Positive & Negative effects of Tourism Carole Simm

Economic (+)
- Creates jobs direct employment within tourism industry and indirectly
in sectors such as retail and transportation spend wages on G&S
multiplier effect
Economic (-)
- Jobs created by tourism often seasonal and poorly paid
- Push up local property prices and cost of G&S
- Money generated by tourism leaks out to huge international companies
- Adversely affected by events such as terrorism, natural disasters,
economic recession
Social (+)
- Crowding, congestion, drugs, alcohol problems, prostitution, increased
crime levels fall in quality of life of host community
- Infringe on human rights locals being displaced from their land to make
way for new hotels or barred from beaches
- Erosion of traditional cultures and values
Environmental (+)
- Nature and ecotourism promote conservation of wildlife and natural
resources
- Generate funding for animal preserves and marine parks through entrance
charges and guide fees
Environmental (-)
- Threat to regions natural and cultural resources (water supply, beaches,
coral reefs, heritage sites) through overuse
- Increased pollution through traffic emissions, littering, increased sewage
production and noise

The paradox of sustainable tourism (2015)

Transport by flying generate tonne of carbon emissions (International Civil

Aviation Organisation)
Social cultures meet and gain in mutual understanding long term
benefits will be intangible, but real
Economic help lift the poor out of poverty and encourage them to preserve
their environments for financial gain
As popular destinations become overcrowded, more people seek places that
remain comparatively unspoilt. But pristine wildernesses dont say pristine for
long once they are on holiday trail.
The paradox of sustainable tourism is that it can be both a destroyer of
nature and an agent for its conservation (Andrew Holden of Bedfordshire
University in Britain)
Locals are too often persuaded to sell their land to developers for less than it
is worth

Water-guzzling In Greece, for example, each tourist directly uses around

three-fifths more water than a local.
Most unnecessary flights are taken not by tourist but by businessfolk who fly
abroad for a toe-touch meeting that could easily have been replaced by a
video-call, and then fly home the same day

Some of the Major Current Issues Confronting Tourism (Tourism & More, 2006)

Telecommunications revolution business meetings may be conducted online or via satellite rather than face to face and may eliminate the need for
many business trips
Security and safety

Negative Socio-cultural Impacts from tourism

Change or loss of indigenous identity and values

- Tourists turn local cultures into commodities when religious rituals,
traditional ethnic rites and festivals are reduced and sanitized to conform
to tourist expectations reconstructed ethnicity
- Sacred sites and objects may not be respected when they are perceived
as goods to trade
- Destinations risk standardization in the process of satisfying tourists
desires for familiar facilities
- Staged authenticity as long as tourists just want a glimpse of the local
atmosphere, a quick glance at local life without any knowledge or even
interest, staging will be inevitable
- Made changes in design of products to bring them more in line with new
customers tastes cultural erosion may occur
Culture clashes differences in cultures, ethnic and religious groups, values
and lifestyles, languages, and levels of prosperity
Tourists often out of ignorance or carelessness fail to respect local
customs and moral values
- Behavior can be incentive for locals not to respect their own traditions and
religion anymore more tensions within the local community
Resource use conflicts
- Competition between tourism and local populations for use of prime
resources like water and energy because of scarce supply
- Damage to cultural resources may arise from vandalism, littering,
pilferage and illegal removal of cultural heritage items
- Conflicts arise when choice has to be made between development of the
land for tourist facilities or infrastructure and local traditional land-use
Increased crime repression of these phenomena often exacerbates social
tension

Child labour young children recruited as they are cheap and flexible
employees
- An estimated 13-19 million children and young people below 18 years of
age (10-15 per cent of all employees in tourism) are employed in the
industry worldwide
- Frequently subjected to harsh working and employment conditions
Commercial sexual exploitation of children and young women tourism
provides easy access to it lure of easy money children are trafficked into
brothels on the margins of tourist areas and sold into sex slavery, very rarely
earning enough money to escape