13.3. Trends of international tourism and Impacts Flashcards
Tourism
to travel away from home for at least one night for the purpose of leisure. (Note that this definition excludes day trippers or business trips)
Subgroups of Tourism
1) Ecotourism
2) Subtourism
3) Sustainable tourism
Ecotourism
tourism focusing on the natural environment and local communities
Heritage Tourism
tourism based on a historic legacy (landscape feature, historic building or event) as its major attraction
Sustainable Tourism
tourism that conserves primary tourist resources and supports the livelihoods and culture of local people
Changes in Demand for Tourism
Tourism figures since 1950:
- Grown from like 20 million tourist arrivals per year in 1950 to 1.4 billion tourist arrivals per year
- It is predicted that tourism levels will reach over 1.8 billion tourists per year in 2030
- Europe and Asia dominates tourist arrivals
- Africa, Middle East and America occupy smaller populations
Reasons for Growth of Tourism
- With economic development and growing upper and middle classes, so more disposable income (especially in LICs and MICs), more people can afford travel and go on holidays
- Increased tourism marketing so makes people aware of where tourism destinations are
- More budget airlines which makes it more affordable to travel and connect to many more airports and destinations
- With economic development, people have annual paid leave from companies
- There is now the internet, which makes booking and going on holidays much easier
- More tourist destinations built around the world (more amusement parks, more hotels)
- Grey baht or pound → people with high incomes who retire with pensions and live longer → can afford to travel so there are more elder travellers
- LICs and MICs are recognising the benefits of tourism so they built more tourist infrastructure like clean water, hospitals → allows more tourists to travel safely and easily to a much wider range of places
Tourism’s Key Trends
Responsible for:
- 1/10 of jobs around the world
- 7% of world’s exports
- 30% of services exports
- 10% of world’s GDP
- Has a real effect on many countries around the world
- Leads to economic growth
- Provides new jobs
- Can have massively damaging environmental impacts
- Can erode and destroy cultures
Patterns of Tourism globally
Majority of tourists go to Europe and Asia, because these are densely populated areas in the world with many countries so lots of domestic and international tourism (like UK → France)
Environmental Impacts of Tourism
1) Visual Pollution
2) Noise Pollution
3) Land and Sea Pollution
4) Air Pollution
Visual Pollution
Uncontrolled building of high-rise developments
Noise Pollution
- Increased road traffic
- Late night entertainment
Land and Sea Pollution
- Litter
- Money is often is spent cleaning streets and beaches early in the morning
Air Pollution
- Increases with the volume of road traffic
- Carbon footprint of travel associated with international tourism
- In 2002, the World Wildlife Fund estimated that holiday flights in one year from the UK to Cyprus emitted about 70000 tonnes of CO2, more than double the amount the tourist produced during the day
- From resorts:
- The travel foundation recommended resorts to reduce carbon footprints by:
- Doing anaerobic digestion of waste with methane recovery
- Optimisation of the use of bottled water
- Further encouragement of use of local food produce
Carrying Capacity
the number of tourists can exceed the number that the local area can cope with.
Economic Carrying Capacity
- This relates to a level of unacceptable change within the local economy of a tourist destination.
- It is the extent to which a tourist destination is able to accommodate tourist functions without the loss of local activities
- In resort areas with low rainfall, mass tourism places great demand on the water supply
Environmental Carrying Capacity
the maximum number of visitors before environmental harm is done.
- Footpath erosion
- Adverse effects on the ecology of flora and fauna
Perceptual Carrying Capacity
the maximum number of visitors before visitors consider an impact like noise to be excessive
Societal Impacts of Tourism
- Main effect is the distortion of culture
- The adoption of (generally) western dress, culture, modern values and language, resulting in the erosion of traditionally local culture
- Crime rates usually rise as tourism grows, which might be violent crime committed by tourists, alcohol and drugs or robbery committed by the local people linked to the great disparity in wealth between tourists and locals.
- DIsparity in the community may lead to prostitution
- On the positive side, tourism can increase the facilities available for local people and help develop language skills
Economic Impacts of Tourism
In some island states a very high percentage of GDP comes from tourism
1) Tourism can lead to a regional multiplier effect
- A new or expanding economic activity in a region that creates new employment and increases the amount of money circulating in the region. In turn, this attracts further economic development, creating more employment, services and wealth
2) Can also lead to economic leakage
- In other branches of economy, ownership may be in the hands of TNCs so profits may go abroad and there is the possibility of tax losses
- Employment foreign staff will lead to leakages in the form of remittances
3) Rise in inequality
- Tourism may drive up the costs of everyday goods making it difficult for low-paid workers
- Tourism sector pays low
Over-dependent countries on tourism may be adversely affected by falls in demand due to:
1) Terrorism - Terrorist attacks or fear of attacks reduce demand in tourism
2) Natural disasters - Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and floods
3) Health scares - SARs breakout or Covid-19 pandemic this year
4) Exchange rate fluctuations - High value of US dollar made it way cheaper to travel to Europe
5) Political instability
6) Change in fashion
7) Other locations may become more fashionable
Problems if a destination exceeds its carrying capacity:
- Inflation
- Tensions between locals and tourists
- Deforestation
- Congestion
- Water pollution from increased waste
- Water shortages from increased demand
- Air pollution from increased cars and flights
- Footpath erosion
- Damage to archaeological sites
- Power black-outs
- Visual and noise pollution
- Disturbance of wildlife
- Reduction in visitor numbers
