Impact of Tourism

Governments have seized on tourism as a way of creating employment and bringing income – preferably foreign exchange – into troubled economics. For years tourism’s capacity to filter wealth through communities has been a major argument in its favor. The tourist spends money on accommodation, food and souvenirs, bringing income to the suppliers of these goods and services whose money will be in turn circulate through the economy.

But if hotels are foreign – owned, local people have little to gain. Nor are they better off if tourist stay in them but come prepared to be self sufficient. In both cases tourists are often strongly resented by locals, who see huge increases in prices as the only tangible result of tourism’s economic impact.

Job creation is another common spin-off from tourism. Governments subsidies tourism projects in the expectation of increasing employment opportunities in the new hotels and restaurants. But such work is frequently poorly-paid and is seasonal. Local people may be neither willing to do demeaning unskilled jobs, nor highly trained enough to be managers and entrepreneurs; they stand on the sidelines while expatriate staff and migrants fill the vacancies. Social tensions surface all too easily in such situations.

Any kind of change brings tensions, and economic development tends to exaggerate the generation gap as the young masters new skills and the older generation finds its traditions devalued or rejected. Tourists bring with them with very different cultures and ideas, demonstrated by the way they f\dress and behave, and these may be very attractive to the young generation.

On the beaches and bar strips of Asia , Africa and the Pacific you can see how readily young people have been lured their villages by the promise of bright lights and money.

A country’s culture is often a major attraction, particularly wen it can be combined with sun, sea and sand. In Thailand, as in many countries with a arich heritage, tourist’s demands have gven a much-needed boost to local arts and crafts; after all, a local economy can only stand so many baskets, pots and carvings. The Phenomenal growth in Arts Festivals, from Edinburgh to Hong-Kong, has brought tourists into festival towns and given some of their inhabitants  access to global culture. But what of their own culture? The story here is less rosy.

In relation to the environment, even the most blinkered tourist is faced with the truism that tourists destroy the ever things they have come for. In Kenya, a country that depends heavily on tourism, there is a real danger of ‘tourist pollution’ in the most popular game parks. Animals in the Ambosell Reserve are constantly disturbed by tourist buses, their prey scattered, their feeding grounds damaged. If the animal disappear, so may tourism.

The holders will always come to certain places, but tourism is a fickle industry. What is popular now may not be next season, and governments who ignore this characteristics of tourism are taking a risk. Sri Lanka and Philippines are recent examples of countries where dependence on tourism has provided a disastrous policy. Tourist naturally avoid going anywhere that is perceived to be unsafe, and bad publicity sends tourist number plummeting.

It would be tempting faced with such depressing evidence of tourism’s impact, to throw up our handsin dispair and go home. But that would deny the very real joys of travel and hospitality that are also part of our experience of tourism.