Tourism and Society: Issues of Equality, Access, and Participation

This essay explores the issues of equality, access, and participation in tourism and their importance for the management of future development of global destinations. It discusses the history of tourism, its accessibility to consumers, and the positive and negative impacts of tourism on society and the globe.

Tourism and Society

Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The topic of the essay is Tourism and Society. Its main aim is to understand the issues
concerned with equality, access and participation in tourism and how it is important for the
management of future development global destinations. Tourism can be defined as the process
and activities of people who spend time away from home in pursuit of refreshment, relaxation
and pleasure. Thomas Cook developed tourism during 19th century in United Kingdom and thus
is known as father of tourism. Tourism is the combination of products such as accommodation,
food and beverage, transportation, entertainment and various other things related to goods and
services that is used by the tourists throughout the trip (Abdukhamidov, 2019). Tourism is thus,
the activity of an individual who is travelling to and stay in different places outside their regular
or usual environment for some specific duration just for leisure, business or other purposes.
Tourism is considered to be very important component for the global economy as it is considered
to be fastest expanding service industry with vast area of growth, which generates millions of
dollars as a revenue, creating employment and thus leading in enhancement in the standard of
living of the people. Tourism also leaves an impact on the society which can be based on three
perspectives such as economic, environmental, social and cultural. From economical point of
view, it creates wealth as well as employment. From environmental point, it helps in better
protection of nature and local resources as it generates investment in environmental
infrastructure and services. From social view, tourism brings people together from various
background irrespective of race, gender, culture and tradition that promotes peace on the other
hand, culture is a major factor that attract most of the tourism destinations. Tourism is accessible
and enabled to all people in the society to participate in and enjoy the experience of tourism. It
enables to carry out the local culture, tradition and primitive knowledge of the people living
there. Tourism provides various benefits to the society but on the other hand being gender bias
affects the society in negative manner as major part of the tourism industry is male dominating
and thus women does not enjoy the freedom and space (Bello, and et.al., 2020). Tourism should
make several changes in modifications and advancements.
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MAIN BODY
Tourism is the phenomenon of social, cultural and economical activity which describes
the temporary movement of an individual. The activities may be relate to the tourist i,e., staying
in the hotel, ordering a meal or visiting a tourist attraction sites. Tourism is the commercial
organisation and operation of holidays and going to the places of interests or destinations. The
process of establishing and maintaining a tourism industry in a particular destination is known to
be as development of tourism. It not only helps to construct the destination but it also helps to
generate income as well as employment. Tourism has come out as a tool of income and
employment generation, poverty relief and sustainable human development. When we looking
behind at the history of tourism, it was recognised when people have started travelling. From
early time period, people use to travel in search of food, shelter, for trade, for religious reasons
and even also for education. Anyhow this travel was limited and restricted to some extend which
was due to various reasons such as roads, lack of knowledge of places as well as the routes. From
the19th century, educational journeys were undertaken by the middle class people which stood as
an important stage in the development of tourism. Most important contributing factors were the
increasing number of people in the view of employment, the increase in real disposable incomes
and available ease time along with the changing social attitudes towards leisure and work. These
combination of factors lead to the possible demand for foreign travel and holidays. The historical
and cultural tourism does not only make profit for the region, but also gives the platform to feel
proud of the heritage and the surrounding nature (Cole, 2018). Therefore it is very important to
carry out protection and restoration of monuments of culture and history. The tourism had
become more accessible for the people to travel due to the changes in the consumer
demographics which is leading to deliver the seamless travel experiences for all, overall it looks
beyond the number of people with physical and intellectual disabilities, to include everyone with
the need of mobility for both the category i,e., seniors and the babies. The below graph shows the
same continuously for increasing years.
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This shows the accessible market population of both babies – age of 0-4 and the senior citizen
whose age is 65 or above. Other than this, people now a days try to find more and more leisure
time for themselves and the increase in the amount of paid leave days, the awareness about the
destinations, television travel programmes have raised the people's expectations and along with
that the growth of car ownership, increase in the income of middle-class people and advent of air
travel all contributes to accessibility of tourism to consumers.
In the present era, tourism industry is one of the inseparable parts of the economic growth
as it not only contributes to the economic of the country but also increases employment, standard
of living by generating millions of dollars as revenue. Tourism industry provides a positive travel
experiences to its customers by understanding their different needs and various perspective and
then offering them accordingly the services and covering as many groups as possible
(Dembovska and Zvaigzne, 2021). Tourism has also overcome the male dominating issue by
offering the equal opportunities to women for work and equal access to resources, ownership and
control plays a major role in empowering women along with the changing attitudes to greater
acceptance. With the increase in the number of tourists in the world, the tourism industry is
facing new challenges as it opens the entry for new markets and different segments with their
various needs, interests and culture within the tourism industry. The emergence of new market
may be due an ageing population, the rise of megalopolises and the decrease of joint as well as
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nuclear family resulting in the creation of new segments, all with new interests and demands.
Tourists want to travel for many different reasons it may be due to emotional or can be just for
experience. Like other industries, tourism industry can motivate people to travel and enjoy. This
can be done by filling the gap between the travellers motivation and how the industry is offering
the services. This means that tourists are supported at all stages of their journey, from searching
for the destinations, making the reservations, food, and the experience at the end. Even the rise of
the events worldwide offers to get better experience to the tourists such as sports events,
concerts, festival, tournaments and so on. Tourists often expects to get better travel experience
that may be due to last experience, external communications, destination images. But some
physical factors affect the behaviour of the tourists such as geographical aspects that include
climate conditions, facilities and comforts accessible at the destination - changes the decision
making of the tourists. There can be different and various methods of travel. It totally depends on
the distance between the destination from the tourist's residency. Tourists can prefer various
methods to travel such as walking, bike, cycle, cars, trains, buses, boats, flights, subways, aerial
tramways and many others. Tourist must prefer walking, bike, cars and all for nearer destinations
as it will be less costly and can even enjoy the trip, new sites and music. Aeroplane will be the
best and fastest mode for travelling long distances in just a few hours and tourists can prefer
boats if the duration of the trip is long and want to enjoy the open air over water.
Tourism is an industrial service which helps people to travel for recreation and leisure.
While the world is achieving progress day by day towards gender equality and women's
empowerment against the elimination of all types of discrimination then too women and girls
continue to suffer discrimination and violence in every corner of the world. Equitable society
have the components such as Gender equality and women's empowerment (Vega-Vázquez, and
et.al., 2021). Through tourism, it has been proved that tourism provides the pathways to
empowerment and the opportunity for tourism so that difference faced in this area can be
removed. Lower status and lower paid jobs in tourism industry can be another reason for this
differences. The industry like tourism can have greater gender equality and women's
empowerment will be very highly beneficial as it is observed that diverse and gender equality
organisations perform better. There will be no sustainability of tourism without gender equality.
Equality in gender is the primary most indicator of sustainable tourism, in which the
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improvement of women's conditions may lead to improving the tourism sustainability (Cardoso,
2020). Giving equal right to the women can help the tourism industry to flourish and bring
millions of dollars as revenue. Tourism even impacts the global destinations and the society in
both positive as well as negative manner (Xu, T. and Lv, 2022). The positive impacts of tourism
are mentioned here. Tourists bring valuable foreign exchange in a country as they pay money on
accommodation and sightseeing, it even booms the economy of the country by providing
employment to a large number of people because it generates the need of transportation to hotels.
Some people even work as a local guide and explain the importance of the destinations and the
facts to the tourists. Tourists are also introduces to the local culture, they learn new languages
and appreciate the diversity present on the Earth. Local people feel pride and self-confidence and
their living standards are increased as the tourists buy the product from them. Tourism also helps
to save the environment and the forests. People use to preserve the forests because they are boon
for tourism. People across the world mostly prefer to visit the place and enjoys the diverse flora
and fauna. Tourism also includes the negative impact on the globe as well as the society. As we
know that tourists visit any destination for its beauty and they may stay for few days. To attract
them, infrastructure has to be created as people would not like to travel to the places where they
have to suffer a lot. Tourism even leads to pollution as thousands of tourists visiting the
destinations and making it overcrowding may cause water, air and noise pollution
(Ehigiamusoe, and et.al., 2022). The local people increases the prises of the products as tourists
are usually very wealthy. For attracting the tourists in the world things must be kept in mind
along with saving the nature. For instant, London is the most beautiful city in the world as well
as in UK because of the famous tourist attraction where many tourist visits every year even then
the local people take care of the environment and the surrounding. Famous places in London are
Big Ben, The Tate Madern Museum, The famous London Eye, Borough Markets and AI Shard
Tower Bridge. London (UK) have always welcomed the tourists and leaves a positive impact on
the experience of visit to London.
CONCLUSION
In the above essay, we have focused on providing an overview of tourism industry and
the issues concerned with equality, access and the participation in tourism. We also have include
the history of tourism and the present condition of the same and thus making it understandable
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that how tourism is accessible to the consumers. This essay also include the statistics showing
how the accessibility of travel affects the population and the economic of the country. The
emergence of new markets within the tourism industry have increased the craze to work in that
sector. This also include how tourists are affected by the travel, experiences as well as
expectations and behaviour of tourists along with the methods of travel. Tourism has affected the
globe destinations as well as the society in positive as well as negative manner – the various
aspects are discussed above.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Abdukhamidov, S.A., 2019. DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF REGIONAL TOURISM
DEVELOPMENT. Theoretical & Applied Science, (4), pp.337-341.
Bello, and et.al., 2020. Drivers and barriers of corporate social responsibility in the tourism
industry: The case of Malawi. Development Southern Africa, 37(2), pp.181-196.
Cardoso, C., 2020. The contribution of tourism towards a more sustainable and inclusive society:
Key guiding principles in times of crisis. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes.
Cole, S. ed., 2018. Gender equality and tourism: Beyond empowerment. CABI.
Cole, S., 2018. Introduction: gender equality and tourism-beyond empowerment. In Gender
equality and tourism: Beyond empowerment (pp. 1-13). Wallingford UK: CAB
International.
Dembovska, I. and Zvaigzne, A., 2021. Sustainability and its challenges in destinations that
highly depend on tourism: a thematic literature review. Worldwide Hospitality and
Tourism Themes.
Ehigiamusoe, and et.al., 2022. How Does Globalization Influence the Impact of Tourism on
Carbon Emissions and Ecological Footprint? Evidence from African Countries. Journal
of Travel Research, p.00472875221113886.
Martín, and et.al., 2021. Exploring conflicts between stakeholders in tourism industry. Citizen
attitude toward peer-to-peer accommodation platforms. International Journal of Conflict
Management.
Vega-Vázquez, and et.al., 2021. The impact of tourism on active and healthy ageing: Health-
related quality of life. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 13(3),
pp.349-373.
Xu, T. and Lv, Z., 2022. The effect of tourism on the shadow economy: The level of economic
development is key. Tourism Economics, p.13548166221126577.
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