Environmental and Socio-Economic Impact Report: Gold Coast Resorts

This report provides a detailed analysis of the impact of Gold Coast resorts, focusing on environmental, economic, and socio-cultural aspects. It begins with an introduction to sustainable tourism and an overview of the Gold Coast as a major tourist destination in Australia. The report then examines the potential impacts of tourism activities on the environment, including pollution, land degradation, and resource depletion, as well as the positive impacts such as wildlife preservation and employment opportunities. Furthermore, it explores the economic impacts, both positive (job creation, revenue generation) and negative (increased costs, seasonal employment), and the socio-cultural impacts, encompassing both the preservation of traditions and the potential for negative behavioral influences. The report also discusses measures used to manage these impacts, such as promoting ecotourism and providing alternative accommodation options. Finally, it offers recommendations for managing the current and potential impacts, aiming to enhance sustainability and minimize negative effects on the Gold Coast's environment and community.

Impact Report of Gold Coast
Resorts
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Concept of sustainability .......................................................................................................3
1.2 Overview of the chosen site...................................................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Potential impact of economical, environmental and socio cultural activities in area............5
2.2 Measures used to manage impact of tourism ........................................................................7
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................10
3.1 Recommendation to manage the current and potential negative and positive impact of
tourism ......................................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13
Appendix........................................................................................................................................15
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INTRODUCTION
Sustainable tourism is defined as tourism which takes care of all it economic , social ,
culture and environmental impacts by meeting the needs of visitors and the environmental
communities. Guideline for sustainable tourism are applied to all kind of tourism activities.
Principle of sustainability refers to aspect of environment , Socio cultural activities and balance
that should be maintained to ensure sustainability for long time. Present report describes about
concept of sustainability and overview of site like location, number of visitors etc.
Potential impact of environment , social, cultural activities on the gold coast resort has
also explained. Measure that are used to reduce the impacts which come from tourism activities
is also discussed. Recommendations for management of the site which can be used to minimize
the negative impact and to enhance the potential impact has also illustrated. Methods to reduce
the negative impact of tourism on environment , social and economy are explained.
Recommendations which can be used by Gold Coast Resort authorities to manage the impact
and maintain the sustainability of the place are also given.
TASK 1
1.1 Concept of sustainability
Sustainability concept includes that tourist visiting a particular place should impact the
area only by positive means. There should be no negative impact by the tourism activities sin
that area (Amelung and Nicholls, 2014). Tourism involves various activities like transportation,
accommodation, recreation activities etc. Sustainable tourism should make ideal use of
surrounding and environment. Tourism should use natural resources available at particular site
optimally. It ensure that tourism activities are not creating any pressure on the biodiversity of the
place.
Conserving and preserving the environment with optimum use us called sustainable
tourism. It should respect the social and cultural value of destination site and do not cause nay
harm to people and locality of that area (Ruhanen, Whitford and McLennan, 2015.). Sustainable
tourism ensures feasible and long time economic operations . It should provide benefit to local
are people and those have stake in this tourism department of the place. Tourism should provide
jobs and employment to people of particular that will help in improving economy of the country.
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Gold coast is most popular tourism destination in Australia. Sustainable tourism in Gold
Coast are can be described as protecting and preserving the environment and biodiversity of
place by providing and meeting all the tourist ned and expectation related to place. The tourist
detestation has gone through various disasters in the history of tourism. Local and government
authorities need to take some steps to save the coastal area of the place in order to ensure
sustainability of place (Mahadevan, 2014). Regular tourism activities in the Gold Coast has
pressured the natural resources of the place.
Climate change also a big issue of concern in the area. Land degradation and depletion is
is causing harm to natural resources of area. Many resort in Gold Coast have been made to
provide accommodation to the tourist. This s creating pressure on the environment and water
resources of place due to overcrowding. Overcrowding is making pressure on natural resources
and making scarcity of them. Sustainable tourism practices are required in the are in order to
ensurer the protection of environment and resources.
Air pollution also increasing in the place due to transportation of tourism recreation of
the place. Regular recreation and construction of the place to provide better facilities to tourist
visiting increases the load on natural resources. These recreation activities constitute in the land
degradation and deforestation of area (David William, 2014). Tourism providing benefit also to
the economy of country . It has provided many jobs and employment in area which is helping the
local are people to make their social life better. Tourism at Gold Coast is increasing the pride of
local area by attracting large number of tourist. Various places are getting developed due to
sustainable tourism. Regional profile of the place has been increasing through travel and tourism.
1.2 Overview of the chosen site
Gold Coast is coastal are of the Australia (David William, 2014.). It is spread in 66
kilometres of the Brisbane. There are various locations in Gold Coast which are visited by
tourists. It is on 6th number among largest cities of Australia. It is the major tourist destination of
the country and it popular for its beaches and sunny climate Pham and et.al, 2013(). There are
various theme parks rainforest and nightlife which is popular among the tourist and are visited by
many tourists every year. Here are some known and popular locations of Gold Coast are
Currubin, South park , Pimpama, south sport, spring book, Willow vale, Surfers paradise,Broad
beach, Burleigh heads, Southern gold coast, Tamborine Mountain, lamimgton national park,
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cocolangatta, palm beach, South strand broke island, sea world, Warner bros movie world and
kirra beach. There are various theme park also in the place which attract many tourist to the city
(Techera and Klein, 2013).
Every year approx 78,19, 000 intentional visitor visits the gold coast locations. Various
activities are offered in the tourist destination which attract more number of tourist to the place.
It provides jet boating , sky diving, balloon rides, tree top challenge in Currumbin wildlife
sanctuary , hot air ballooning, horse riding in Gold coast, balloon flighting etc. Different sports
activities are also offered in the area which are squashing, swimming, beach volleyball etc. some
fun activities are offered in the place which includes contest of eating, Tim slam competition,
competition of meet and greet, and Sausage sizzle competition. Activities for kids are also
provided in the area. Target markets of Goal coast are social fun seekers market, connectors
market. In social fun seekers market people get lot of activities to do and have fun with plenty of
people. Connectors market are for family and friends.
TASK 2
2.1 Potential impact of economical, environmental and socio cultural activities in area
Sustainable tourism in Gold Coast area have some positive and negative impacts on the
environment , social culture,and economy . Tourism creates lot of impact on environment of
particular place.
Impact on environment:
Positive impacts on environment: Sustainable tourism has many positive impact on
environment. Ecotourism helps in motivating preservation and conservation of wildlife.
Government recreates and reconstruct various wildlife sanctuaries in order to attract tourists to
the place. These reconstruction of place impact positively the place (Chen, Weiler and Young,
2015.) . Tourism also helps in preserving wildlife animals and the parks in the destination place.
Continuous maintenance of wildlife is done by government to provide better view of place
which helps in improving condition of environment.
Maintenance for tourists also helps in generating find for preserving wildlife. Fee
charged by authorities for tourist to visit wildlife sanctuaries provides monetary support.
Tourism creates employment and provide jobs which in turn reduces problem of deforestation
and animal hunting crimes at place. Tourism also supports local business in generating profits.
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Negative impact on environment: Sustainable tourism contains problem such they effects
negatively the natural and cultural resources of place. Water resources of Gold Coast such as
beaches, and other natural water resources get polluted due to continuous tourism activities.
Pollution also gets increased because of transportation of tourist, emission due to traffic and
litters thrown by tourists. Heritage sites , monuments and various attractions gets degrade due to
overuse(Gu, Qiu and King, 2016) .
Overcrowding in resorts increases noise pollution in the area. Prices of any product in are
increases because of tourism which in result affects local residents of the place. Land
degradation and depletion of forest is also cause by travel and tourism activities. Global
warming and rise of temperature are causes of pollution due to tourism. Overcrowding at Gold
Coast resort cause s problem of sewage water and waste management.
Positive Economic impacts: Tourism in Gold coast resort has created lot of jobs and
employment in the fields like transportation and retail industry. It provide employment to local
people like tourist guide, waiters in hotel and resorts, coach services etc. These people who gets
job through tourism are able to spend their daily wages and this in turns result in getting more
jobs through this. Tourism industry of Gold Coast provides opportunities to small business
enterprises which supports them in generating profits and good revenue.
Tourist spends lot of money in buying and doing adventures in the Gold Cost resort
which result in increased economy of the country. More money is earned by tourism industry
through travel and tourism which impacts economy as well. Increase in economy helps in
providing new source of income to public (David William, 2014). Travel and tourism gives
diversified resources of income to people who rely on single industry fro income. Infrastructure
of area such as roads, heritage sites, theme parks and beaches gets improve d due to revenue
generated through tourism. Diversification of economy ad value to the areas which are damage
and unconsidered by hos community of the country.
Negative impact on economy: Sustainable tourism at Gold Coast resort depends on continuous
development of infrastructure whose cost is bear by government which result in increased tax.
Though tourism creates job in locality but these jobs are often poorly paid an seasonal in nature
(So and et.al., 2014) . This impacts on tax and revenues . Money produced through tourism do
not profits local community as it is taken by resorts and international companies. Tourism
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destinations sometime get affected by terrorist. activities and disasters. Increase in demand of
goods and product raises prices of them which negative impacts the local area people of the
place. This makes it difficult for people to meet their daily basic needs.
Positive impact on social-cultural: Improvements and enhancements of infrastructure attracts
more tourist in the locality .it encourages and motivates the tradition culture and values of the
locality and helps in preservation of these traditions. Tourism is source of pleasure for local
communities (Green, 2015). Local resident preserves the culture and traditions of them, to give
pleasure to tourists. local heritage sites get conserved and tourist get fascinated to these sites.
Interaction between local public and tourists creates better understanding of culture and trades.
Ecosystem and natural resources of the place are preserved by residents to attract tourists .
Resident of Gold Coast showcase the various attribute of the culture which in turn motivates
the the tourist to preserve them.
Negative impact on social cultural: Tourist behaviour adversely impacts the local pubic of the
Gold coast (Queensland, 2013) . Overcrowding and congestion creates problem of terrorism and
local people get addicted to drugs and alcohol. Tourism sometime affects residence of people as
government ask people to move form the place so they can make hotels and resorts for tourist
accommodation. This creates problem for community which are totally dependent for their
residence on government. Interaction of hos community with tourist sometimes lead to loss of
cultural value and trades. Overcrowding at resort affects the daily life residents. Social
environment of destination decrease because sometime tourists get involved in illegal activities .
2.2 Measures used to manage impact of tourism
Tourism greatly impacts the destination place by their activities. Tourism industry
should adopt ecotourism which can help in minimizing the impact caused by tourism .Current
measure that are taken by Gold Coast resort authorities to mange the positive and negative
impacts of tourism are as follows:
 Gold cost resort should provide an alternative to tourist they can stay in local hotels
which will help them to increase their revenue. These practices help the tourist to get
knowledge about the local life and culture. This will also support local people to
understand the tourist behaviour and nature.
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 To reduce the impact on environment government can make some policies which should
be followed by tourism industry in order to conserve environment (Packer, Ballantyne, R.
and Hughes, K., 2014). Regulation and rules should be made by local authorities. This
rules should be implied on tourist and if they do not follow them fines should be
charged by local authority.
 Resort authorities should not overcrowd the place to get more money. Overcrowding
creates pressure on the natural resources and water resources. Resort should sign an
agreement with the tourist who are taking accommodation in their place that they will not
harm the resource of the nearby place.
 Environment protection and preservation is most important so local resident s should
teach tourist to preserve the environment .
 Resort authorities should not overcrowd itself as that creates pressure on the water
resources and food resources. Pollution level will also decrease due to less number of
tourist at one place.
 Some strict rules should be made by Gold Coast resort authorities fro tourist that they
cant bring anything which can cause harm to social values of local people.
 Government should make some strategies which can punish such tourist who produces
crime in area by their illegal activities.
 To reduce the impact on environment resort should provide material which can be easily
recycled. This will support in reducing the impact of litterbugs on environment .
 To diminish negative impact of tourism on environment green and eco tourism practices
should be adopted in the destination area.
 A contract must be signed by the tourism department of the country that tourist will not
get involved in any illegal activity. If contract get broken by any of tourist them tourism
department will not take responsibilities of that. These kind of practices will help in
improving the condition of the environment (Techera and Klein, 2013).
 Negative environment impact can be diminished if Gold Coast resort reduces the use of
carbon footprint. This will help in nourishing the environment of place.
 Authorities of resort should ensue that their tourist will not cause harm to environment in
any way.
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 Economical impact can be reduce if the jobs provided by tourism industry of the Gold
Cost are secure and gives proper payment to employees (David William, 2014).
 Prices of products should not be increased in tourism season as they impacts the local
residents life .
 Local public authority should design some campaigns to aware local people about the
behaviour of tourist so they do not get harmed. Posters and advertisement should be
spread among people to make the aware about the illegal activities sand crimes produced
by tourist.
 To increase the economy of the country accommodation and other services should be
provided at low prices which will help in increasing the economy of the country.
 Money produced through resort and hotel chains of Gold coast should not given to
international agencies and companies. It should be use to develop the infrastructure of the
resort and places in the locality.
 Social welfare programs should be designed by local authorities of Gold Coast to ware
tourist about the social value and culture of the place they are visiting.
 To increase positive impact on environment caused by tourism government should invest
more in maintaining the heritage site , historical places , monuments and various other
thing . This will help in attracting more tourist to Gold coast resort.
 Positive impact on socio cultural can be increased by teaching values and culture to
tourist so they will know the importance of it. Local residents of the area should be taught
by authorities to preserve the social values. Showcasing these value to tourist will help in
conserving culture of the place (Techera and Klein, 2013).
 For increasing the positive impact on environment and to increase the value of wildlife
sanctuary government should make more investment in maintaining the wealth of it. So
that mores tourist will come to visit place.
 To increase the impact of tourism on economy more jobs should be provided by tourism
industry to enhance the economic condition of the country.
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TASK 3
3.1 Recommendation to manage the current and potential negative and positive impact of
tourism
Recommendation to manage the impact on environment: To manage the impact of tourism on
environment authorities of Gold Coast resort should make some policies for tourist coming to
the for accommodation. The should make more investment in protecting coastal are which gets
affected by tourism activities. Beaches of the coastal area get affected by regular adventure
provided by the resort and tourism department of the country. Authorities of the coastal are
should implement some practices to improve the condition of beaches and other resources of the
place. Government should make some rules and regulations which restricts the resort from
giving accommodation to more number of tourist. These practices will help in reducing
overcrowding problem. Diversification technique should be adopted by the authorities which
will help in better distribution of visitor and tourists.
Gold Coast authorities should implement policies of charging some fee for visiting place.
These policies will help in generating revenue and this money will be use to maintain the
biodiversity of the location. Protection of the environment and reduction in the pollution can be
done by using eco-friendly transportation system (Green, 2015). Local authorities should
provide eco friendly vehicles to tourists in order to reduce air pollution cause by conventional
vehicles. Ecotourism practices should be adopted by Gold Coast to maintain the sustainability of
environment. Resort authorities should promote green tourism which focuses on protecting and
preserving environment. Strict rules should be there to restrict visitors from harming wildlife
animals.
Local authorities working in Gold Coast should aware people by using social media. They
can convey messages to tourist for not harming the biodiversity of locality. Proper monitoring
should be done by government to ensure that all the rules and polices are followed by resort and
other hotel chains. Punishments and charges should be fine if any tourist caught harming the
biodiversity of the locations. Proper waste management technique should be there at each
location so that pollution cause by litter scan be reduced. Recycling methods should be practised
so that waste can be use to make some materials.
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Recommendations to manage the impact on Economy: Tourism in Gold Coast provide jobs and
employment to local people but these jobs are seasonal in nature. Due to this reason many
people remain idle and get no payment in the off season. Authorities of Gold Coast resort should
insure that these people must get appropriate job opportunities throughout out the year. Some
skilled training program should be conducted by the authorities which will train workers to guide
tourists. Local authorities of Gold Coast should provide guidelines to local seller to not to
increase the prices of product due to season of tourism . Increased prices make it difficult to fro
local public to survive (Amelung and Nicholls, 2014).
Tourism authorities of Gold Coast should provide tourist packages at lower prices to attract
more tourist. Lower tourist packages will help in increase economy of the country. Development
and maintenance of beaches and natural resources to attract more visitors. To generate more
revenue from tourism activities and adventure resort should implement strategies to attract tourist
to them. Government should not increase the tax on products for development of infrastructure
like roads , heritage site and monuments. To make better facilities for tourist authorities should
take investment from government .
There should be proper monitoring of employment provided by tourism to identify that each
employee is getting benefits from it. Economic policies ned to be implemented by the
government of Gold Coast (Tourism, 2017.). Proper database should be maintained about each
tourist and tourisms activities It will be easy to measure the revenue generated by tourism
through database maintenance. Better facilities sand services can be provided to tourist so that
they prefer revisiting the place and will make positive publicity of the place. Economy of the
country should not be overdependent on the tourism as this sometime lead to loss in economy
too.
Recommendations to mange social and cultural impacts of tourism : Tourism affects a lot the
social cultural environment of the Gold coast resort. tourist come form different culture and
tradition which affects the local people adversely(Australia tourism,2017.). Local people try to
copy their trends ans culture which in turn result as loss the socio culture value of the place.
Local authorities of Gold Coast need to aware local people about behaviours of tourist and theirs
trends and tell them to not to get influenced by their culture. Some practices should be developed
to provide knowledge to local residents about the behaviours of visitors. Government should
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focus on developing social infrastructure like libraries , monuments etc. to attract tourist by
social culture religion of the place. Resident should be educated by the authorities to not to get
influenced by the tourist behaviour and culture. Rule and regulation should be made by local
authorities for tourist who spread illegal activities like drugs, alcohol in the area. Reports should
be maintained by legal authorities which provide information about the tourist who have done
crime in the place.
This will help in restricting the tourist from visiting again the place, in this way socio
cultural values of Gold Coast can be conserved (Gu, Q, Qiu and King, 2016). Proper monitoring
need to be done by government to determine the criminal tourist and give them punishments.
While showcasing the culture, art , handicrafts, and other historical things to tourist it value
should be told to them. Social cultural values can be promoted and persevered by giving
advertisements on television and social media. Messages need to spread by the societal cultural
authority of the place to increase awareness among people (Queensland, 2013).
CONCLUSION
Summing up the above report it can be concluded that tourism at Gold Coast impact in
both way negatively and positively. Concept of sustainability and its various terms provide that
sustainable tourism need to be maintained by the government .sustainable tourism have potential
impact on social , economical an environmental culture of the place. There should be proper
rules for tourist visiting the pace in order to maintain the biodiversity of the area. Negative and
positive impact should be consider equally by the local authorities as this can generate profit or
harm the tourism of the country. Various methods and policies have been evaluated to reduce
the negative and increase the positive impact causes through tourism . Recommendation to
minimize and handle positive and negative impact of tourism are evaluated which can be used by
authorities to maintain the sustainable tourism in the place. Every tourist destination has its
baring capacity so tourist destination must overcrowded fro maintaining the attractiveness of the
area.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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performance: The case of Chinese group package tours in Australia.CAUTHE 2015: Rising
Tides and Sea Changes: Adaptation and Innovation in Tourism and Hospitality, p.428.
Danquah, J.B., 2014.Akan Doctrine of God (194 Cb: A Fragment of Gold Coast Ethnics and
Religion. Routledge.
David William, L., 2014.Battlefield tourism: Pilgrimage and the commemoration of the Great
War in Britain, Australia and Canada, 1919-1939. A&C Black.
David William, L., 2014.Battlefield tourism: Pilgrimage and the commemoration of the Great
War in Britain, Australia and Canada, 1919-1939. A&C Black.
Green, R.J. and Wood, P., 2015. 11 Australian Wildlife Tourism and Research
Network. Scientific Tourism: Researchers as Travellers,. p.165.
Green, R.J., 2015. Conserving biodiversity as tourism (including wildlife tourism) expands:
outcomes of discussions across four wildlife tourism workshops.The Environment People
Nexus in Sustainable Tourism: Finding the Balance, p.151.
Gu, Q. S.C., Qiu, H.Q. and King, B. E .M., 2016. Identifying facilitators, constraints of wine
tourism for outbound Chinese tourists.
Hayford, J.E.C., 2013.Gold Coast native institutions. Book On Demand Limited.
Mahadevan, R., 2014. Understanding senior self-drive tourism in Australia using a contingency
behavior model.. Journal of Travel Research. 53(2). pp.252-259.
Mistilis, N., Buhalis, D. and Gretzel, U., 2014. Future eDestination marketing: perspective of an
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Packer, J., Ballantyne, R. and Hughes, K., 2014. Chinese and Australian tourists' attitudes to
nature, animals and environmental issues: Implications for the design of nature-based
tourism experiences.Tourism Management. 44. pp.101-107.
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Pham, T.D. and et.al, 2013.The economic impact of the current mining boom on the Australian
tourism industry. Canberra: Tourism Research Australia.
Queensland, T., 2013. Tourism Economic Key Facts.
Ruhanen, L., Whitford, M. and McLennan, C. L., 2015. Indigenous tourism in Australia: Time
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Techera, E.J. and Klein, N., 2013. The role of law in shark-based eco-tourism: lessons from
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Online
Australia tourism,2017. Accessed through<http://www.australia.com/en-in>[Accessed on 27th
May 2017]
Tourism, 2017. Accessed through<http://www.tourism.australia.com/>[Accessed on 27th May
2017]
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APPENDIX
Map for Gold Coast
Gold Coast is coastal are of the Australia . It is spread in 66 kilometres of the Brisbane. There are
various locations in Gold Coast which are visited by tourists. It is on 6th number among largest
cities of Australia.
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