This paper proposes that approaches to tourism planning in Eritrea more than reiterate old arguments concerning the paradoxical role played by tourism in the key aid agenda of eradicating poverty and delivering development through growth and redistribution. Evidence suggests that the debate remains confused and polarized. For this reason, the analysis of planning presented here can be seen as making an important contribution to the debate on aid, tourism, and sustainability for a number of similar newly independent non-industrialized countries. It is not the intention of this paper to be critical of tourism per se, but it is negative about certain approaches to its planning. Thus, while Cater correctly notes the dangers of dwelling on tourisms negative impacts, it is somewhat simplistic to assert that, with better informed tourism planning, there is no reason why the positive effects should not be maximized and the negative ones minimized (Cater, 1987:223). In a broad sense this fails to take account of the complexities of globalizing markets. Indeed, some earlier critics (Britton 1981; Farrell 1997) argued that tourism is so tied into the international political economy that, Choy—in discussing government tourism planing and how markets are more influential than traditional planning—comments that such plans have not been successful in influencing the level and pattern of tourism development, even after allowing more than twenty years (Choy, 1991:330) This is not to say that the sentiments behind Caters words are not right, but that the complexities of addressing the issue she raised mean that there are plenty of reasons why tourism planning, even if better informed, might fail to maximize benefits and minimize impacts. Not least among these reasons is the way in which the framework and direction of the essential document that (in a sense) starts the planning process, the so-called terms of reference for a masterplan, can be ill-conceived, as in the case of Eritrea.

While it is evident that problems persist with tourism planning (Burns and Cleverdon 1995; Choy, 1991; Dann, G., and R. Potter 1997 Tourism in Barbados: Rejuvenation or Decline? In Island Tourism: Trends and Prospects, D. Lockhart and D. Drakakis-Smith, eds., pp. 205–228. London: Pinter.Dann and Potter 1997) it is equally evident that planning has evolved from its earlier approaches, which reflected a generally uncomplicated view of tourism, to a more sophisticated and integrated approach. Table 1 provides a retrospective of public policy planning paradigms, attitudes towards planning for tourism, and some of the changing characteristics of international tourism over a four decade period. This is helpful in bringing together some of the key trends in these three related areas.

Although Table 1 provides a broad brush retrospective, in the particular case of pre- or non-industrialized countries (especially the so-called Third Worlds), approaches to tourism planning may be placed on a continuum. At one end, powerful and well rehearsed arguments concerning the economic and growth benefits to be gained from this industry through various multipliers and high tourist arrival numbers are ranged. Emphasis is on gross national receipts in a nations tourism account and on applying the Keynesian multiplier mechanism to tourism: a Tourism First perspective as it may be termed. This, it is argued, remains the dominant model for aid-assisted planning at a national level for non-industrialized countries. The focus is on developing tourism, the corollary of which is assumed to be national or regional development. Archers (1972) early work on tourism multipliers is seen as significant to this perspective, and while he is neither planner nor developer (he is an economist), his contribution has, in a sense, legitimized and justified the economic enlargement approach to tourism.

If this first end of the pole represents a focus on tourism for tourisms sake, the opposite pole is concerned with using it as a tool for national development. This latter position can be termed a Development First approach. This is epitomized through the development sociologist, de Kadt (1976), who has visited tourism from time to time over the past two decades with an analytical eye, most notably with his critique of tourism as a developmental agent for non-industrialized countries. It was, however, as will be seen later in this paper, Bryden, 1973, with his critical analysis through the application of economics to tourism, who was the unwitting founder of this Development First position. This perspective takes a definite, if unconscious, multidisciplinary approach to tourism and how it might be developed, placing emphasis on the symbiotic relationship between tourism and its environs. Emphasis by de Kadt and those of a comparable frame of mind is placed on the net benefits to the nation or region in question (Harrison 1992; Krippendorf 1989; Murphy 1985) set against a broad range of costs, including the social, cultural, and environmental. Such approaches are holistic by acknowledging the difficulty of unpacking economic impacts from other consequences of tourism. Their focus is on development, seeing tourism as a means of, or a tool for, achieving national social and economic goals. The bipolarities between the two standpoints are shown in Fig. 1. It illustrates how development paradoxes can easily be bought into, and placed alongside the tourism and development debate through a number of key issues.

1.1. The Tourism First Perspective

The roots of the Tourism First perspective are to be found in the supply-led approach to tourism development epitomized by the World Bank and its executing agents (consultant planners). That is to say, the first and primary concern in such an approach is to locate suitable sites for the development of resorts, hotels, and other tourist attractions, which, for these planners/developers, constitutes tourism supply (Gunn 1993:35). The approach is typified by the architect/resort planners Baud-Bovey and Lawson (1977) with their planning model which they termed Products Analysis Sequence for Outdoor Leisure Planning (PASOLP). It is argued that the emphasis in this model on product, (that is to say, supply) illustrates that supply-led is a useful term to use in this regard, emphasizing, as it does, that the objective of tourism is the fulfilment of investors needs. It is underpinned by the idea that the centre of tourism is the development of a supply of hotel rooms, usually within integrated resorts, with high levels of infrastructure. This could all be funded by the provision of World Bank loans. This all points towards a firm belief in economies of scale in relation to infrastructure and communications. From a Tourism First perspective, the word development refers to, or is driven by, project or site development linked to continually increasing numbers of visitor arrivals. This is a characteristic of the first Fiji Master Plan (Belt, Collins and Associates 1973) and is to be found almost two decades later in the Solomon Island Tourism Development Plan (TCSP 1990). Even when later plans included specific references to a sociologist as a team member to examine tourisms impacts, the over-riding agenda is always, without exception, growth.