The socio cultural impact of Growth Pole Theory (GPT) tourism development
Perroux's (1952, 1955) Growth Pole Theory (GPT) has been applied cross disciplinarily as a paradigm of industrialization for countries developing regionally in the context of urban planning, resource allocation, real estate and community regeneration (Lo Salih, 2013) GPT has been administered with the purpose of creating a successful trickle out approach to development in such contexts (Aghion Bolton, 1997) Trickle out, which can be understood as a method to development which concentrates on a small geographic space with the intent of a spreading in the form of a ripple effect on peripheral areas (Scott Storper, 2005) is oft relied upon in cases of development due to its ability to reach an expanding area (Littlewood Holt, 2012) GPT with a large scale and high density approach has been implemented when building tourist facilities, creating employment, establishing infrastructure and increasing tax revenue in the context of tourism development (Frederick, 1993) The positive economic effects of tourism in countries that accept a trickle out approach have been noted. For example, regions have been shown to evidence economic (Echter, 1995) infrastructure development (Gu, Su, Fan, 2011) and conservation (Nielsen, 2012) Some tourism development studies have sought to understand economic or environmental development results. There have been relatively few studies devoted to resident perceptions of socio cultural development (Stronza, 2006) The socio cultural impacts generally represent a resident's cognizance, which is more difficult to quantify than economic or environmental impacts (Taillon, 2012) Sociocultural impacts have been intentionally disregarded as inconsequential despite their importance, particularly in the profit driven development process (Allen, Long, Perdue, Kieselbach, 1988)