Impacts of Tourism PDF

# The Impacts of Tourism ## Key Perspectives to Tourism * Tourism impacts are likely to change over time as a destination area develops (Butler, 1980). * The impacts are also affected by time (when), location (where) and seasonality. * Tourism impacts also occur beyond the destination. * Tourism a...

# The Impacts of Tourism ## Key Perspectives to Tourism * Tourism impacts are likely to change over time as a destination area develops (Butler, 1980). * The impacts are also affected by time (when), location (where) and seasonality. * Tourism impacts also occur beyond the destination. * Tourism also has an impact on tourists themselves. ## Advantages to Tourism * Income from tourism may be used to help conserve the natural environment that is the reason why visitors come in the first place. * The country can benefit from overseas investment, primarily in the tourist industry, but also in other related industries * Tourism may help to preserve local cultures and communities, as they become a tourist attraction. ## Disadvantages to Tourism * The jobs for the locals are often badly paid, with very poor working conditions. * The huge number of tourists coming to the attractions could easily damage the environment. * Increasing numbers of tourists brings problems such as littering, pollution and footpath erosion. * Local cultures could be devalued by tourism. ## Some Fundamental Truths about Tourism 1. Tourism consumes resources and creates waste. 2. Tourism has the ability to over-consume resources. 3. Tourism competes with other resource users and needs to do this to survive. 4. Tourism is private sector dominated. 5. Tourism is multi-faceted and is therefore almost impossible to control. 6. Tourists are consumers, not anthropologists. 7. Tourism is entertainment. 8. Unlike other industrial activities, tourism imports the clients rather than export a product. ## Impacts of Tourism * Economic impacts: shown by a euro symbol. * Socio-cultural impacts: shown by a stick figure with their arms raised in a celebratory manner. * Environmental impacts: shown by a globe with buildings, sun, and clouds. # Tourism and its Economic Benefits ## What is Economics? * The study of methods of allocating scarce resources and distributing the products of those resources, and the study of the consequences of these methods of allocation and distribution. (Craven, 1990) ## Diagram of Economics The image shows a diagram describing economics. It has four boxes: * **Resources:** * Natural * Labour * Capital * **Commodities:** * Goods - tangible products. * Services - intangible products. * **Scarcity:** an arrow points towards the "economics" box. * **Economics:** arrows point towards "commodities" and "scarcity" boxes. ## Microeconomics v. Macroeconomics | MICROECONOMICS | MACROECONOMICS | |---|---| | The firm | How the national economy operates | | The consumer | Employment and unemployment | | Production and selling | Inflation | | The demand for goods | National production and consumption | | The supply of goods | The money supply in the country | ## Economic Cycles * **Short-term economic cycles:** periods of dramatic change (seasonality) * **Medium-term economic cycles:** changes over a period of several years (may be due to natural disasters) * **Long-term economic cycles:** the growth of a destination and its ultimate decline. Examples of these are boom, recession, depression, and recovery. ## The Economic Characteristics of the tourism Industry The image depicts an arrow pointing from "Travel and Tourism Industry" to "Travel and Tourism Economy." ## Economic Benefits of Tourism * **Foreign Exchange Earnings:** * Travel and Tourism expenditures * Generate income to the host economy and can stimulate the investment necessary to finance growth in other economic sectors. * Accelerate this growth by requiring visitors to bring in a certain amount of foreign currency for each day of their stay. * Tourism is one of the top five export categories for as many as 83% of countries and is a main source of foreign exchange earnings for at least 38% of countries. * **Contribution to Government Revenues:** * Direct contributions. * Indirect contributions. * **Generation of Employment Opportunities:** * Direct employment. * Indirect employment. * Induced employment. * **Infrastructure Investment:** * Tourism can induce the local government to make infrastructure improvements such as better water and sewage systems, roads, electricity, telephone and public transport network. * This can improve the quality of life for residents as well as facilitate tourism. ## Economic Costs of Tourism * **Inflation:** * Increase in prices of land, houses and food that can occur as a result of tourism. * Lies heavily on the demand. * **Opportunity Costs:** the cost of engaging in tourism rather than another form of economic activity. * **Dependency:** * A place becomes over-dependent on tourism that other industries are abandoned. * Over-reliance on tourism carries risks to tourism-dependent economies. * **Seasonality:** * One of the major disadvantages in tourism. * Its effect to jobs, investments and tourism related enterprises. * **Leakage:** * Goes out of the local economy to pay for imported items, expatriate salaries or franchise fees. * Occurs through: * Repatriation of profits generated from foreign capital investment. * Vertical integration. * Not sourcing goods and services locally. * **Enclave Tourism:** * Remain for their entire stay at the same cruise ship or resort, which provides everything they need and where they will make all their expenditures, not much opportunity is left for local people to profit from tourism. * **Seasonal Character of Jobs:** * Job (and therefore income) insecurity. * No guarantee of employment from one season to the next. * Difficulties in getting training, employment-related medical benefits, and recognition of their experience. * Unsatisfactory housing and working conditions. * **Prostitution and the Underground Economy:** * Sex Sector, prostitution, which many regard as a by product of tourism, has been estimated to contribute between 2%-14% of the GDP of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. * 2% - earnings of the prostitute themselves. * 14% - incomes of people indirectly benefiting from prostitution. # Thank you!