Tourism Management 20 (1999) 425}434

A chaos approach to tourism

Bob McKercher
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Received 8 July 1998; accepted 1 December 1998
Abstract
Chaos theory and its companion model, complexity theory, are emerging as legitimate schools of thought to describe how complex
systems function. This paper argues that tourism essentially functions as a chaotic, non-linear, non-deterministic system. As such,
existing tourism models fail to explain fully the complex relationships that exist between and among the various elements that
constitute a tourism system. The paper concludes by proposing an alternative model of tourism based on the principles of chaos
theory that incorporates the nine elements that combine to explain how tourism functions. 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
Keywords: Chaos theory; Complexity; Tourism models; Systems
1. Introduction
In recent years, chaos theory and its cousin, complex-
ity theory, have made strong inroads into management
disciplines, most notably in the areas of marketing (Pais-
ley, 1993; Winsor, 1995), risk management (Burlando,
1994), health care (Flower, 1993), general management
(Crossman et al., 1996; van de Vliet, 1994; Vinten, 1992)
and organisational management (Spencer, 1995). To
a large extent, though, chaos theory has not been exam-
ined in the context of tourism, even though as this paper
will argue, tourism is an inherently non-linear, complex
and dynamic system that is well described within the
chaos paradigm. Apart from papers by Faulkner and
Russell (1997) initiating the conceptual discussion on
chaos and complexity in tourism and work by Parry and
Drost (1995) asking if chaos was good for hospitality
business pro"ts, few tourism academics have explored
this issue.
The lack of interest in chaos theory in tourism is
symptomatic of a larger malaise that has a!ected much of
the intellectual development of tourism over the past few
years. With the exception of a post-modernist examina-
tion of tourism, emanating from Europe, there has been
remarkably little conceptual discussion about the organ-
isation and structure of tourism and tourism systems
during the 1990s. It is ironic that during a period that has
seen an exponential growth in the number of tourism
journals, the intellectual discourse about what tourism is
and how it functions seems to have ebbed. The conse-
quence is that much critical thought about tourism re-
mains entrenched in an intellectual time warp that is up
to 30 years old.
This paper proposes a new model of the organisation
of tourism, based on chaos and complexity theory. It will
argue that tourism functions according to the principles
of non-linearity, in a manner that is similar to a self-
organising living community, and that it operates in an
inherently complex and chaotic manner. Models de-
veloped before chaos theory recognise the complex na-
ture of the tourism &system' but fail to appreciate the
chaotic nature of tourism systems. The paper begins by
reviewing brie#y the existing tourism models and dis-
cussing their collective conceptual weaknesses. It then
reviews the key concepts of chaos theory before propos-
ing a chaos model of tourism.
2. Existing tourism models
A number of tourism models have been developed that
have tried to explain how tourism works. It is important
to understand that models are simpli"ed views of reality
that strive to explain how certain features, relationships
or processes work. They do not try to mirror reality
precisely. Most tourism models recognise the complex
nature of tourism and the inter-relatedness of di!erent
components of tourism. To a large extent, they all argue
0261-5177/99/$- see front matter 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 6 1 - 5 1 7 7 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 0 8 - 4
a reductionist approach to tourism. Pearce (1989) in his
seminal work, for example, discusses how one can under-
stand how tourism works by dis-aggregating it into its
component parts, identifying the relationships and then
re-aggregating it. He argues that the whole of tourism is
equal to the sum of its parts.
Mill and Morrison (1985) show the tourism system as
a closed system that consists of four inter-connected
parts } Market, Travel, Destination and Marketing. An
understanding of tourism comes from an understanding
of di!erent models that drive each of the components.
For instance, Mill and Morrison argue that the market
can be best understood through the use of a consumer
behaviour model and that a regulatory framework model
is the most appropriate method of understanding the
destination. McIntosh and Goeldner (1995) discuss the
array of approaches used to study tourism, ranging from
a geographic, to a product approach, an economic
approach and a sociological approach, among others.
They conclude that a systems approach is needed, de"n-
ing a system as a set of inter-related groups coordinated
to form a uni"ed whole and organised to accomplish
a set of goals. Gunn (1979) adopts a land use planning
model and treats tourism as any planner would treat any
other land use. Murphy (1985) is one of the few scholars
who uses a living ecosystem analogy to examine the
relationship between tourists and host communities.
However, his model does not attempt to explain how
tourism functions, simply how it relates to its host
community.
Perhaps the existing model that comes closest to ac-
knowledging the complexities of tourism is Neil Leiper's
much misunderstood &Tourism Systems' model (Leiper,
1990). The use of the plural of the word &system' is
intentional for he argues that tourism systems function at
a personal level, with each tourist operating within his or
her own tourism system. Thus, for example, the four
million overseas visitors who came to Australia in 1997
operated in four million discrete tourism systems
that may have shared certain common elements, but
otherwise remained individual.
Each of these models argues explicitly, or implies
strongly that:
1. tourism can be controlled;
2. disparate tourism players function in a formally, coor-
dinated manner to form a uni"ed whole;
3. tourism is organised and that the organisation can be
controlled by a top down management approach;
4. individual tourism business function to achieve a set
of common, mutually agreed upon goals;
5. tourism is the sum of its constituent parts, and
6. by understanding how each part works, an under-
standing of howtourismworks as a whole will emerge.
The greatest strength of these models is that they are
all written from the perspective of an overarching public
sector tourism organisation that is charged with develop-
ing tourismaccording to a plan. As such, they have utility
for governmental and quasi-governmental sector tourism
organisations and academics. Implicit in all of these
models is the assumption that tourism is a linear, deter-
ministic activity, whose orderly development can be con-
trolled from above by &planners'. These models try to
reinforce the belief that tourism is predictable and that
control over tourism is both possible and desirable, while
a loss of control poses a threat to desired tourism out-
comes. They argue that the failure of the top down
planners to control tourism is a function of a lack of data
and the failure to dissect and analyse all the inter-rela-
tionships between tourism's component parts, rather
than as an inherent function of how tourism works. With
such information, tourism should be able to function as
a machine according to traditional Newtonian physics.
Such an attitude is re#ected in a recent World Tourism
Organisation document stating that tourism must be
developed and managed in a controlled, and sustainable
manner, based on sound planning (WTO, 1994).
Yet, history shows that most tourism plans do not
work. Both the popular and academic tourism literature
are replete with accounts of adverse social, cultural and
environmental impacts, calls for the need to control ram-
pant tourismdevelopment, stories of the undesired e!ects
of spontaneous development and the "nancial troubles
many tourism organisations face. Indeed, one of the
common themes in the tourism literature is how to con-
trol the genie of tourism once it is let out of the bottle. If
the traditional models explained tourism fully, then they
should also o!er insights into controlling tourism. But
none does. The reason is that tourism is simply too
complex to be captured e!ectively in a deterministic
model.
2.1. Dexciencies of existing models
By design, the existing models are selective in which
elements of tourism they include and which disciplinary
issues relating to tourism they strive to explain. With few
exceptions, they tend to focus narrowly on selected desti-
nation variables or on a simple relationship between
markets and a destination. Even within a destination
area, the models fail to appreciate the independent and
highly competitive nature of tourism businesses and the
complex interrelationships that exist between and among
these organisations. Simultaneously, any tourism busi-
ness must both coexist and compete "ercely with other
businesses to survive. This task is made all the more
di$cult because most tourism businesses are indepen-
dent and, therefore, will act in an independent way, doing
"rst what is in their own best interests and secondarily
what is in the best interests of the community in which
they exist. In all the years the author has worked in and
studied tourism, he has yet to come across an operator
426 B. McKercher / Tourism Management 20 (1999) 425}434
who says &&yes, I am the problem, and for the good of the
industry, I will leave the business.''
The models further fail to re#ect fully the dynamical
nature of tourism with literally hundreds or thousands of
businesses entering and exiting the marketplace, chang-
ing ownership or repositioning themselves radically each
year. The reason is that the models tend to focus on the
stability of systems, or orderly linear change in systems
and the central tendency of populations. As such, they
divert attention away from the periphery of systems,
where change is most likely to be initiated. The models,
thus, cannot accommodate the ongoing turbulence that
is inherent even in mature, &stable' tourism communities.
They certainly cannot predict or explain the periods of
incredible upheaval that seem to shake tourism systems
to their very core, yet at the same time, allow them to
re-emerge in an even more competitive manner. Nor, can
they accommodate the actions of rogues who can plunge
seemingly stable systems into chaos. Yet rogues appear
to be playing an integral role in the development of
destinations. Indeed, the de"ning moment in most
tourism destinations can be attributed to the actions of
rogues who actualised its tourism potential.
Importantly, there is little evidence of an organised
tourism sector. In Australia, for example, one Common-
wealth Government, six States, two Territories and over
700 local governments are involved in the tourism at
some level. Each works "rst for its best commercial or
political interests. Often these parochial interests are at
odds with the best interests of other jurisdictions above
or below them. Further, the high turnover rate among
local government tourism sta!, coupled with the gener-
ally low skills levels among such sta! (McKercher
& Ritchie, 1997) mitigate against achieving a coordinated
development approach to tourism. In addition, tourism
planning at an operational level is a myth. Media reports
in Australia indicate that more than 70% of the recent
tourist developments proceeded without the completion
of detailed feasibility studies (Winkler, 1998). The same
situation occurs in other jurisdictions, with the possible
exception of the rapidly disappearing centrally controlled
government systems.
However, it is patently evident that within this appar-
ent chaos, tourism does operate with some semblance of
order. People "nd information about destinations, or-
ganise trips, travel to, stay at and return from destina-
tions on a daily basis. A complex array of elements,
including public sector bodies, the travel trade, the trans-
port sector, accommodation houses, attractions, activ-
ities and amenities self-organise to satisfy the needs of the
travelling public. And so, it is equally incorrect to suggest
that tourism functions in an anarchic manner, devoid of
any form or order.
In short, at their heart, the models do not appreciate
that tourism operates in a non-linear manner. It is the
inherent non-linearity of tourism that makes it extremely
di$cult to showa direct cause and e!ect between actions,
as any detailed examination of visitor arrival "gures will
attest. Tourist #ows are dependent on a variety of factors
relating to the continued attractiveness of the destination
(access, price, changing consumer taste, marketing, etc.),
factors speci"c to the originating region (social, eco-
nomic, political, etc.) and the interest shown in that
market by alternative destinations. The failure to show
a linear relationship between marketing input and tourist
arrivals is one of the greatest challenges for public sector
tourism marketing organisations. While they can accu-
rately document the number of hits on an Internet site,
the number of telephone or written inquiries and even the
number of visits to a promotional booth, they cannot tell
exactly how many people visited a destination as a result
of their activities.
By the same token, the complex array of interactions
that occur between and among the various elements of
tourismaccentuate the non-linearity of tourism relations.
In fact, tourism destinations function in a manner that is
akin to an ecological community, with a clearly de"ned
hierarchy of dominant and subservient players and clear
inter-relationships between entities. Just as the overall
survival of an ecological community is dependent on the
survival of keystone species, so too is the overall survival
of a tourism community dependent on its keystone spe-
cies, in this case the primary attractions that motivate
visitation and the transport links that facilitate access. All
other tourism activity revolves around these features,
including the demand for accommodation, secondary
attractions, amenities, services, shopping, other activities,
improved access, and the interest in the travel trade to
bring tourists to the area. No matter how robust the rest
of a regional tourism sector may be, if its primary attrac-
tions lose favour with the travelling public or if the
transport sector abandons it, the entire destination
su!ers.
Finally, none of the existing models acknowledges the
power dynamics that in#uence the development of
tourism. Power can be exerted at either a political or
commercial level, with the more powerful player trying to
in#uence the direction of growth for its own bene"ts.
Keystone species, multi-national organisations and gov-
ernment agencies generally exert a disproportionate
amount of in#uence over tourism destinations. Indeed
some players, most notably the airline sector, have the
ability to in#uence directly the health of a destination
through the decisions they make, which may have little
bearing on the destination's ability to cater for the needs
of tourists. By the same token, smaller players can exert
signi"cant power over the politics of tourism through the
actions of their sector speci"c trade associations. As
a former executive director of a very e!ective regional
trade association in Canada, the author can attest to the
considerable in#uence such associations can have on
governments, especially as elections approach.
B. McKercher / Tourism Management 20 (1999) 425}434 427
3. A chaos oriented tourism community model
Newtonian physics argues that the universe operates
as a perfect machine. Models based on Newtonian phys-
ics have tried to explain systems in a machine-like man-
ner. To understand how the machine worked, all one had
to do was to reduce it to its constituent parts, examine
how each functioned and where each "t into the whole
and then reassemble the machine. This linear view of the
world asserted that any system was the sum of its
constituent parts (Faulkner & Russell, 1997) and
providing that enough information could be gathered,
anything could be explained in precise, predictable and
reproducible terms.
Chaos theory, and its companion model, complexity
(Lewin, 1993) emerged from the realisation that many
systems operated in a complex, non-linear, non-probabil-
istic, non-deterministic and dynamic systems manner and
not as a machine (Gleick, 1987; Kellert, 1993 as per
Overman, 1996). Instead of operating in a machine-like
manner, these systems have been likened to living sys-
tems where a vast number of elements form an array of
rich, subtle, complex and varied relationships (Klomp
& Green, 1997). At "rst glance, relationships in such
systems may appear to be haphazard and random, but at
a deeper level recognisable patterns emerge that help
explain the functioning of the system as a whole
(Parry & Drost, 1995). Because the relationships
are open and so complex and because this complexity
engenders an innate level of instability, it is extremely
di$cult to predict accurately the future movement of the
system.
Just as one cannot understand how a wetland ecosys-
tem functions by identifying all the living species within
that wetland and understanding their biological pro-
cesses, one cannot understand how a tourism system
functions by reducing it to its component parts and
trying to understand how each works. There are a num-
ber of weaknesses with such an assumption. The "rst is
the de"nitional problem of what tourism is and what
elements constitute tourism. Tourism is not an &industry'
per se. Instead, it is de"ned by the activities of a type of
consumer that involves visitors buying many commodi-
ties that may only be partly reliant on tourists for their
survival (Anon, 1998). Businesses that serve the needs of
tourists may derive some or most of their income from
non-tourism activities. As such, any attempt to de"ne
and categorise tourism players precisely risks either in-
cluding elements that are not warranted, or excluding
those worthy of consideration.
Other problems lie in the challenge of trying to under-
stand the vast array of rich and subtle relationships that
exist within a tourism community. Further, tourism rep-
resents an open system, where the vitality of a destination
area can be in#uenced as much by external events as by
internal events. Understanding how a hotel works will
not explain how the Asian Currency Crisis has caused
a downturn in tourism.
To the uninitiated, chaos implies a complete lack of
order. In fact, while each element of the system may seem
to act in an independent manner, collectively the entire
system functions in an orderly manner that is governed
by a number of underlying principles. In this manner
a form of spontaneous order emerges (Lewin, 1993). This
seeming incongruity of order out of chaos is explained by
the concept of the Strange Attractor. In business, strange
attractors have been likened to a common vision, sense of
meaning, strategy or value system that drives people to
achieve a common goal (Svyantek & DeShon, 1993;
Covey, 1994). As a result, the system will manage itself,
often in an unknowing manner, towards a common goal.
But because the system is non-probabilistic, because the
relationships between elements are so rich, and because
the system is open to external stimuli, it is impossible to
predict accurately the future position of the system over
time. Instead, the rules will dictate where the system is
likely to move, within broad parameters.
Chaos further implies a loss of control which becomes
threatening to any individual or organisation whose task
is to try to control the uncontrollable. To some extent
this is true, and a plunge into chaos can be frightening for
many players. But chaos realises that periods of instabil-
ity are intrinsic to the operation of and essential for
change to complex systems (Ditto & Manukata, 1995).
Indeed, a feature of large, interactive, dynamical systems
is that they evolve naturally toward the edge of chaos
(Lewin, 1993). Chaotic systems evolve abruptly from one
state to another, rather than evolving slowly between the
two states. Because complex systems are self-organising
(or bottom up organising) systems, they have tremendous
adaptive ability. It has been observed that &&living sys-
tems, when confronted with change have the capacity to
fall apart so that they can reorganise themselves to be
better adapted to their current environment. We always
knew that things fell apart; we didn't know that organ-
isms have the capacity to re-organise, to self organise...
But you can't self organise, you can't transform... unless
you are willing to move into that place'' (Flower, 1993).
While individuals within the system may be adversely
a!ected by abrupt change, others will bene"t, and, im-
portantly, the system as a whole will continue to operate,
although possibly in quite a radically di!erent manner.
Small dinosaurs can learn to #y!
Chaotic systems display a number of other inter-
related features. The "rst is a sensitivity to initial
conditions, where small changes in the early stages of
a development can produce profoundly di!erent
outcomes. The so-called butter#y e!ect, or more appro-
priately named Sensitive Dependence on Initial Condi-
tions (SDIC) e!ect states that errors grow exponentially
over time. As a result, a small change in initial conditions
may accentuate the errors, producing a result that could
428 B. McKercher / Tourism Management 20 (1999) 425}434
not be envisioned. The second feature is the law of in-
creasing returns, or the realisation that success feeds on
success. Destinations that achieve a level of success are
more likely to become more attractive to both consumers
and investors, which in turn, engenders even more inter-
est in the destination area.
Paradoxically, while change and phase shift are in-
herent elements of a chaotic system, chaos theory also
recognises that certain innovations in the past can have
a lasting e!ect despite changes in the conditions that
originally made them necessary (Faulkner & Russell,
1997). The &lock-in e!ect' explains why accidents of his-
tory are still current today. The classic example cited is of
the QWERTY key board which was designed to prevent
mechanical typewriters from jamming. Today, most key-
boards are electronic, rendering the initial conditions for
the development of the QWERTY key board obsolete,
yet it still remains the standard. In a tourism context,
transport corridors and trans-generational, repetitive be-
havioural patterns among some tourists (&&our family has
always gone there'') can have the same e!ect.
By the same token, linear relationships can also exist
within dynamical, chaotic systems. Indeed, Faulkner
(pers comm.) argues that both linear and non-linear
change exist in tourism systems, with one or the other
dominating depending on the phases of the system. Thus,
tourism can appear to evolve in a stable, predictable and
linear manner over long periods of time, until a trigger
initiates a period of chaotic upheaval where non-linear
relationships dominate. The traditional Newtonian para-
digm dismisses such episodes as being noise in the sys-
tem. Chaos theory, on the other hand, appreciates them
as being an intrinsic element of complex systems.
4. A chaos model of tourism
4.1. Why a new model?
Most of the disparities evident between the reality of
how tourism functions and how tourism operates theor-
etically according to existing models can be accounted
for through chaos theory. Acceptance of the idea that
tourism operates in a manner more akin to open, living
communities, rather than in a machine-like fashion pro-
vides a stronger appreciation of the complex interplay
between and among members of that community. The
living systems analogy further explains the evident self-
organising nature of tourism. Strange attractors explain
how independent businesses, acting in an independent
manner to ensure their own commercial survival, can
work toward an apparent common goal. It further ex-
plains why symbiotic relationships are formed between
businesses that are in "erce competition with each other.
A living systems model explains why keystone species are
essential to the ongoing viability of a destination area
and how the tourism community can survive the life and
death of many organisms.
The complex interplay of the many elements of the
community, combined with the in#uence of a wide array
of external elements explains why tourism operates in
a non-linear manner. The unpredictable and, therefore,
uncontrollable nature of tourism and the failure of most
organisations to plan e!ectively for the future is again
indicative of a chaotic system. These factors further ex-
plain why tourism de"es top down control, while o!ering
insights into how public sector organisations can strive
to in#uence (if not control) the direction of growth.
An understanding of the concept of SDIC explains
how seemingly similar destination areas can evolve in
completely di!erent manners. It also explains the un-
predictable nature of tourism development, where even
slight changes in initial conditions can lead to profoundly
di!erent outcomes. The combined impacts of the lock-in
e!ect and positive feedback further explain why some
destinations seem to retain a level of appeal that would
normally not be warranted.
Complexity theory further shows that both instability
and change are inherent, bene"cial characteristics of any
tourism system. The history of most destinations has
been punctuated by periods of great upheaval followed
by periods of relative stability. This process is essential to
enable the destination to re-invent itself. Plunging into
chaos with the hope of re-emerging as a stronger destina-
tion also explains the importance of the role that
chaos makers or rogues can play in destination life cycle
development.
4.2. The chaos model
Fig. 1 presents an alternative model of tourism based
on the principles embodied in chaos and complexity
theory. As can be seen, the model is open, with movement
occurring broadly from the traveller to outputs. Each
element of the model is connected with other elements,
either directly, or by no more than one step. As such,
a perturbation at any element in the model may result in
change to the state of tourism in the area under examina-
tion. The model also acknowledges that considerable
movement occurs between and within the identi"ed ele-
ments. The model strives to explain tourism in terms of
the complex inter-relationships that exist between and
within at least nine major elements:
z The raveller, who is the essential player in tourism,
for without people travelling no tourism would occur.
z The Communication vectors used to connect the travel-
ler to the destination.
z The Considerations or factors that in#uence the e!ec-
tiveness of the Communication vectors used.
z The Destination or Internal tourism community consisting
of all businesses involved in tourism at the destination.
B. McKercher / Tourism Management 20 (1999) 425}434 429
Fig. 1. A chaos model of tourism.
z External tourism agencies (public and private sector)
that try to in#uence tourism.
z Other tourism-related externalities, such as alternative
tourism destinations that a!ect a destination's ability
to attract travellers.
z Non-tourism-related externalities, or macro-environ-
mental forces, such as changing political, economic or
social conditions, war, natural disaster, that a!ect
people's ability to travel.
z Outputs from the system } both desired and undesired.
z Rogues or Chaos makers who can push a system to the
edge of chaos.
This model depicts the operation of chaotic tourism
system at a multi-dimensional level. It can be used
equally well to represent the elements that in#uence
tourismon a multi-national scale (Asia-Paci"c), a nation-
al scale (Australia), at a regional level (Victoria), a sub-
regional level (North East Victoria), at a local (Falls
Creek Ski Resort) and even arguably at an enterprise
430 B. McKercher / Tourism Management 20 (1999) 425}434
level (Falls Creek Motel). While the number of actors
that in#uence the system changes at each level, the
relationships between elements remain similar, and thus
the model continues to work. As a result, a system of
in"nite complexity emerges as one delves deeper into
tourism.
By the same token, a system of in"nite complexity
exists within each of the elements. The communications
element has been identi"ed as a single element, for
example, but it is recognised that delving into that ele-
ment reveals a complex web of actions and interactions
between players. A relatively small country like Austra-
lia, for example has 5000 retail travel agents, 600 inbound
tourism operators, a variety of outbound operators and
over 45,000 individual tourism businesses all involved in
communicating their message to the travelling public.
4.3. Describing the elements
The destination or the internal tourism community de-
scribes the businesses that exist within any destination
area. Often called the destination mix and categorised
according to the Five As (accommodation, attractions,
activities, access and amenities), this element consists of
all businesses that are wholly or partially reliant on
tourism for their survival. The word &community' is used
in its ecological sense, where a community is described as
a living, dynamic, self-organising system with a group of
organisms interacting with one another, cycling and re-
cycling matter through the system. Anything crossing the
boundary of that community is considered as either be-
ing an input or an output. Importantly, the community
as a whole is reliant on the ongoing health of its keystone
species.
In many ways, the ecological community analogy de-
scribes tourism e!ectively. Tourism communities are liv-
ing entities, comprised of an intricate array of organisms
interacting with one another. Tourism communities are
as dependent for their survival on their own keystone
species, as are ecological communities. Moreover, the
concept of product and destination life cycles implies that
tourism businesses take on characteristics of living or-
ganisms. As in any living community, there is a continual
cycle of birth, life and death of individual entities. Fur-
ther, while individual businesses may act independently
and sel"shly for their own ends, complexity theory argues
that collective adaption to sel"sh ends produces the max-
imum average "tness, or the optimal mix of each species
in the context of others (Lewin, 1993).
While the internal tourism community is clearly at the
heart of any successful tourism system, its survival is
dependent on those elements that #ow into it and the
impacts of its outputs on its surrounding environment.
As such, one cannot analyse tourism without also being
aware of how other elements shape the community and
how the tourism community shapes these elements.
Essentially, tourism is about people travelling, with the
business of tourismabout linking tourists to destinations.
For this reason, the raveller or tourist must be the
starting point in the consideration of any tourism model.
Markets are dynamic, erratic and non-linear (Diamond,
1993), with tourismmarkets, in particular, being noted by
their great volatility. It stands to reason then, that if the
key input into a system functions in a chaotic manner,
the system itself must be driven by principles of chaos.
Tourists behave in a "ckle manner, rendering destina-
tions vulnerable to changing consumer tastes. A destina-
tion may experience rapid growth for no other reason
than the fact that a market has &discovered' it. By the
same token, a destination may fall out of favour simply
because the market has grown tired of it, or has popular-
ised another destination. Ebbs and #ows in tourist arri-
vals may have little to do with changes in the quality or
quantity of product provided.
Communication vectors are used to connect the travel-
ler with the destination. Communication channels are
exceedingly complex, involving all levels of the formal
travel trade, other tourism retailers, the e!orts of public
sector marketing and promotion agencies and direct
communication between businesses and the travelling
public. While the structure of the formal tourism distri-
bution system can be described according to the number
of steps involved used to connect the product to the
tourist (Seaton & Bennett, 1996), it does not describe
fully the convoluted relationships that exist between its
di!erent sectors. A retail travel agent sells a number of
products directly to the consumer on behalf of business-
es, but also has a number of retail arrangements with
di!erent wholesalers and inbound tour operators. As
a consequence, an individual product for sale by a retail
travel agent may actually be o!ered in many di!erent
forms, as a stand alone product or as part of an almost
seemingly unlimited number of packages developed by
other elements of the travel industry.
The formal travel distribution channel is only one
option available to the operator or destination to reach
the potential client. The multitude of direct marketing
activities available, co-operative marketing, operator-in-
itiated packaging, and word of mouth are also important
communication channels used by the industry. The list is
too great to detail here. As a result, a complex web of
communications relationships and inter-relationships
exists linking potential travellers with a multitude of
destinations.
It is evident that the e!ectiveness of di!erent commun-
ications activities is in#uenced by a number of Consider-
ations that in#uence both the ability to get the message
into the market place and the likelihood that potential
tourists who receive it will be motivated to travel. From
a consumer's perspective, the critical issue is simply one
of getting the right information. Commercial arrange-
ments between the product and the distributor, past
B. McKercher / Tourism Management 20 (1999) 425}434 431
experiences of both clients and the travel trade with the
destination, general consumer awareness, general aware-
ness by the travel trade, support from other organisa-
tions, the volume and competitiveness of alternative
products, the quality and attractiveness of the media
used, and the visibility of the product/media within a re-
tail outlet all in#uence the e!ectiveness of the commun-
ication process. Further, as the gate-keeper between the
consumer and the product, the individual who dissemi-
nates the information has tremendous power to recom-
mend certain products over others that may have little to
do with either the quality of the product or its ability to
satisfy the needs of the client.
From an industry perspective, two other issues emerge:
resource availability and the expertise of the individual
expending those resources. Clearly, the ability of any
tourism product, destination, region or country to reach
potential consumers is limited by the absolute resources
available and how e!ectively they are used. In an ideal
world, a highly skilled set of professionals would adopt
a strategic marketing focus to allocate its scarce re-
sources in the best way to achieve optimal bene"ts. In
reality, though, anyone who has examined tourism at an
operators' level, would appreciate that this is rarely the
case. While the larger players undoubtedly have the re-
sources and the expertise to adopt a strategic marketing
approach, the vast majority of people in small tourism
businesses (which comprise the bulk of tourism organisa-
tions) have few resources, little background in marketing
and even less understanding of how the tourism distribu-
tion system works. As a result, tourism is plagued by
sub-optimal communications which limit the ability of
most enterprises to achieve their desired goals.
Even if the message reaches the potential consumer,
a number of other spatial, temporal and "nancial consid-
erations may inhibit the decision to visit, further limiting
the e!ectiveness of the communications used. The related
concepts of distance decay (demand reduces exponenti-
ally as distance increases) and market access (a relative
termthat suggests demand is in#uenced by the number of
similar products/destinations available between the des-
tination and the market) have a demonstrable e!ect on
tourist #ows. Time availability has been shown to accen-
tuate or minimise the e!ect of market access and distance
decay (see McKercher, 1998). These factors, coupled with
simple cost considerations, give some products and desti-
nations an advantage in the marketplace, while disad-
vantaging others, even though, ostensibly the products
on o!er may be quite similar.
External tourism agencies, those public and private
sector agencies that function outside the commercial
tourism world, can have an e!ect on most of the elements
within this model. Pro-action on behalf of public sector
tourism agencies has been shown to be a powerful in-
itiator of phase shift that can transform a destination.
Indeed, most countries that are recognised as interna-
tional tourism destinations would not have achieved that
status without active involvement by the national gov-
ernment. While governments cannot control tourism,
they can certainly in#uence the direction of its develop-
ment. Case studies abound in the literature detailing how
government policies to encourage or restrict foreign in-
vestment, infrastructure development, visa policies, the
negotiation of bilateral trade agreements, direct involve-
ment in the international transport sector, and active
involvement in marketing, among other actions, have
been used to encourage the development of tourism. By
the same token, the introduction of governments that are
not supportive of tourism can signal a period of stagna-
tion, as witnessed by Canada throughout much of the
1980s.
External tourism agencies are not limited only to pub-
lic sector agencies; they also involve the equally in#uen-
tial, but often less well recognised set of private sector
oriented tourism trade organisations. The main role of
these organisations is to represent the interests of their
speci"c sector to governments with the hope of fostering
a positive environment for the development of tourism.
Trade associations have not received much interest in the
academic literature, but, in many ways, their presence is
fundamental in the development of supportive public
sector tourism policy.
No product, destination, region or country operates in
isolation. Its success depends on how well it competes
against other tourism products and how well they com-
pete against it. The success and therefore development of
any system is intrinsically linked to how attractive it is in
the eyes of the consumer when compared to other
tourismsystems. Tourism initiatives that occur elsewhere
can have a fundamental impact on the competitiveness of
a destination, just as initiatives within the system can
a!ect the competitiveness of other destinations. For this
reason, a variety of Other tourism related externalities
need to be included in any tourism model. Strategic
marketing management theory acknowledges this factor
explicitly when it suggests that the "rst role of any stra-
tegic marketing exercise is to determine the product-
markets an organisation wishes to compete. By extension
this factor implies six inter-related decisions being made:
the products an organisation wishes to o!er; the products
it does not wish to o!er; the markets it wishes to pursue;
the markets it wishes to avoid; the competitors it wishes
to compete against; and the competitors it wishes to
avoid (Aaker, 1995).
The model further recognises two other elements that
have the potential to plunge tourism into chaos: one is
external to the tourism system, the other is internal. The
role of Non-tourism-related externalities, such as natural
disasters, oil shocks, global economic crises, global ter-
rorism, the outbreak of war and other such events is well
recognised in the tourism literature. These externalities
occur rapidly and without warning. Previously stable
432 B. McKercher / Tourism Management 20 (1999) 425}434
tourism communities are plunged into a state of chaos,
usually caused by a dramatic fall in visitors.
What is less well recognised is the role of Chaos
makers, or Rogues operating within the tourism system
(Faulkner & Russell, 1998). These individuals can single-
handedly transform an organisation, destination, region
or country. Prior to Walt Disney purchasing much of
Central Florida, for example, the primary tourist attrac-
tion in Orlando was the Tupperware Museum. Today,
thanks to the actions of that one chaos maker, Orlando is
now one of the world's premier tourist destinations.
Similar examples exist elsewhere, where the work of
&pioneering' entrepreneurs is cited as transforming tourist
destinations.
Rogues are not con"ned solely to the destination, for
the actions of individuals in the other elements of the
model can have as dramatic an e!ect on the functions of
any tourism system. The Freddie Laker's of this world
who revolutionise transport push systems into chaos.
Similarly, government leaders can directly encourage or
retard the growth of tourism by their actions. Rogues
and chaos makers can in#uence the communications
channels and &&considerations'' elements, leading to the
transformation of a destination. Even the actions of indi-
viduals who are motivated to act because they feel
adversely a!ected by tourism can push a tourism system
to the edge of criticality.
Lastly, this model considers the Outputs of tourism as
an intrinsic aspect of any tourism system, for the impacts
or perceived impacts of tourism at the host destination or
other destinations are increasingly a!ecting its develop-
ment. Governments support tourismout of the belief that
it will provide a variety of positive outcomes, such as
employment, enhancement of the tax base or the provis-
ion of foreign currency. In addition, tourism is seen as
a powerful tool to help modernise societies. On the other
hand, opponents of tourism citing its legacy of adverse
impacts have successfully blocked tourism development
proposals. Positive or negative, the impacts of tourism
are playing a greater role in development decisions.
One of the paradoxes of public sector involvement in
tourism is the belief that tourism can be controlled
through a supply driven policy designed to achieve posit-
ive outputs. The principle behind many national tourism
policies begins with a statement of the desired outcomes
of tourism and then to work backwards through the
model to encourage the &right' type of development and
to attract the &right' type of tourist to achieve these goals.
In this manner, a namKve belief emerges that tourismcan be
controlled from above. The problem with this ideal is
that public sector tourism planners have no real control
over any of the other elements in the tourism model. In
reality, tourism remains a demand driven activity, where
markets seek destinations that satisfy their demands.
Because the industry is dominated by private sector
players which must remain commercially viable, it pro-
vides products that it thinks the consumers want. As
a result, there is often an inherent contradiction between
the &public good' of tourism and the commercial realities
of running tourism businesses. The best public sector
players can hope to achieve is to guide tourism develop-
ment through regulatory means and to strive to direct its
evolution through other policy measures. But, the public
sector can never control tourism.
5. Conclusions and implications
This paper proposes an alternative model of tourism
based on the principles encapsulated by chaos and com-
plexity theory. In it, the author argues that tourism
functions in a non-linear, non-deterministic and dynam-
ical manner, where tourism systems function in a manner
akin to living ecological communities. It also appreciates
that turbulence and periods of intense upheaval are both
an intrinsic element of the system and an essential ele-
ment to promote rapid change in tourism communities.
The model identi"es nine component elements of tourism
that comprise any tourism system. A rich and complex
set of relationships exists between and within each ele-
ment that determines how each tourism system will per-
form. While an overall movement occurs through the
model from consumer to outputs, it is acknowledged that
signi"cant backwards and/or vertical movement occurs
between and within the elements.
The model was developed in an attempt to explain
better the relationships that exist between the varied ele-
ments that constitute a tourism system that are currently
not explained fully by the existing models. It was also
developed in an attempt to initiate more intellectual de-
bate about how tourism functions, a debate that seems to
have entered a lull in the past few years. As such, the model
does not propose any answers, nor is it intended to enter
a detailed debate about the implications of chaos theory
on the operations of individual tourism enterprises. These
issues are worthy topics for papers in their own right.
A chaos approach to tourism explains, at a conceptual
level, much of the variability noted in tourism that con-
founds the ability of tourism policy makers to control
tourism and of strategic planners to predict accurately
future tourism #ows. Further, appreciating the chaotic
nature of tourism may force public and private sector
players to reconsider their roles. The role of public sector
players in a chaotic tourism system becomes one of
trying to in#uence the direction of growth within broad
parameters rather than trying to exert covert control
over it. At a micro, or operational level, the role of
tourism enterprises becomes one of ensuring their niche
in the rapidly evolving living tourism community by
responding to or anticipating change, protecting its habi-
tat and by continuing to evolve at least as rapidly as the
system is evolving to secure a preferred habitat position.
B. McKercher / Tourism Management 20 (1999) 425}434 433
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges Dr. Gary Williams
for his assistance in drafting the model presented in this
paper.
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