Typically, we envisage coconuts as brown cannonballs that, when opened, provide sweet white

flesh. But we see only part of the fruit and none of the plant from which they come. The coconut
palm has a smooth, slender, grey trunk, up to 30 metres tall. This is an important source of timber
for building houses, and is increasingly being used as a replacement for endangered hardwoods in
the furniture construction industry. The trunk is surmounted by a rosette of leaves, each of which
may be up to six metres long. The leaves have hard veins in their centres which, in many parts of
the world, are used as brushes after the green part of the leaf has been stripped away. Immature
coconut flowers are tightly clustered together among the leaves at the top of the trunk. The flower
stems may be tapped for their sap to produce a drink, and the sap can also be reduced by boiling to
produce a type of sugar used for cooking.

Coconut palms produce as many as seventy fruits per year, weighing more than a kilogram each.
The wall of the fruit has three layers: a waterproof outer layer, a fibrous middle layer and a hard,
inner layer. The thick fibrous middle layer produces coconut fibre, ‘coir’, which has numerous uses
and is particularly important in manufacturing ropes. The woody innermost layer, the shell, with its
three prominent ‘eyes’, surrounds the seed. An important product obtained from the shell is
charcoal, which is widely used in various industries as well as in the home as cooking fuel. When
broken in half, the shells are also used as bowls in many parts of Asia.

Inside the shell are the nutrients (endosperm) needed by the developing seed. Initially, the
endosperm is a sweetish liquid, coconut water, which is enjoyed as a drink, but also provides the
hormones which encourage other plants to grow more rapidly and produce higher yields. As the fruit
matures, the coconut water gradually solidifies to form the brilliant white, fat-rich, edible flesh or
meat. Dried coconut flesh, ‘copra’, is made into coconut oil and coconut milk, which are widely used
in cooking in different parts of the world, as well as in cosmetics. A derivative of coconut fat,
glycerine, acquired strategic importance in a quite different sphere, as Alfred Nobel introduced the
world to his nitroglycerine-based invention: dynamite.

Their biology would appear to make coconuts the great maritime voyagers and coastal colonizers of
the plant world. The large, energy-rich fruits are able to float in water and tolerate salt, but cannot
remain viable indefinitely; studies suggest after about 110 days at sea they are no longer able to
germinate. Literally cast onto desert island shores, with little more than sand to grow in and exposed
to the full glare of the tropical sun, coconut seeds are able to germinate and root. The air pocket in
the seed, created as the endosperm solidifies, protects the embryo. In addition, the fibrous fruit wall
that helped it to float during the voyage stores moisture that can be taken up by the roots of the
coconut seedling as it starts to grow.

There have been centuries of academic debate over the origins of the coconut. There were no
coconut palms in West Africa, the Caribbean, or the east coast of the Americans before the voyages
of the European explorers Vasco da Gama and Columbus in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.
16th-century trade and human migration patterns reveal that Arab traders and European sailors are
likely to have moved coconuts from South and Southeast Asia to Africa and then across the Atlantic
to the east coast of America. But the origin of coconuts discovered along the west coast of America
by 16th-century sailors has been the subject of centuries of discussion. Two diametrically opposed
origins have been proposed: that they came from Asia, or that they were native to America. Both
suggestions have problems. In Asia, there is a large degree of coconut diversity and evidence of
millennia of human use – but there are no relatives growing in the wild. In America, there are close
coconut relatives, but no evidence that coconuts are indigenous. These problems have led to the
intriguing suggestion that coconuts originated on coral islands in the Pacific and were dispersed
from there.
 The Context, Meaning and Scope of Tourism

A  

Travel has existed since the beginning of time, when a primitive man set out, often traversing great
distances in search of game, which provided the food and clothing necessary for his survival.
Throughout the course of history, people have travelled for purposes of trade, religious conviction,
economic gain, war, migration and other equally compelling motivations. In the Roman era, wealthy
aristocrats and high government officials also travelled for pleasure. Seaside resorts located at
Pompeii and Herculaneum afforded citizens the opportunity to escape to their vacation villas in order
to avoid the summer heat of Rome. Travel, except during the Dark Ages, has continued to grow and,
throughout recorded history, has played a vital role in the development of civilisations and their
economies.

B 

Tourism in the mass form as we know it today is a distinctly twentieth-century phenomenon.

Historians suggest that the advent of mass tourism began in England during the industrial revolution
with the rise of the middle class and the availability of relatively inexpensive transportation. The
creation of the commercial airline industry following the Second World War and the subsequent
development of the jet aircraft in the 1950s signalled the rapid growth and expansion of international
travel. This growth led to the development of a major new industry: tourism. In turn, international
tourism became the concern of a number of world governments since it not only provided new
employment opportunities but also produced a means of earning foreign exchange.

C   

Tourism today has grown significantly in both economic and social importance. In most
industrialised countries over the past few years the fastest growth has been seen in the area of
services. One of the largest segments of the service industry, although largely unrecognised as an
entity in some of these countries, is travel and tourism. According to the World Travel and Tourism
Council (1992), Travel and tourism is the largest industry in the world on virtually any economic
measure including value-added capital investment, employment and tax contributions. In 1992 ‘the
industry’s gross output was estimated to be $3.5 trillion, over 12 percent of all consumer spending.
The travel and tourism industry is the world’s largest employer the almost 130 million jobs, or almost
7 percent of all employees. This industry is the world’s leading industrial contributor, producing over
6 percent of the world’s national product and accounting for capital investment in excess of $422
billion m direct indirect and personal taxes each year. Thus, tourism has a profound impact both on
the world economy and, because of the educative effect of travel and the effects on employment, on
society itself.

D   

However, the major problems of the travel and tourism industry that have hidden, or obscured, its
economic impact is the diversity and fragmentation of the industry itself. The travel industry includes:
hotels, motels and other types of accommodation; restaurants and other food services;
transportation services and facilities; amusements, attractions and other leisure facilities; gift shops
and a large number of other enterprises. Since many of these businesses also serve local residents,
the impact of spending by visitors can easily be overlooked or underestimated. In addition, Meis
(1992) points out that the tourism industry involves concepts that have remained amorphous to both
analysts and decision-makers. Moreover, in all nations this problem has made it difficult for the
industry to develop any type of reliable or credible tourism information base in order to estimate the
contribution it makes to regional, national and global economies. However, the nature of this very
diversity makes travel and tourism ideal vehicles for economic development in a wide variety of
countries, regions or communities.

E  

Once the exclusive province of the wealthy, travel and tourism has become an institutionalised way
of life for most of the population. In fact, McIntosh and Goeldner (1990) suggest that tourism has
become the largest commodity in international trade for many nations and, for a significant number
of other countries, it ranks second or third. For example, tourism is the major source of income in
Bermuda, Greece, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and most Caribbean countries. In addition, Hawkins and
Ritchie, quoting from data published by the American Express Company, suggest that the travel and
tourism industry is the number one ranked employer in the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, France, (the
former) West Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the
United States. However, because of problems of definition, which directly affect the statistical
measurement, it is not possible with any degree of certainty to provide precise, valid or reliable data
about the extent of world-wide tourism participation or its economic impact. In many cases, similar
difficulties arise when attempts are made to measure domestic tourism.

(i) Economic and social significance of tourism

(ii) The development of mass tourism
(iii) Travel for the wealthy
(iv) Earning foreign exchange through tourism
(v) Difficulty in recognising the economic effects of
tourism
(vi) The contribution of air travel to tourism
(vii) The world impact of tourism
(viii) The history of travel