Understanding the World of Tourism: Impacts on Economy, Environment and Socio-Culture

This essay explores the development of contemporary tourism and the positive and negative impacts of tourism on economy and environment. It also analyzes future impacts related to tourism. Subject: Tourism, Course Code: NA, Course Name: NA, College/University: NA

Understanding the World of
Tourism

Tourism is defined as a phenomenon which covers social, cultural and economic aspects
and comprises of the movement of people to different countries and places as per their purpose.
People travel for professional as well as personal purposes (Jaafar, Rasoolimanesh and Ismail,
2017). Tourism industry finds its association with the idea of domestic and international travel
made by people for specific purposes. It comprises of various units that include organizations
providing services related to transportation, entertainment, accommodation, shopping etc. the
present essay explores development of contemporary tourism and the positive and negative
impacts of tourism on economy and environment. The essay will further analyze future impacts
related to tourism.
Contemporary tourism is defined as the collection of activities and aspects which cater to
the emotional dimension of travel and aims to fulfill the demands of the contemporary tourists.
This involves connecting with the local communities rather than commodifying tourism
experiences. There have been constant changes in the tourism aspects as well as the industry.
The demands of the tourists have changed over time. These have stirred the tourism industry and
brought several changes (Icoz and Icoz, 2019). Earlier the tourists travelled with specific
purposes of business or personal reasons. They only sought services which could make their
travel and stay convenient. Emotional aspects of the travel were not paid attention by the tourists.
However, as the time passed, the tourists felt the need to obtain much more from their travel
experience and not limit it to the accommodation and travel services. they demanded emotional
satisfaction during travelling. This led to several developments in the contemporary tourism. The
tourism system explains four fundamental factors (Meacci and Liberatore, 2018). The first factor
is the source region, second is a transit route, third is a destination region while the fourth factor
is the environment that surrounds the other three regions. Each stage of the system will make the
consumer experience different factors of the tourism industry. Therefore, the developments in the
contemporary tourism are taking place owing to the change in the behaviour of the consumer and
his desire to have a better experience. In order to meet these demands, the tourism industry is
experiencing the introduction of new trends and services (Che, 2018).
Tourism has various positive and negative economic impacts. The positive impacts of
tourism include improvement in tax revenue and personal income. The standards of living of the
destination also improves as there is creation of more employment opportunities. This increase in
the employment opportunities support the economy of the destination. Increase in jobs also leads

to an improvement in the quality of life of the locals (Mikayilov and et.al., 2019). Tourism
positively impacts the destination by providing economic stimulus that makes the diversification
of employment possible. It also increases the income potential of the people and lads to the
development of resources within the community. Both the locals as well as the tourists are able
to enjoy the benefits of improvement in infrastructure and services (Gretzel and Scarpino-Johns,
2018). Also, the level of average income within the community rises due to tourism activities
and increase in the employment. Another positive impact of tourism is that it leads to the
stimulation and diversification of the local economy. However, there are certain negative impacts
of tourism on the economy. With the increase in the population there is exhaustion and instability
in the resources. This depletes the carrying capacity of the tourism destination (Postma and
Schmuecker, 2017). These negative impacts mostly take place in the development stage of the
tourism area life cycle. Additionally, due to economics of tourism, the local tourism business
owners are pushed out of the region. The multiplier and leakage effect is evident in tourism as
due to foreign ownership, there is leakage as the revenues leave the host community for a
multinational business. This has significant negative impact as it takes away the opportunity
from the local businesses to make profits. Further, it is known that the foreign companies hire
non- resident seasonal workers at lower wages (Garau-Vadell, Gutierrez-Taño and Diaz-Armas,
2018). This has been likely to cause further economic leakage. In addition to this, due to tourism
the values of property in the host area rises which pushes out the locals and encourages migration
of more businesses inwards.
Tourism has various positive and negative environmental impacts. Deterioration of the
fewer natural and pristine places left on the planet is one of the negative impacts of tourism on
environment (Chang and et.al., 2018). For example, ecotourism, adventure tourism etc. are
conducted in environments such as rain forests, lakes, rivers coastlines etc. these also take place
at various marine environment which were earlier untouched and secure. Regular visit to such
places by the tourists led to the degradation of these vulnerable natural spots. Environmental
sustainability is concerned with laying emphasis on the viability as well as the health of the
ecological systems. Tourism causes pollution and leads to degradation of natural resources. It
also leads to loss of biodiversity to the encroachment of tourists on the unexplored natural places.
When tourists visit a place, they may pollute it by throwing litter and other non- biodegradable
garbage (Chang and et.al., 2018). Also, they use vehicles for visiting the various places within a

destination which leads to air pollution and degrade the quality of air. Heavy inflow of tourists to
a place can significantly harm the environment of the destination. One of the positive impacts of
tourism is that it leads to an increased awareness and environmental stewardship. For example,
when tourists visit a destination for eco or adventure tourism. Positive impacts, of the
contemporary tourism can make the changes in the environment as it makes the people more
aware about the importance of environment and its aspects (Cavalheiro, Joia, and Cavalheiro,
2020). The governments are making the environment friendly operations such as reducing
polution by implementing the use of electric vehicles in their country so that the environment can
become more attractive and tourism friendly. Another positive impact is that the governments are
trying their best to preserve the forest and green areas and endangered species of animals in the
country. This attracts a lot of tourist towards the environment of a country because of the rare
species of animals that is found only in that country (da Silva, Brandão and Sousa, 2019).
Impacts of Tourism, on the socio-culture of any country can make or break the aspect of
the socio-cultures. This results into various types of conditions making the government of the
country to take actions about the cultures. The tourism creates many opportunities for the
cultures to be recognized on an international level. The various effects of the tourism can result
into the attraction of many positive and negative outcomes (David-Negre and et.al., 2018).
Positive impact, of the tourism can be seen that the culture is getting well recognized and loved
by the visitors. The tourists when visites a country the first thing that comes in their minds is the
culture of the country. The visitors are mostly attracted by the unique cultures of the various
countries. This makes the socio-culture to be given importance by the host country and keeping it
alive by making it the unique selling point (USP) for the tourists (Hillman and Radel, 2018). For
example, The British culture is being kept alive from years as it is one of the main attraction
point for the Non-European travellers. The culture is consisted with the democracy, respect for
people and tolerance making the environment of the country to be more tourist friendly.
Negative impact, of the tourism on the socio culture can be seen that many tourists prefers to
match their requirements with the modern standard (de Bernardi, 2022). This makes them
uncomfortable with the socio-cultutres of the countries and for making them comfortable to stay
in the country the government of the country tries to reduce the impacts of the culture on the
environment (Io, 2019). For example, the governments of the countries removes and reduces the
cultural effects on the activities and methods of living by making the various acts for the living

standards. This makes the cultural standards of the country to be vanished as it does not provide
comfort to the visitors.
Thus, it can be concluded that the contemporary tourism is one of the major aspects that
is covered in the world when it comes to revenue generation. The tourism is powerfull enough to
make impacts on the various aspects of a country that can be included in the growth of a country.
The economy of a country can be affected by the tourism in verious manners that can give a
boost to the economy. It makes impacts on the environmental factors of the countries as well as
of the world. This can help in giving boost to the socio-cultures of the various countries by
making the recognition of the cultures all over the world. It can also make many negative
impacts on the socio-culture by making the visitors to feel that they are not comfortable with this
can lead to the government taking action against the cultures of a country.

REFERENCES
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