It is worth noting several important caveats with respect to adding a tourism option
to a rural and small town economy (Nieman et al. 2008). The first is that a tourism
economy is typically mobilized by taking advantage of some form of local asset.
Such assets may include cultural, historic, or physical landscape features that visitors
desire to see or experience. They may be related to particular climates, or they may
be a combination of assets. In this sense, “place” has re-emerged as a fundamental
Indicators of small town tourism development potential 295
ingredient within an economy where local assets and competitive advantage matter
more than existing sectoral structure and comparative advantage (Porter 2004).
Given this, places must also have an understanding of the risks they take on when
seeking to mobilize such assets in support of new economic activity (Gill 1998;
Reed 2000; Singh et al. 2003; Gardyne et al. 2005; Mbaiwa et al. 2007).