INTERNATIONAL TOURISM SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION: AN ALTERNATIVE CARTOGRAPHY OF WORLD TOURISM ORGANIZATION (UNWTO) DATA

The UNWTO is responsible for collecting and disseminating International Tourism data about 200 states among its associate members and affiliates. Traditionally this information is disclosed in the Compendium of Tourism Statistics, whose access is restricted or paid. The WTO reports also present the data aggregated in accord to the regional division of the world established by the UNWTO itself. This work aims to present an alternative cartography and to discuss the spatial distribution of international tourism. This was done from the UNWTO database, available by the World Bank. The interval between 2006 and 2016 was chosen for analysis. The indicators presented are: the average of international arrivals from 2006 to 2016; the variation in the number of international arrivals between 2006 and 2016; the ratio between international arrivals and each country's population in 2016; the ratio between international tourism revenue and international arrivals between over 2006 and 2016; the variation in international tourism revenues between 2006 and 2016; the variation in international tourism spending between 2006 and 2016. The discussion of these indicators is important for a deeper understanding of the dynamics of international tourism, which goes far beyond the traditional debate around the often-released top ten rankings. Aceito 19/Mai/2019 Publicado 10/Dez/2019 Graduanda do Bacharelado em Turismo Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG) cccs7@hotmail.com Doutor em Geografia Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG) Graduando em Relações Internacionais Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14210/at.v4n3.p47-54 ©2019 autores. Publicado por Univali Esse artigo é de livre acesso sob a licença PALAVRAS-CHAVE Spatial distribution of tourism International tourism UNWTO Artigo Científico


Introduction
The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is a United Nations agency, with the purpose to promote tourism as an instrument for peace and mutual understanding among people and as a tool for economic development. Among UNWTO's tasks is the work of coordinating and systematizing the process of collecting statistical data related to tourism in its associated states. An important work in this regard is the International Recommendations for Tourism Statistics (UNWTO, 2008). These data are traditionally released in a compiled manner in highlights annual reports (UNWTO, 2019) and a restricted access publication: the Compendium of Tourism Statistics.
Despite its importance to the public and scientific debate about tourism and its use in studies and official publications, it is rare to find academic literature discussions on these results. In this project, we found a scarce return in the search for the keywords: International Tourism, OMT, UNWTO at the following databases Spell.org, Scielo.org.br, Redalyc.org and CA-PES journals portal. One exception is the work of Pieri (2014). The limitations and political implications of the concepts adopted by the organization are objects of reflection by Pimentel (2017). Tourism Geography books, such as Silveira (2015), Mesplier & Bloc-Duraffour (2000) raise this debate, although not always updated and again presenting results based on macroregional aggregates.
However, as pointed out by Silveira (2015), the theme is important. International tourism is an agent of globalization, connecting a worldwide tourism system. "Countries that were inaccessible or poorly visited, because they are too expensive or geopolitically closed, are now being integrated into world tourism" (SILVEIRA, 2015, p. 216). Nevertheless, the author reports the levels of inequality between world tourism flows, pointing to the development of the Northern Hemisphere and the relation to tourism spaces that are considered as "support bases", noteworthily tropical resorts. The countries of the Northern Hemisphere, therefore, are the largest outbound and inbound markets on world tourism. They are also characterized by their consolidated regional tourism flows.
In Latin America, focusing on South America, tourism is unevenly spread. One factor that influences is the distance of these countries to the main tourists' origin places. There is also a lower regional GDP per capita, which directly contributes to the available income for tourism spending. In that sense, South America is a relatively less efficient area in the use of its tourism resources. Tourism investments tend to be left behind due to the region's economic and financial instability, structural unemployment, inflationary pressures and insecurity (NETTO & TRIGO, 2016).
These authors also point that large infrastructure, as well as big hotel and resort companies, are generally established by foreign capital, resulting in revenues for the investing countries, therefore not necessarily contributing much to the local territory. The issue of cruise ships, which are routine in the region, stands out.
These promote a tourism development model where tourists end up having little contact with the places they visited, not spreading their expenditures throughout the country, and frequently shipping overseas the investors' profits (NETTO & TRIGO, 2016).
Given that context, this paper seeks to understand the recent dynamics of international tourism using UNW-TO data made available through the World Bank open access indicators catalog. It aims to point out the complexity of relations between states and tourism, showing the relationship between economic, cultural, social, geographical and historical aspects. This is done by discussing three indicators and some of their variations. The indicators are: the number of international arrivals; the international tourist expenditures; and the revenues from international tourism. According to the UNWTO, the definition of these indicators is as follows.
International arrivals are defined as: The number of tourists traveling to a country other than that in which they normally reside, but outside their usual environment, for a period of fewer than 12 months and whose primary purpose of visitation is not a paid activity within the visited country (UNWTO, 2019b, Metadata).  However, we chose to analyze the decade from 2006 to 2016 because it was the period with more complete and uniform data between the different states. The software GeoDa was used to categorized into seven groups utilizing the Natural Breaks method. The maps were then made using QGis software, version 2.14.

Average of international arrivals (2006-2016)
From the map in Figure 1

Revenues (US $) for international arrivals
The map of the quotient between the average of inter-

2016)
In contrast to revenues, the map in Figure 6  Africa is the continent with the lowest spending.
It can be noted that countries with the highest expenditure rates relate to the world's largest economies. In this case, Brazil and especially Australia have prominent roles in the southern hemisphere. Nevertheless, considering its relationship with GDP, Brazil spends less than the Oceania country. It´s also worth mentioning Saudi Arabia, which does not even rank among the 15 largest economies and had an expense compared to the Netherlands .

2016)
The map in Figure

CONCLUSION
UNWTO data is a reference for an understanding of international tourism. This paper sought to discuss its recent dynamics using thematic cartography. By having the data stratified by nation and not regions, these maps allow a deeper understanding of each continent's tourism patterns and trends. It´s noted how much tourism is permeable to international political and economic situation influences. It is also pointed out how some countries that stand out in absolute numbers, such as France and Spain, can be seen in a different perspective when considering the relative weight of tourism contribution, which is far for certain nations like Libya, Australia and island countries like the Caribbean and Pacific nations. Applied Tourism ISSN: 2448-3524 https://siaiap32.univali.br/seer/index.php/ijth/index Despite being an unavoidable reference for the public and scientific debate about tourism, UNWTO statistics are often mentioned in broad and generic terms in academic literature. The analyses made here and the presented maps contribute to the understanding of some trends regarding the countries tourist performances both at a regional and global level. Another contribution of this paper is to allow a more informed discussion and to foster debates in tourism education. This preliminary investigation could be expanded by with closer attention to the specifics of international tourism different regional circumstances. We sought to connect Tourism literature and concepts to International Relations studies, analyzing and investigating economic, political and geographical aspects of different countries.