Tourism and Society: A Sociological Study of Impacts

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between tourism and society from a sociological perspective. It begins by defining sociology and tourism, highlighting their interconnectedness, and outlining the aims of the report, including discussing the relationship between society and tourism using sociological theories, demonstrating an understanding of the interaction of people and places in tourism, evaluating the importance of sociology and tourism on development, and analyzing the social science of travel. The report uses Leiper's Tourism System to describe the tourism process, focusing on Italy as a case study. It further explores both the positive and negative impacts of tourism, including economic benefits, cultural exchanges, environmental concerns, and social changes, and incorporates a PESTLE analysis of tourism in Italy. Finally, the report examines evolving tourist behaviors, travel motivations, authenticity, cultural differences, and historical events, and their impacts on destinations, concluding that understanding these dynamics can lead to a more sustainable and beneficial tourism industry.

TOURISM AND
SOCIETY TASK 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
First section-.................................................................................................................................3
Second section-............................................................................................................................5
Third section................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The topic of this essay in particular is “Sociology and tourism”. Sociology basically
refers to a study regarding the human social institutions as well as relationships. Whereas,
tourism refers to the cultural, economic and social phenomenon that basically entails the
movement of the people or the individuals towards different countries or places outside of the
usual environment that they live within for either the personal reasons or the professional reasons
in particular. These both aspects are related to each other in many ways in particular. Majorly the
sociology of the tourism refers to the study of the aspect or the approach of tourism as a
phenomenon including aspects like the behaviours and the motivations of the tourists and also
the impacts that particularly it has on the destinations as well as on the people of those
destinations in particular. Further, are the aims that will be fulfilled and the evaluation will be
done in the report in accordance to these. These are as follows;
Aims:
 To discuss the relationship between the society and the tourism by the use of sociological
theories and principles.
 To demonstrate the understanding regarding the interaction and coherence of places,
people and also the processes in tourism.
 To evaluate the importance of the topic of “sociology and tourism” on the development
of society and tourism industry.
 To analyse the concept of the sociology and the social science of the travel and also its
relationship with the society overall.
The further report in particular will give a description and in depth evaluation of the aims that are
mentioned above. All the aims will be discussed in the report supported by the theories and the
practices and principles that will be used in accordance to the topic of the report.
MAIN BODY
First section-
Tourism can be defined as the mechanism which involves movement of people inside and
outside country. The movement generally exchanges social, cultural and the economic values.
The exchanges of values have major impact upon society one lives in. the economic
development brings thousands of job in the country and help low income individuals to earn
some revenue (Camilleri, 2018). Social cultural exchanges brings new traditions and promotes

peace and harmony. This is because of tourism that society is keen to preserve its local culture,
traditions and the heritage. Overall it strengths community and empowers customs and art forms
(Richards, 2018).
Push factors are defined as the factors that motivates one to travel. The pull factors
involves factors such as employment, jobs, opportunities, medical care, education etc. This
factors pushes one to visit other country and sometimes forces them to settle there while push
factors are those factors that pushes them to other countries. Both factors work simultaneously.
Tourism in Italy can be seen as the best example across Europe. Almost 65 million tourist travel
country per year according to survey of 2019 (Ren and et.al., 2019). It has become fifth most
visited country in terms of international tourism. Major cities in Italy has become favourite
destination of travellers. Venice. Milan, Florence can be seen as one of the example. Natural
landscapes, culture, traditions, sites can be seen as the pull factor for Italy. Covid-19 hit tourism
country the most but still in 2021, travels and tourism generated approx 9.1% GDP of Italy and it
is going to raise in coming years (Festa and et.al., 2020).
The three basic elements that are involved with the theory of Leiper's Tourism system is
as follows-
 The travellers generating region which says that the destinations is decided by the region
a person lives in. there are high chances that the individuals want to escape the place he
lives in.
 Next thing is tourist destination region means the place where an individual leave. It can
be small areas, town or city.
 The tourist transit region is the time period when one leaves the travel generating place.
Leiper has identified tourism as the ongoing process which never stops. Leiper discusses
that all parts of tourism industry are interrelated and work in close connection with each other.
This also meant that all the three parts discussed above function according to each other and have
strong connection (Tandilino, 2022). There are other basic elements that completes theory of
Leiper are Tourist, geographical features and the tourism industry. Italy being one of major
country in terms of all three criteria. The role and interrelatedness of all basic factors has been
clearly identifies, analysed and implemented to raise the level of tourism and growth in terms of
Tourism GDP ratio (Monaco, 2018).

Second section-
Tourism sound that it only have positive impact but there are definitely some negative
impact of tourism which are discussed below.
The positive impact of tourism is as follows-
 Beautiful landscapes and natural environment attracts most of the visitors around the
world and help them to experience some positivity.
 Learning and education is greatly impacted In positive way while visiting to new place,
new culture and new traditions.
 The most important advantage of raising tourism is related with conservation and
biodiversity activities (Kongbuamai and et.al., 2020).
 Protecting those species that are in the category of endangered species help countries to
attract more number of tourist.
 The illegal trade and exploitation of animal can be stopped with the help of local
communities.
The negative impact of tourism is as follows-
 Increasing pollution is the major disadvantage that is associated with increasing patterns
of tourism all around the world.
 The overuse of resources that are non- renewable will lead country in scarcity of those.
 5% of global houses gases are result of transportation that countries are using and it is
also expecting to raise in coming years.
 Physical damage to marine life can be witnessed because of increasing tourism.
 Increased crime and changes in values of an individual can also be related with travelling.
These were certain advantage and disadvantage that is associated with the patterns of
tourism all over the world. The concept of sustainable development has evolved in some last
years which concentrates on developing tourism in a way that it does not affect resources that are
requirement of future generation. Many countries have already started following this
development in process in order to reduce the wastage that tourism brings with it. Further, this

can also been seen that the changing environment has changed the pattern of how tourism looked
before and same has been done by the government of Italy. The brief PESTLE analysis of
Tourism in Italy is as follows-
Political Democratic government means more stability in terms of
policies that allow one to travel Italy.
Environmental Economically developed country which has higher financial
power that allow country to spend more on tourism.
Social The culture and rich heritage of country ha been another major
reason responsible for the growth of the tourism.
Technological Italy has been top four technologically developed country in
Europe which always excite people to visit.
Legal The government has been providing various benefits such as
tax credits, subsidies to boost tourism industry in Italy.
Environmental The environmental challenges need to be considered as Italy is
facing environmental changes like flooding, soil erosion,
exploitation of natural resources etc.
All the points are kept in mind while one visit to any other country. The raising tourism has
definitely given some major environmental issues that is needed to be solved as soon as it is
possible otherwise it will start impacting humans. The Net Zero emission has such one deal that
has been signed by almost all the countries in order to reduce the environmental concerns
(Sharpley, 2020). Italy will find difficult in implementing it as tourism is highly associated with
the Italy and it can also be seen in the PESTLE Analysis that is done above to identify factor that
affects tourism,
Third section.
Points to consider. Impact on society or destinations (rise or fall).
Tourist typologies and The behaviours of the tourists have specifically changed and have

behaviours. evolved as per their likes and the dislikes as well (Fan. Buhalis. and
Lin., 2019). The changes such as respecting the local traditions,
cultures and customs, respecting the overall environment, buying
souvenirs that are handmade and avoiding travelling by air-planes.
This has increased the levels of tourism to the countries that are
more focused on the sustainable concepts and are also close to many
locations in particular, such as Italy.
Through this tourism in locations like the US has been harmed,
many people from the US are travelling to other countries for leisure
purposes. Change in the though processes and the preferences of
people have led to this.
Travel motivations.
(extrinsic/ intrinsic)
Travel motivations are mainly increased as people are usually more
inclined towards earning money and are in a spiral of a daily routine.
And the life expectancy rate of people are also low, which has made
the people realize to travel and explore more rather than just saving
money for the future (Yousaf. Amin. and C Santos., 2018). Also, the
peers of the generation think the same way. This has brought rise in
all tourist destinations like Bali, Maldives, London, Paris, etc. the
motivation is both ways intrinsic and extrinsic.
Authenticity. Authenticity basically refers to the authentic aspects of the
destination in particular (Vannini. and Williams., 2016). The
inclination of the travellers towards the destinations that have more
authentic travel locations has increased in the last decade. This has
increased the tourism in places like Greece and decreased the
tourism to destinations like UAE.
Cultural differences. The cultural differences have also impacted the tourism in the
countries such as Korea which specifically use a single language and
it becomes difficult for tourists to do the same (Vrij. and Vrij.,
2020). Similarly, in the country such as Japan, this is the same thing.
Historical events. The people are also more interested towards history and the places

that portray historical aspects of the destination in particular (Frost.
and Frost., 2020). Through this inclination places like India with a
diverse history have seen an immense rise in its tourism sector.
CONCLUSION
In this particular research it is specifically identified that the topics of tourism as well as
sociology are related to each other in many ways (Cohen. and Cohen., 2019). The report mainly
gives a description regarding the concept and the meaning of tourism and also society. The report
also shoes the relation between both of these phenomenons in particular. Also, the information
regarding the tourism sector and the pace at which the sector is particularly growing or
developing is given in the report. The Leipers tourism model is used for a clear and precise
description about the overall concept or topic in particular. Also, the destination Italy has been
described in the above report. In the second section of the report description regarding the overall
tourism industry and its negative as well as positive impacts over the society is provided ans also
PESTLE analysis is conducted to evaluate the impacts in more depth and briefly as well. In the
third section of the report the tourist behaviours and the expectations regarding their
consumption of the travel and its impact on the destinations and the overall society is provided.
This is done on the basis of travel motivations, historical events, authenticity and the cultural
differences.
 This will particularly have a positive impact on the overall travel in the future too as the
travel industry will understand the concepts more concretely.
 Yes, the concept of travel as well as tourism can be sustained in the future for sure, this is
mainly because through the findings it will be understood that how the tourism is related
to the society and the ways through which it has positive impacts can be enhanced and
the ways through which it has negative impacts can be reduced (Wood., 2018).
 The travellers who are the consumers of the travel industry need flexibility, also they are
more mobile and now it has evolved, the travellers are wanting to stay closer to their
homes, also the travellers are booking and travelling more as the perspectives of people
have changed.

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