take place in everyday life. A system is therefore a means of abstracting from reality in a manner that makes it more understandable.
The structure of a system is composed of ele- ments and the relationships between elements.
Elements are the basic unit of a system. However, part of the art of systems analysis and definition will be the construction of a set of entities that form a relatively coherent object of study which has a well-defined relationship with its environ- ment. Systems analysis cannot proceed without such abstraction. As Ashby (1966: 16) observed, any real system will be characterised by ‘an infin- ity of variables from which different observers (with different aims) may reasonably make an infinity of different selections’. Similarly, Wilson (1986: 476) noted,
while the definition of any particular system of in- terest obviously reflects the object of study, it is con- structed by the analyst, and so different system definitions of the same object of study will be creat- ed by different people for different purposes.
For example, as Hall (1998b: 4) notes,
one of the most frustrating things for a student starting a tourism course is that almost every text provides a different definition of tourism. This is not necessarily because authors are trying to be dif- ficult and confuse the student, although some may have suspicions that this is indeed the case! Rather the author is trying to be specific about exactly where the text fits into the broad spectrum of tourism studies and is trying to delimit the bound- aries of the book.
In other words, the definition is a convenient abstraction that can contribute to analysis. The above approach is fundamental to any subject.
Each discipline and area of scholarship and research has as one of its first tasks the identifica- tion of the things that comprise the foci for study.
By defining terms we give meaning to and provide a basis for the understanding of what we are doing. Moreover, we are able to give terms a spe- cific, technical basis that can be used to help com- municate more effectively and improve the quality of our research and management.
One of the most substantial problems in un- derstanding the elements within a system is that
of scale. Systems are embedded within systems.
What we regard as an element of a system at one level of analysis may itself constitute a system at a lower level of analysis. For example, we often examine the flows of tourists within an interna- tional tourism system by analysing the flows of tourists between different countries, which are the elements of such a system. However, if we change our resolution we may then examine the flows of tourists within a country, by looking at the intraregional flows of tourists. In the latter example it is the country that is the system and the regions the elements. How we define an ele- ment therefore depends on the scale at which we conceive the system, otherwise referred to as the resolution level.
Every element is characterised by forming, from the point of view of the corresponding resolution level (at which the system . . . is defined), an indivisible unit whose structure we either cannot or do not want to resolve. However, if we increase the resolution level in a suitable manner . . . the structure of the element can be distinguished. In consequence, the original element loses its meaning and becomes the source of new elements of a relatively different system, i.e. of a system defined at a higher resolution level (Klir and Valach 1967: 35 in Harvey 1969: 454).
The other component in the structure of a sys- tem is the relationship or links between the ele- ments that make up a system. Three basic forms of relationship can be identified: (1) a series relation (in which A leads to B), which is the characteristic cause-and-effect type relation of classical science;
(2) a parallel relation in which two elements are af- fected by another element; (3) a feedback relation, which describes a situation in which an element in- fluences itself. Both the elements and the relation- ships between them are part of the environment, which is most simply thought of as everything there is. However, when trying to model a system it is important to recognise the relevant elements in the environment that affect the operation of the system. Therefore, these are abstracted out from the environment and tied into a specific systems model for the purposes of analysis.
Another important element in systems analysis is defining the boundaries of a system. In mathe- matical terms this is extremely easy. However, in
operational terms it can be extremely difficult.
Sometimes the boundary of a system may be set by defining it in terms of something that is self- evident in terms of the questions being asked. For example, if one were examining a political sys- tems problem then an appropriate boundary might be a government boundary. Similarly, a problem of water resource management may be dealt with in ecological terms through selecting a watershed as a boundary. Indeed, planning prob- lems typically emerge when the different bound- aries of different systems overlap, making management extremely difficult, a point we will return to later. Many boundaries are not so easy to identify. Therefore boundaries may be imposed through the application of judgement as to where a system begins and ends and in relation to the problem we are trying to solve. This does not mean that such boundaries are arbitrary, rather they should be related to the goals of the study and experience of such systems, as clearly the se- lection of a boundary can have a major impact on research results. Nowhere has this been more clearly demonstrated in tourism than with respect to economic analysis.
A multiplier may be regarded as ‘a coefficient which expresses the amount of income generated in an area by an additional unit of tourist spend- ing’ (Archer 1982: 236). It is the ratio of direct and secondary changes within an economic re- gion to the direct initial change itself. The size of the tourist multiplier is a significant measure of the economic benefit of tourism because it will be a reflection of the circulation of the tourist dollar through an economic system. In general, the larger the size of the tourist multiplier the greater the self-sufficiency of that economy in the provision of tourist facilities and services. Therefore, a tourist multiplier will generally be larger at a na- tional level than at a regional level (e.g. state, province, county), because at a regional level leak- age will occur in the form of taxes to the national government and importation of goods and ser- vices from other regions. Similarly, at the local level, multipliers will reflect the high importation level of small communities and tax payments to regional and national governments. As a measure of economic benefit from tourism, the multiplier
technique has been increasingly subject to ques- tion, particularly as its use has often produced ex- aggerated results (Bull 1994), one reason being that the selection of the boundary of the economy being studied is so critical. The smaller the area to be analysed, the greater will be the number of
‘visitors’ and hence the greater will be the estimate of economic impact, while the selection of the boundary will also affect the extent to which there is leakage out of the system, for example through the importation of goods and services for tourism.
Boundary selection is therefore a key determinant in influencing the result of any analysis of an economic system (Burns and Mules 1986).
One area in which systems thinking has been especially influential and that will be familiar to most readers is in the biological and ecological sciences. For example, the concept of the ‘web of life’ conveys the idea that all life is interrelated in a network of relationships. The central organising idea of ecology is that of the ecosystem, a term developed by Arthur Tansley in 1935 to replace the more anthropomorphic term ‘community’:
‘All the parts of such an ecosystem – organic and inorganic, biome and habitat – may be regarded as interacting factors which, in a mature ecosys- tem, are in approximate equilibrium: it is through their interactions that the whole system is main- tained’ (Tansley 1935: 207).
An ecosystem is therefore a model of interrelat- edness in nature that includes a hierarchy of sys- tems at different levels of complexity and extent.
The ecosystem concept presents both the biologi- cal and non-biological aspects of the environment in one entity, with strong emphasis on the cycling of nutrients and the flow of energy in the system – whether it be a lake, a forest or the earth as a whole (Worster 1977). Fosberg (1963 in Stoddart 1972: 157) defined an ecosystem as:
a functioning interacting system composed of one or more living organisms and their effective environ- ment, both physical and biological . . . The descrip- tion of an ecosystem may include its spatial relations; inventories of its physical features, its habitats and ecological niches, its organisms, and its basic reserves of matter and energy; the nature of its income (or input) of matter and energy; and the behaviour or trend of its entropy level.
The ecosystem idea has been influential not just in ecology. Stoddart (1965, 1967), for exam- ple, argued that the ecosystem concept has four main properties that makes it suitable as a tool in geographic research, First, it is monistic, in that it brings together the environment, humans, plants and animals into a single framework, within which the interaction between components can be examined. Second, ecosystems are structured in an orderly, comprehensible manner. Third, ecosystems function, in that they involve the continuous throughput of matter and energy.
In geographic terms, the system involves not only the framework of the communication net, but also the goods and people flowing through it. Once the framework has been defined, it may be possible to quantify the interactions and interchanges between component parts. . . . (Stoddart 1972: 158) Fourth, the ecosystem is a general system thereby providing for application to a range of different situations where systems analysis may prove fruit- ful. However, while Stoddart’s hope of systems analysis providing a methodological foundation for geography proved unfulfilled (see Johnston 1991), ecosystem and systems thinking did have substantial influence in related areas such as plan- ning, management and, more recently, tourism (see below).
Within the planning tradition, systems models of planning have been particularly influential since the mid-1960s. For example, Chadwick (1971) in A Systems View of Planning, which sought to integrate engineering, ecological and societal systems in a comprehensive theory of the urban and regional planning process, argued
that planning is a process, a process of human thought and action based upon that thought – in point of fact, forethought, thought for the future – nothing more or less than this is planning, which is a very general human activity. (1971: 24)
Hall’s explanation of what planning should do supports Chadwick’s case:
it [planning] should aim to provide a resource for democratic and informed decision-making. This is all planning can legitimately do, and all it can pre- tend to do. Properly understood, this is the real mes- sage of the systems revolution in planning and its aftermath. (P. Hall 1982: 303)
More recently, Peter Hall noted that fundamental to the idea of systems planning ‘was the idea of interaction between two parallel systems: the planning or controlling system itself, and the sys- tem (or systems) which it seeks to control’ (P. Hall 1992: 230).
The systems influence has been equally signifi- cant in corporate planning and management thinking. In the late 1950s and early 1960s writ- ers, such as Burns and Stalker (1961), began to stress more ‘organic’ modes of business organisa- tion and management that highlighted the man- ner in which successful organisations are able to adapt to and change their environments. Organi- sations are therefore regarded as sets of interact- ing subsystems (e.g. strategic, technological, structural, human-cultural and managerial) oper- ating within the business environment, receiving inputs in the form of human, financial, informa- tional and material resources and producing or- ganisational outputs in the form of goods and services, ideally at an effective and efficient level of production that allows the organisational system to be maintained (Kast and Rosenzweig 1973). This ‘contingency’ approach to organisa- tion is now the dominant perspective in contem- porary organisational analysis (Morgan 1986).
Indeed it is now such a part of our everyday think- ing and analysis about business and organisation that it is hard for us to appreciate how revolution- ary the idea was and, perhaps, to reflect on the tremendous implications that such a systems anal- ogy may have for understanding issues such as sustainability. As Morgan (1986: 71) observed,
By exploring the parallels between organisms and organizations in terms of organic functioning, rela- tions with the environment, relations between species, and the wider ecology, it has been possible to produce different theories and explanations that have very practical implications for organization and management.
The organism metaphor therefore offers a num- ber of strengths in terms of the insights it offers on organisations (Morgan 1986):
• It emphasises the importance of understanding relations between organisations and their environments.
Organisations are best thought of as open systems continually adapting and changing, they are therefore an ongoing process rather than just a collection of parts.
• It draws attention to the importance of understanding the ‘needs’ that must be satisfied if an organisation is to survive.
Therefore the various demands of the strategic, technological, structural, human- cultural and managerial subsystems all need to be met.
• There are many different ‘species’ or types of organisation each with characteristics that may allow it to adapt or fit better into different environmental circumstances.
• Organic ideas of organisation that stress adaptation and innovation may provide a better mind-set, organisational culture and/or vision to actually provide for such
innovation.
• The focus on ecology and interorganisational relations in terms of cooperation and
competition may provide a far better foundation for creating organisational frameworks that provide for the
development of cooperative structures in complex environments.
More recently the systems metaphor and sys- tems thinking has been influencing the realms of business and organisation research through inter- est in ideas of organisations as self-reproducing systems and organisational evolution and change (Morgan 1986).
Process, flux and change are fundamental to a systems view of the world. One of the most influ- ential writers in advancing this perspective has been David Bohm (1980), who argued that the world we see at any given moment needs to be understood as but a moment within more funda- mental processes of change and reality. Bohm describes this fundamental reality as being implicate (or enfolded) order, in contrast to the explicate (or unfolded) order that we see in our everyday view of the world. Explicate reality (or forms) can be likened to the eddies, waves and whirlpools that we see in fast-flowing rivers as the water rushes through rapids. Think of these
eddies – while seemingly having a relatively stable form, they have no existence other than in terms of the movement of the flowing water in which they exist (the implicate order). Bohm therefore suggests that underlying explicate reality there are hidden processes and relations, termed by Morgan (1986: 234) as ‘logics of change’, that help explain ‘reality’ at any given point of time. ‘To discover these, we have to understand the movement, flux, and change that produce the world we experience and study’ (Morgan 1986: 234).
The idea of process and change has also be- come associated with systems thinking at the level of the individual. For example, writers such as Gergen (1991: 170) emphasise the significance of relational psychology which recognises that:
We realize increasingly who and what we are is not so much the result of our ‘personal essences’ (real feelings, deep beliefs, and the like) but of how we are constructed in social groups . . . Relationships make possible the concept of self. Previous posses- sions of the individual self – autobiography, emo- tions, and morality – become possessions of relationships. We appear to stand alone, but we are manifestations of relations.
The identity of an individual involved in the planning process is therefore constituted by membership of particular sets of relational net- works. Such an observation may have significant implications for the stewardship of resources, be- cause resources are also part of network relation- ships as they are shaped and extracted from the environment through human perception and pat- terns of behaviour. Deep ecologists, for example, would argue that the relationship of individuals to resources may also be conceived as implying a moral relationship which would require the adoption of more sustainable ways of behaviour.
While such a notion may be absurd to some read- ers, the ideas of relatedness to both others and the natural world is of increasing influence in the conservation movement around the world and underlies many of the policy developments that surround sustainability.
Systems analysis relates to the abstraction rather than the reality (Harvey 1969). However, this does not make systems thinking ‘unreal’. We
all have our ideas, models or theories about how the world or people operate. These are our ab- stractions that we use to understand the world, explain what is happening, and act accordingly in various situations. In the physical sciences or in engineering some of the systems models may be isomorphic, that is the abstracted model and the original system will be symmetrically related in terms of the elements within them and the relationships between such elements. The vast majority of abstractions though, particularly in the social sciences, are homomorphic, that is the relationship to the original system is asymmetri- cal. For example, imagine yourself on a walk in the countryside reading a map. Think of the rela- tionship between the map (which is an abstrac- tion) and the countryside (reality/the original system). Every element in the map can be as- signed to an element in the countryside, yet the countryside contains many elements (or entities to use the terms above) that are not recorded on the map. The geometric relationships (physical distances) represented on the map also hold in the countryside, but there are also many geomet- ric relationships around you in the countryside that cannot be portrayed on the map. ‘We may treat the map as a model of the countryside, but we cannot treat the countryside as a model of the map’ (Harvey 1969: 471). Nevertheless, we may get easily lost without a map. So it is therefore that other abstractions based on systems model- ling may be most useful for helping us find our way through the complexity of tourism and tourism planning.
Tourism systems
The idea of a tourism system has been widely used in the international tourism literature since the early 1970s (e.g., Preobrazhensky et al.
1976; Leiper 1989; Farrell and Twining-Ward 2004; Hall and Page 2006), with the term being popularised in a number of tourism texts. For example, according to Mill and Morrison (1985) the system consists of four parts: market, travel, destination and marketing. As noted above, a system is an assemblage or combina- tion of things or parts forming a complex or
unitary role. Tourism is often termed as a sys- tem in order to describe the interrelationships between the various sectors that enable leisure travel to and from a destination. Several differ- ent types of systems models have been utilised in tourism studies. For example, at a geograph- ical level, four basic elements may be identified (Figure 4.1):
• Generating region: this is the source region of the tourist and the place where the journey begins and ends.
• Transit region or route: this is the region the tourist must travel through to reach their destination.
• Destination region: this is the region the tourist chooses to visit and where the most obvious consequences of the system occur.
• The environment: within which the travel flows are located and with which the tourist interacts.
The basic geographical tourism system model is useful for identifying the flows of tourists from the generating region to the destination region. Of course there may be more than one destination and therefore a whole pattern of des- tination regions and transit route regions may be built up. In addition, the different stages of the travel experience that describe the individual traveller’s encounter with the tourism system has psychological and industrial dimensions as well (Figure 4.1).
Other system models have emphasised the supply and demand dimensions of tourism. For example, texts by Murphy (1985), and Hall (1998b, 2005a) (Figure 4.2) all developed mod- els which focus on the importance of the tourist experience that occurs at the point where con- sumption and production coincide. As Murphy (1985: 10) noted, ‘the travel experience is this in- dustry’s product, but unlike other industries it is the consumer who travels and not the product’.
Nevertheless, from a production perspective, which is that usually taken in tourism policy terms by destinations, a number of distinct ele- ments can be identified in different locations (Figure 4.3). Significantly, such a framework reinforces the fact that destination institutions