Advantages and disadvantages of developing mass tourism Today tourism is one of the largest industries in the world. In some countries it is the main economic division. There is a wide variety of tourist types within the tourism market today,so much so that the term ‘average tourist’ has become irrelevant. (Murphy,1985) The United Nations states that ‘In Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in the world tourism is the main economic division was expected to generate 7.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2004 and close to 400,000 jobs.’(United Nations, 2007).The most of people think that the economic impact of tourism is absolutely positive whereas the social and environmental impact is only negative. Indeed, increasing incomes to regions due to tourists are easy to see as well as numerous host-tourist conflicts and destruction of the environment and local cultures. However, tourism can have both positive and negative outcomes for residents in communities when sharing and preserving their culture and nature could be seen as conflicting goals.(McComick, B.E.2002,p303) Nevertheless here could be two sides of outcomes: positive and negative. The positive side is that tourism has brought booming business to many countries and causes economic growth Although tourism brings many jobs to countries and decrease unemployment. Also tourism supports business. Tourists purchase local goods and use local services such as attraction, entertainment and other. . However tourism has negative impact on local communities and economies. Despite tourism improving the economy and local communities there are costs of tourism. For instance tourism increases the crime level. Tourism also impacts on the environment and health. Tourism causes land pollution, air pollution and sound pollution, also environment pollution impact on health. There are some ways to solve these problems, sustainable tourism one of them. Nowadays people can easily travel wherever they want, because there are many fast and cheap ways to travel. Thousand of people every day travel around the world. One of the reasons is that tourists wanted to know more about history and culture of the countries. They wanted to see famous buildings, old monument. For example Stonehenge is very popular for tourists. One of the most popular reasons why tourists are travelling is for pleasure. Tourists going to sunny places near the sea where they can relax. Some tourists like skiing holidays. Alps are very famous tourists destination for skiing. The third reason is that people travelling for health. This form of travel is very popular among tourists. They are going to spas and thermal baths and there are many places for it in the world. Sometimes people who are addicted to drugs or alcohol need help and they go abroad. An example of this is therapeutic tourism. As the Organisation of American States claims that

“Cuba presents an interesting form of therapeutic tourism by offering highly qualified medical services to patients from other countries at costs considerably lower than those at their place of origin. Many times these medical services come as part of tourist package and special housing arrangements are available for this purpose”. (Feinsilver, 1989,p.40).

However tourism has negative impact on health. Tourists always travel from one country to another and they can spread different disease around the world. It is one of the main reasons of epidemic. However sometimes tourists do not know that they are infected. Although there are many examples of that tourists has carried with them different disease to other countries. For example AIDS and other sexual disease and it is impacts on health of hosts. Other example is famous disease SARS. It has been found in more than 20 countries and usually tourists brought it there. ( Wilson,1997) Many people have died because of these diseases. Another problem for hosts is when tourist has health problems in journey, they use medical service. Consequently it is medical service not available for local people. It is fact that health has impact on economy of countries. For example SARS that was pointed in paragraph above had big impact on the economy of Asian countries.

“Because of SARS in Hong Kong, lost revenue from hotels, restaurants, and shops could amount to 0.5 percent of total gross domestic product in 2003.
Thailand, whose economy relies heavily on tourism, has barred visitors suspected of carrying the virus from entering the country and required tourists from the worst affected areas to wear face masks or risk fines.”(Globalization, published 04.13.2003)

From this we can see that it is dangerous for countries to bee too heavily geared towards the tourism as in Thailand or if they will do so as a result they will have big economic crisis. Economic leakage is another negative impact of tourism. When tourists travel they bring a lot of money with then and spend money in other countries. As result countries tourists come from suffer money leakage. On the other hand there is positive side of tourism. Tourists support local business; they buy local products and use local service such as accommodations and different attractions. However, tourism increase the prices for basic service and local goods and it is negatively affect on local people, because income does not increase as much as prices, also it can impact on land costs. Although Dr. Persa Fokiali maintains that tourism increases a countries GDP quoting that ‘Tourism contributes by 5.5% to the EU’s GDP.Its contribution to the GDP of some European countries is sustainably higher. Thus it represents 9.4% of Spain’s GDP, 9% of France’s, 8.2% of Portugal’s, 6.3% of Italy’s and more than 8% of Greece’s. In some tourist developed regions (like Rhodes, Majorca, Tenerife, Cyprus etc.) the direct contribution of tourism to the local GDP can be higher than 35%.’ In spite of this, tourism attracts staff with low level of skill and usually that people serving visitors. Usually employers offer poor working conditions and just part time job. Also employees work many ours and get a law salary. On the other hand tourism brings more jobs for local people and decrease unemployment, nevertheless tourism as well has negative impact on local communities such as traffic conjunction and increase crime level. Tourism impact on crime level, however the victims is visitors and tourists.
‘Visitors are known to be targets of petty theft, due to the belief that visitors carry various valuables with them, for example money to spend, cameras and jewellery. An increase in crime at peak tourism times may suggest that there is a relationship between the high tourism season and crime.’(Norfolk Coast Partnership, 2006) Also it could be because of tourist’s behaviour, mass can be very loud because of their parties, in can be problem for residents where they staying and for local people. Rending a car becoming more and more popular among tourists and these can cause traffic conjunction. There are a few reasons why tourists lend a car. One of the reasons is expensive public transport. Therefore the number of car owners is rapidly increasing in the same way as number of people who lending a car. Usually traffic conjunctions happen when is the tourism season on holidays and at the weekends. Consequently traffic conjunction can be a reason for visitors and community conflict. This problem can be solved by building many new roads. However these are not a simple solution, it can cost millions of dollars. Also traffic can active negatively including speeding, problem of parking and increase accidents level. Traffic conjunction has negative effect on the environment as well. ‘National Parks are a good example of how tourism and the environment can be managed together. It is estimated that 110 million people visit the national parks of England and Wales each year. Tourists support business and bring jobs to that area. Yet visitors also bring problems for instance traffic conjunction, water, land and sound pollutions.’ (Naturalnet, 2007). These problems happened when number of visitors is greater than the environmental ability to deal with visitors. As a result, if the government will not control tourism it can lead to negative influence such as land, water and sound pollution and waste of sources. Tourists cause very big pollutions like solid waste and littering. For example in Russia there is no penalty if people through rubbish anywhere they wanted to, there is no law about it. The Russian government should control tourists and local people as well and make a law about solid waste and littering. Visitors have a big pressure on land sources like food, energy and other raw things. Also visitors pollute water, tourists on ships through rubbish in the water it can cause death for marine animals. Water especially fresh water is one of the most important resources in our life and it scarce. Tourism industry generally overuses water for accommodations, golf courses, swimming pools and others. It can cause water shortage and it will be bad impact on dry regions like Mediterranean. UNEP states that ‘An average golf course in a tropical country such as Thailand needs 1500kg of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides per year and uses as much water as 60,000 rural villagers.’ (Piaget, 1975) Noise is another pollution that tourists create. Noise pollution from airplane, cars, buses and also snowmobiles that tourist use is fast growing problem. It causes high level of disturbance for local people and for environment. For example noise of snowmobiles can scare animals and also in snowy places noise can cause avalanche. The most of tourists prefer travel by plane and car, these form of travel are major consumers of fossil fuel. Therefore it is very big dangerous to the environment and it cause global warming. ‘’The types of change taking place in the global tourism industry present both challenges and opportunities to public and private sector organisations around the world as they seek to achieve a sustainable tourism industry comprising organisations that have a competitive advantages over their rivals’’(Theobalt,2005)

There are many methods to help countries and tourists by solving these problems. Sustainable tourism is one of them. Sustainable tourism gives information for tourists about the destination and help them how to sustain the country. It benefits residents, travel businesses try to do everything better for employ, buy local goods and use more local servises. Teach tourists more about culture of countries, traditions and how to cope with foreign prospects. Sustainable tourism is a solution to the ever increasing demands of tourism on our ecosystem. Sustainable tourism needs to market the concept more effectively and develop a ‘more appropriate matchingof markets with products’ (Wight, 1993) Sustainable tourism could help reduce this impact and pollution. Satisfied tourists will bring new knowledge to their own countries so they will tell about their experience to their friends, it will provide continuing business in different countries. Principles of sustainable tourism are to help countries manage problems of tourism. Firstly tourism should be instructed with help of broad communities and communities should take control of tourism development in their hands. Secondly tourism should supply good employment to its community residents. Lastly government should organize educational and training programmes to decrease environmental pollution and help tourists understand culture of other countries. To conclude: Tourism brought booming business to many countries and has positive impacts such as economic growth and brings more jobs. On the other hand there are many negative impacts on health, economy, local communities and the environment. Many countries have very big problems because of tourism. Tourists spread different diseases around the world. Also tourism increase prices, which are not good for local people. Also tourists cause traffic conjunction and increase crime level. There are very big influences of tourism on environment such as pollution and waste of resources. Tourists pollute water and lands, and also waste supply of water resources that is very important for many regions. Many countries try to manage these problems by different ways. Sustainable tourism in one of the ways and it can help many countries and tourists as well. Nowadays people can easily travel around the world and tourism is no more a luxury for people.

References

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