Exploring the Contemporary Tourism and its Broad Socio Impacts

This report provides an overview of the tourism industry, focusing on contemporary tourism and its development. It explores the economic impacts of tourism, including job creation, economic growth, and foreign exchange, while also addressing drawbacks such as leakages and price increases. The report further examines the environmental impacts, both positive (environmental awareness, conservation) and negative (resource depletion, pollution), emphasizing the importance of environmental sustainability. Finally, it discusses the socio-cultural impacts of tourism, highlighting the preservation of local culture and improved living standards, as well as potential issues like cultural barriers and disrespect for local values. The report concludes that while tourism is vital for economic growth, governments must prioritize environmental protection, cultural preservation, and equitable opportunities for residents.

UNDERSTANDING THE
WORLD OF TOURISM

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Contemporary tourism...............................................................................................................1
Economic impacts of tourism.....................................................................................................2
Environmental impacts of tourism..............................................................................................3
Socio-culture impacts of tourism................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Tourism refers to activities which includes travelling and staying facilities at different
locations apart from their own surroundings for the purpose of pleasure, fun and to spend some
relaxation time for business motives or any other purpose for not more than one continuous year
(Taheri, Hosany and Altinay, 2019). It enables the country to enhance the overall economy by
generating revenue. In a broader context, the tourism industry is a sum of all businesses which
provide appropriate goods and services to the society in order to promote certain activities
outside domestic surroundings. There are numerous sectors in tourism industry which includes
accommodation, retail travel agents, transportation, information services, food and beverages
sector etc.
This report will illustrate the concept of tourism industry along with contemporary
tourism and its development (Chim-Miki, and Batista-Canino , 2017)Apart from this, the study
will cover the positive and negative impacts of tourism in context of economic, environmental as
well as socio-cultural.
MAIN BODY
Contemporary tourism
Tourism is one of the largest industries and more than half of the population engaged in
travelling at different places. It is considered as biggest source of income. It is an international
approach which lays emphasis on the changing and refreshing tourism without harming the
environment and ensures growth and development of tourist industry by creating and framing
new strategies and ideas for developing and improving the tourism to cater to need of the
tourists.
It boosts the economy of the country by generating revenue, increasing job opportunities,
better infrastructural facilities and access to foreign exchange in the country (Higgins-
Desbiolles, Doering and Bigby, 2021). Contemporary issues faced by the industry are threats to
life and healthy, terrorism which affects the tourism industry.
Tourism mainly benefits the economies of the developing country. It can be described as
the creation of strategies and plans to encourage tourism. The main aim of development of
tourism is to enhance the beauty of the destination in order to attract tourist. Planning is
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considered as a very important part of improving any tourist industry as proper planning defines
the goals and objectives and helps in proper utilization of resources.
Development in tourist industry also helps in conservation and protection of
environment. Environmental programmes should be organized and educate individuals how to
protect the environment (Seyfi and Hall, 2018.) As demands of the tourist are static and
different, there is need to modify the tourist places so that the products are available in the local
market and country don't feel to import products from developing countries as it affects the
economy of the importing country.
The main aim of the contemporary tourism is to provide better experience to the tourist
and to adapt according to the needs and demands of the tourist.
Economic impacts of tourism
The significance of economic sector is very important in terms of number of people and
income from this sector. It overall affects the economy of the country in positive and negative
way. Tourism is considered as the main economic sector as it enhances the economic growth,
increase in GDP and by attracting foreign exchange in the country.
There are various factors which have positive effects on the economy. Firstly, it
increases the job opportunities in various areas of tourism such as transportation sector, foods
services etc. There has been increase in employment opportunities in recent years. As tourism
increases, there is rise in the culture of selling products which are handmade like handicraft
products as these products are new to foreigners and will attract them to purchase them which
will result in increase the number of labour and people will get opportunities to work and hence
creates employment opportunities for people unemployed (Ibănescu and et.al., 2018).
Secondly, it helps in economic growth and easy access to the foreign exchange. Tourism
helps to increase job opportunities and earnings, by upgrading infrastructural facilities will
attract the tourist results in economic growth of the country and also helps in improving the
standard of living of the people.
It suffers from various drawbacks such as leakages, it occurs when the revenues generated
from tourism is loss of economy to the host country There are two types of leakages, import
leakage which occurs when demands of standard products of tourists are such which the
country cannot supply and export leakage occurs when investors invest in developing countries
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and the profits generated are taken back to their country. It results in loss of importing country as
the fund is used for importing the goods in the country. Another is rise in price of goods and
services because different people have different demands and increase in demands results in
rise in price in local market directly affects the local people who cannot afford costly goods and
services.
Environmental impacts of tourism
Environment tourism is described as the tourist destinations where the cultural heritage,
plants and animals are the major attractions. It spreads the awareness about the surroundings and
helps n proper utilization of resources. Some positive factors are spreading environmental
awareness among the people to save the environment from damage and adopt way to conserve
energy and resources. Their has been issues such as pollution, scarcity of fuel and depletion of
resources. Government should develop safe and healthy environment, developmental plans
should be made on environmental and should promote education and public awareness among
the residents (Rasoolimanesh and et.al., 2019). Another factor environment protection and
conservation, it is the practice of safeguarding the environment by government and
organizations and take measures to conserve the natural and pollution free environment. Taking
proper measures and framing laws can protect the environment from destruction. Preserving the
natural resources is the key element for the growth and expansion of the tourist locations.
Apart from positive impacts it suffers from negative effects such as depletion of natural
resources overuse and wastage of water resources lead to water shortage in local areas. It also
creates immense pressure on local resources such as food and raw materials, increase demand of
these resources can reduce the supply of these resources. An increase in the construction of
tourism sites puts burden on the land resources (Wolf, Croft and Green, 2019). Another factor is
pollution, increase in air pollution from tourist transportation has severely impacts at global
level, noise pollution from cars and buses creates stress which can cause damage to the
environment. Solid waste causes water pollution and causes damage to marine life.
Environmental sustainability means management and preservation of natural and man-
made resources without harming the ecosystem. Increase in population has resulted in increase
in gas emissions causing greenhouse effect and resulting in destruction of environment. It is
important to protect the environment by limiting the consumption of resources which are scarce
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and recycling the products. It includes growth of long term environment and development of the
areas affected. The causes of this is increasing growth rate, excessive consumption of the
resources which are scarce.
Socio-culture impacts of tourism
Social refers to the group of people living in a locality having different culture,
traditions. Culture are practises that bind people together. Behaviour and attitude determined as
individual thinking process. Behaviour, values and norms are the certain rules of interaction of
an individual in a society. Socio-culture refers to the exchange of culture and ideas of tourist
and local people (Martínez‐Garcia, Raya, and Majó). These impacts are called the human
impacts the tourism sector which lays emphasis on the improving the living standards of the
people, their cultures, traditions they follow and habits and lifestyles.
Some positive impacts are preserving the local culture by studying and researching
about the languages and conserving the local heritage helps to safeguard the resources and helps
to build up the local economies and a sense of belongingness in the residents. The is connected
to the certain values, beliefs and traditions (Jaafar, Rasoolimanesh and Ismail, 2017). Facilities
that has been generated for the betterment of tourists can also been avail by the local people
residing over there. This also enhances the living standard of localities.
It also has some negative effects such as cultural barrier as tourism consist of movement
of people in various countries and every place has its own culture, traditions, values and religion
which can create differences between people and maintaining social relation is difficult as every
tourist have different lifestyles which creates a communication barrier. Another negative impact
is due to unawareness and carelessness tourist fails to respect and understand the cultures and
moral values of which can affect the behaviour of local people.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that tourism is considered very important
for the government as it helps in boosting the economy of the country and helps in generating
employment opportunities but government on the other side should improve the conditions so
that more number of tourists are attracted to visit the place. As discussed the environmental
impact, government should lay emphasis in improving the environmental laws and spread
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awareness on the cleanliness of the environment. Measures should be taken to save energy and
educate people to recycle the products through organizing various programmes.
Cultural programmes should be organized among the residents to increase the knowledge
of their cultural heritage ad ways to safeguard them. Visitors should be encouraged to value and
respect the lifestyles of the country. Tourist developmental activities should be conducted so that
equal opportunities is gives to both men and women.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chim-Miki, A.F. and Batista-Canino, R.M., 2017. Tourism coopetition: An introduction to the
subject and a research agenda. International Business Review.26(6).pp.1208-1217.
Higgins-Desbiolles, F., Doering, A. and Bigby, B.C., 2021. Socialising tourism: reimagining
tourism’s purpose.
Ibănescu, B.C. and et.al., 2018. The impact of tourism on sustainable development of rural
areas: Evidence from Romania. Sustainability. 10(10). p.3529.
Jaafar, M., Rasoolimanesh, S.M. and Ismail, S., 2017. Perceived sociocultural impacts of
tourism and community participation: A case study of Langkawi Island. Tourism and
Hospitality Research.17(2).pp.123-134.
Martínez‐Garcia, E., Raya, J.M. and Majó, J., 2017. Differences in residents' attitudes towards
tourism among mass tourism destinations. International Journal of Tourism
Research.19(5).pp.535-545.
Rasoolimanesh, S.M. and et.al. 2019., Does living in the vicinity of heritage tourism sites
influence residents’ perceptions and attitudes?. Journal of Sustainable Tourism.
Seyfi, S. and Hall, C.M. eds., 2018. Tourism in Iran: Challenges, development and issues.
Routledge.
Taheri, B., Hosany, S. and Altinay, L., 2019. Consumer engagement in the tourism industry:
new trends and implications for research.
Wolf, I.D., Croft, D.B. and Green, R.J., 2019. Nature conservation and nature-based tourism: a
paradox?. Environments.6(9).p.104.
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