What Are the Different Impacts of Tourism

Justin Alain Uy                                    HSB 12                                  May 29, 2014

P-TOUR 2

1. What are the different impacts of tourism?

        The goal of every tourism community is maximize selected positive impacts while to minimize potential negative impacts. The different impacts include economic, environmental, social and cultural, crowding and congestion, services, taxes, community attitude. The following shows the positive and negative effects of each impact. First would be economic as tourism increases employment of the country rises making more individuals have more income for the betterment of the economy of the nation. The positive effects are the increase of income of the people and their standard of living. It also makes the government consider in improving the development and investment of infrastructures and public utilities as well as transportation. It also creates new business opportunities leading to more employment opportunities and higher tax revenues. On the other hand, it may increase the cost of living making the price of goods/services, land and housing rise. In addition, the additional infrastructure that needs to be built needs money and its corresponding maintenance and transportation system.

        Second is environmental where areas with high-value natural resources, like oceans, lakes, waterfalls, mountains, and great scenic beauty attract tourists who seek emotional and spiritual connections with nature. The positive effects would be protection and preserving the natural environments and historic buildings and monuments. This also includes improving the area’s appearance and making a clean looking industry. However, human interaction with nature causes pollution and disruption of wildlife. It is also cause the loss of open space and the destruction of some flora and fauna and the introduction of exotic species to the environment. Third is the social and cultural impact, as they can become either assets or detriments to communities. Influxes of tourists bring diverse values to the community and influence behaviors and family life. Individuals and the collective community might try to please tourists or adopt tourist behaviors. Some positive effects are educational like learning new things about other countries and helping to understand different communities with the positive change of values and customs as well as cultural exchange. They can also be negatively impacted upon residents by learning negative values and lifestyle changes. In addition, the influx of tourist limits locals from the attractions and displacing residents for tourism development.

        Fourth is crowding and congestion since a tourist destination will have people congregate on specific locations and hordes of visitors may impede local businesses and residents to do normal activities. Some positive effects that can occur is in minimizing sprawling so that tourist activities won’t interfere much the activities of locals and concentrating them into tourist facilities. However, congesting tourist may have adverse effect like overcrowding in places that can lead to conflict with locals and tourist. Fifth is the services offered where tourism creates opportunities to develop new amenities and recreation facilities that would not otherwise be viable in a community. The positive effects include the improvement of quality of protection for the people and the standards of the services offered by establishment as well as the increase of availability of recreational facilities. It also has undesirable effects like a shortage of goods/services and the increase pressure to infrastructure and competition.