Soci-Cultural Impacts of Tourism
19TH FEBUARY 2013
Tourism is a social, cultural and economic trend which entails the movement of people to countries or places outside their usual environment for personal or business purposes. These people are called visitors and tourism has to do with their activities, some of which imply tourism expenditure (UNWTO 2007). According to Mowforth and Munt (1998), “it is an industry that facilitates not just the movement of people going from one country to another, but the accompanying mass displacement of communities, its impact on traditional communities and the involvement if large business corporations in this process.”
Tourist activities have had implications on the economy, the environment as well as the local population of these tourist destinations. These impacts are due to tourist destinations producing a wide variety of goods and services for tourists in an effort to satisfy tourists’ needs. Stakeholders of tourism are greatly affected by tourism activities and as such, a sustainable tourism development approach must be implemented, managed and monitored in order for tourism to strive and minimize the negative impacts of tourism in a destination (UNWTO 2007). The focus of this essay is on the negative socio-cultural impacts of tourism and ways in which it can be managed to lessen the negative effects on the host population.
Businesses are particularly interested in the economic impacts of tourism at all levels of the economy. Multiplier effects are often used to identify the secondary effects of tourism expenditure and show the how the different sectors in a community benefit from tourism. Tourism activity involves different economic costs such as the direct cost incurred by stakeholders, governments and private business for tourism products and services. Communities and governments debate about the positive and negative economic effects of tourism at the destination, therefore sound decision making based on the effects of tourism on the economy must
Tourism is a social, cultural and economic trend which entails the movement of people to countries or places outside their usual environment for personal or business purposes. These people are called visitors and tourism has to do with their activities, some of which imply tourism expenditure (UNWTO 2007). According to Mowforth and Munt (1998), “it is an industry that facilitates not just the movement of people going from one country to another, but the accompanying mass displacement of communities, its impact on traditional communities and the involvement if large business corporations in this process.”
Tourist activities have had implications on the economy, the environment as well as the local population of these tourist destinations. These impacts are due to tourist destinations producing a wide variety of goods and services for tourists in an effort to satisfy tourists’ needs. Stakeholders of tourism are greatly affected by tourism activities and as such, a sustainable tourism development approach must be implemented, managed and monitored in order for tourism to strive and minimize the negative impacts of tourism in a destination (UNWTO 2007). The focus of this essay is on the negative socio-cultural impacts of tourism and ways in which it can be managed to lessen the negative effects on the host population.
Businesses are particularly interested in the economic impacts of tourism at all levels of the economy. Multiplier effects are often used to identify the secondary effects of tourism expenditure and show the how the different sectors in a community benefit from tourism. Tourism activity involves different economic costs such as the direct cost incurred by stakeholders, governments and private business for tourism products and services. Communities and governments debate about the positive and negative economic effects of tourism at the destination, therefore sound decision making based on the effects of tourism on the economy must
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