We all have a list of places that we want to visit sometimes in our life. Visit those places and get lost in their beauty. Hiking, diving, visiting the architectural beauties, we all have our lists.
I recently went on a trip myself and when I got back I thought about how exactly tourism affect a country or a place. Let’s look at the good, the bad and the ugly of tourism.
The number one way it affects a place would be by bringing in more money to its economy. Let’s say a person from France decides to visit Australia and spend some money there. This is going to help increase the spending and consumption of those living in Australia. Let’s say the tourist spends $20 on food. The restaurant that serves this makes some money. This money is further divided among the people who played a role in bringing you that dish. This money is split between the waiter, the cook, the manager, the person who supplied the ingredients and lastly the farmer who grew them.
Let’s look at it in another way. Suppose the value of money in circulation in that city is $10,000. A tourist visits the city and stays there for 3 days. Over those 3 days, she spends $200. This is an addition of $200 to the existing supply of $10,000 in circulation. This helps the locals of that city to earn money and in turn, spend it on their needs. And so, the money keeps changing hands and improves the consumption of the city.
Tourism is also one of the major sources of foreign exchange. According to McKinsey, as of 2019, the tourism industry made up 10% of the global GDP. Due to the pandemic, this has taken a hit.
With the rise of hustle culture and Wanderlust/YOLO culture, many youngsters are traveling frequently. This is also due to the rise of social media.
Tourism also helps in providing employment to the locals and improving the infrastructure of the place. Let’s say that a city witnesses a higher flow of tourists, this would mean more demand for the things available there. Let’s look at an example of a quick-service restaurant. The restaurant had expected 50 customers in a day, but due to a higher number of tourists, 100 customers arrive for food. This means that the restaurant would have to hire additional employees for keeping up with the demand and to reduce the order time.
With a higher number of people visiting the place, the government would have to improve the infrastructure to provide a better experience. This can also lead to more business opportunities. New hotels and businesses would pop up as a result of this. We will come back to this point later on.
More money flowing in into the economy leads to higher tax collections. The government is happy that its economy is making more money and can focus on utilizing the tax revenue for development. They can do this by building better roads, schools, and hospitals, improving transport facilities and so on.
Tourism and travel can lead to higher competition among businesses and this helps in providing a better experience to visitors. Let’s say there are 5 restaurants in a city. Each one has to perform well and try to stay ahead of the other to attract more customers. This also leads to innovation and developments in the industry.
Spending on souvenirs made by the locals also boosts their standard of living and consumption.
With the growth in the spending power of people from developing nations, they are ready to fly out to a different country. This means that people from a particular country who were earning lesser 10 years back compared to today have seen an improvement in their economy and the way they live.
Now let’s look at the not-so-good part of the industry.
Tourist places are full of scammers and fraudsters. A taxi ride may be priced higher than what would it cost a local. This is because of the gap in the information. A tourist may not know how much it costs to travel from point A to point B. This can be a bad experience for the person visiting the place.
Sometimes, the locals earn a commission by getting customers for another business. Let’s a city is famous for its treks and hikes. A person visiting the place searches for an instructor or a guide with a good rating and decides to go with that instructor. But a local who has ties with another instructor keeps pestering the visitor to go with the one he suggests. He gives a bad review about the one the tourist has looked up on the internet and forces him to go with the one he suggests. The local might make some commission but the person visiting would have a bad experience and relay the same to the people he knows.
Overcrowding and overpopulation are also impacting the beauty of a place negatively. With the global population increasing day by day, it leads to a higher number of visitors to a particular location, which is not sustainable. Let’s take Venice for example. With a local population of about 50,000 and the number of tourists being in the millions, it is hard to keep up with demand. This means, more people arrive at the same time causing the demand to go up and the supply to remain the same.
One of the reasons for overcrowding is cheaper airfare.
Let’s say, a tourist destination has only a capacity to handle 10,000 visitors a week. But instead, 15,000 people visit that place. This means 5000 more people are competing for the same set of goods and services. The hotels will not be able to accommodate such a crowd. Businesses like Airbnb, which can take advantage of such situations come up in these places. But the problem with that is that the locals are renting out their apartments and houses to tourists. There are chances that the group of tourists staying in that apartment play loud music at night and disturb the neighbors. This is a problem that is on the rise and the locals are protesting against this.
Due to Airbnb’s coming into the picture, the local rental and housing prices also go up as there would be a lesser number of places to stay in.
Some tourists decide to go on a world cruise. Now, these cruise ships carry a lot of people, who don’t stay in a city for a long time. They keep sailing every day or the other. In just a day, the tourist will choose to go to the most famous spot in that place. Imagine 3000 people sailing in a cruise ship all coming to the most famous spot all at once. It creates havoc.
The bad behavior of these tourists is also an area of concern. They may throw garbage on beaches and other natural spots which can damage the natural habitats of many plants and animals. A beach in Thailand was closed to visitors due to pollution and the garbage which was accumulated there. The Guardian reports that around 80% of the coral reefs around the bay were destroyed.
Remember, I mentioned earlier that a boom in tourism means new businesses come up. When the number of tourists increases in a place, the demand for a lot of things goes up. A giant hotel chain may decide to swoop in and build a hotel there. This means that now due to higher competition the locals will face a loss in their business. The problem caused by Airbnb that we saw earlier is also an example of this.
With the rise in social media and illogical trends, the younger generation can cause a lot of damage. An influencer may post a picture or story of himself swimming with a school of fish. A person following this influencer may not know that the influencer had fish food in his hand and that was the reason there were so many fishes around him. When the follower finally goes diving and sees this, he may think that this is normal and feed the fish. This leads to a dependence among the fish on the food that we give and impact them negatively.
There are many videos where people are trying to touch wild animals and get attacked or scare the animals.
Governments are now taking action against all these negative impacts and trying to bring things under control. But how successful will they be is yet to be seen?
These are the impacts of tourism. Tourists should respect and care for the local culture and the wild habitats. This can help sustain these destinations for future generations as well.
What do you think of tourism? Let me know in the comments below.
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