Impacts of Tourism (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE Geography)

Impacts of Tourism

• Tourism can be classified into positive and negative impacts on people, the economy and the environment

Social impacts

Positive impacts 

• Can help revive local crafts

• Heritage is valued in cultural tourism

• Brings people together from all over the world

• Can expand local social services

• Local and national infrastructure improvements can result from major international events like the Olympics

• Develops foreign language skills

• Ancient sites are brought to global attention, helping to appreciate historical legacies

• Might encourage migration to tourist-producing nations

Negative impacts

• Loss of locally owned land

• Tourist's behaviour can offend local people (drinking, etc.)

• Tourist centres encourage crime, prostitution, etc. 

• Displacement of people

• Abuse of human rights

• Can erode local language and traditional values

• Loss of access to local sites (beaches, forests, etc.)

• Visitor congestion at key locations

Economic impact

• Tourism has a multiplier effect

  on a country

  Tourism is a service industry which indirectly impacts all other industries

• Primary: agriculture and providing food or mining of materials to build hotels

• Secondary: for manufacturing of goods (chairs, beds, towels, gifts, etc.).

• Tertiary: staff for hotels, planes, buses, restaurants, lifeguards, etc.

• Quaternary: research and development to improve facilities for tourists or management, etc.

Positive

• Brings money into the country's economy

• Creates jobs for local people

• Brings new infrastructure to the region

• Provides tax revenues

• Provides employment to poorer rural areas

• Can create openings for small businesses and support jobs in the informal sector

Negative

• Money often goes to big businesses and not locally

• Often low-paid, menial, seasonal work

• Mass tourism causes congestion and pollution, affecting local businesses

• Economic leakages are high

• Money borrowed to invest in tourism can increase national debt

• Large holiday resorts encourage tourists to spend most of their money in the hotel complexes, excluding the wider community

Environmental impacts

Positive

• Can increase awareness of nature conservation areas

• Money from tourism can be used to protect and repair the environment—better water supplies 

• Tourism helps fund conservation activities; therefore, improving sustainable practices and environmental legislation—national parks

• Tourism may help preserve key areas or species—prevention of illegal trade and exploitation of nature

Negative

• The local environment can be bulldozed and concreted over 

• Tourism creates local pollution issues—waste, littering

• Tourist activity can disturb or damage habitats and wildlife—water skiing, damaging coral reefs, ivory poaching

• Increased greenhouse gas emissions from flying