up from 6 to 18% of the international tourists in the Mediterranean (multiplied by 5).
The growth rates are often impressive, as is the case in Turkey (multiplier: 21.5 between 1970
and 2000), Cyprus (21.2), Egypt (14.7), Tunisia (12.3), Greece (9.3), Israel (5.7) and Morocco
(5.5).
Other countries have « convalescent » tourism (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia-
Montenegro) or are unable to develop more because of persistent political and military tension
(Lebanon, Israel, Palestinian Authority). Their share of the Mediterranean market went down
from 10 to 5% between 1970 and 2000. Thus the whole countries of the former Yugoslavia
(FYROM excluded) took in 8,8 millions of international tourists in 2002, against 9 millions in
1988. Only Lebanon received less visitors in 2000 than in 1970.
Some countries have never really had an important development of international tourism and
have remained quite closed to this sector of activity: Albania and Syria (where there is an