The impacts of mass tourism

The impacts of mass tourism

the package holiday is key in mass tourism. This is a branch of tourism in which large multinational companies shape developments according to global demand. It is large-scale, highly commercial, focused on popular destinations and pays little regard to local communities. Mass tourism has brought both benefits and costs. These positive and negative impacts mainly fall under 3 headings, economic, socio-cultural and environmental.

Economic impacts-

Southern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia and Central America all benefit from tourism. Tourism creates many jobs in hotel, restaurants but also in transport. Tourists need food which is good for agriculture. Tourist buy souvenirs and that can be good for manufacturing.  The hotel staff, ice-cream sellers and souvenir shop owners spend their money in local shops. Tourism puts money into many people’s pockets and through the multiplier effect, the whole economy can be lifted. Tourism can help economic development in LICs. However there are some negative aspects. Much of today’s international tourism is in the hands of big companies for example Thomas Cook. This means that the profits made in a particular country ‘leak’ out to the country where the tour operator have its head offices. This is money that could be used to help the development of the country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Socio-cultural-

The degree in which tourism impacts on people and their traditional ways of life- there culture- depends on the type and volume of tourism. Mass tourism has helped revive local handicrafts as well as performing arts and rituals. There are many negatives as well with converging on a location. Some examples of how tourists can easily offend the traditional values of local people-

·         Drinking too much alcohol and becoming loud and offensive

·         Ignoring local dress codes and revelling too much flesh

·         Encouraging prostitution and unintentionally, crime

·         Eroding the local language by relying too much on English

·         Failing to behave in the proper way in churches, temples and mosques

 

Environmental impacts-

A list of negative impacts-

·         The clearance of important habitats, such as mangroves and rainforests, to provide building sites for hotels.

·         The overuse of water resources

·         The pollution of the sea, lakes, rivers by rubbish and sewage

·         The disturbance of wildlife by safari tourism, hunting and fishing

·         Traffic congestion, air and noise pollution