Impacts of Tourism (Cambridge International IGCSE Geography)

Spec point — 3.4.2 · Evaluate the benefits & disadvantages of tourism to receiving areas

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

Exam Hint Make sure you don't just focus on the negative aspects of tourism, particularly on the environmental or cultural aspects

You need to balance your discussion, or you won't gain full marks

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

Worked Example Study Fig. 6.2, which is an advert for a tourist resort in the Silvassa Forest region in India (an LEDC).

Explain how the local natural environment may be at risk from tourist resorts such as the one shown in Fig. 6.2.

[5 Marks]

• Ideas such as:

  • Deforestation
  • Loss of habitat
  • Animals scared by noise
  • Water pollution
  • Death of marine life
  • Disruption to food chains
  • Lowering of the water table
  • Air pollution from vehicle exhausts/flights, etc.