Socio-Cultural Impact of Tourism

Tourism has become a commercial business, which has obvious benefits to the said economy, the environment and society. Often, the positive economic impacts persuade governments, companies and individuals to get involved with the development of tourism. Tourism creates jobs, both

Tourism has taken a toll on many Native Hawaiians and is a huge human rights issue today. Most Hawaiians dislike tourism greatly due to the selfishness and greediness tourists bring to their home country. The pastor at a small rural church on the island of Kauai, Reverend Kaleo Patterson, has witnessed and dealt with numerous Hawaiians who struggle with the issues of tourism. Numerous vacation resorts that attract tourists have taken over gravesites of Hawaiians that have passed away. Due to this problem ancient Hawaiians have to partake in reburials. Tourism causes destruction to coral reefs and rivers because of mindless pollution. Reverend Patterson has protested and given public hearings in effort to acknowledge her fury on tourism. Tourism has brought an uncontrollable worldwide business that has no sympathy or thoughtfulness for the original people of Hawaii.

Making tourism more sustainable is not just about controlling and managing the negative impacts of the industry. Tourism is in a very special position to benefit local communities, economically and socially, and to raise awareness and support for conservation of the environment.

Tourism plays a significant role in sustainable development and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Tourism Organization (WTO) wish to encourage all countries to make sure that their policies and actions for its development and management fully embrace the principles of sustainability. Likewise, policies to promote sustainable development should take full account of the opportunities offered by tourism. Various international conventions and declarations have put forward principles and guidelines for sustainable tourism and the importance of tourism and its sustainability was underlined at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. Many countries declare that they are pursuing, or wish to pursue, policies for ‘sustainable tourism’. Despite this interest, there remains a degree of uncertainty over the scope and priorities for making tourism more sustainable and only partial appreciation of how to put this into practice (Making Tourism More Sustainable, 2005).

The social and cultural processes are also significantly impacted. Tourism has helped develop and keep up the unique culture of the island, it has helped revive artistic traditions, and has provided an economic justification for preserving them. But tourism has also led to importantly behavioural impacts, for example; nude sunbathing by tourist is widely disliked by the locals, as well as that lack of respect is shown by tourists in scared places such as temples. Another negative impact is the social development of Bali. There are constant conflicts between local villagers and developers who want the land for hotels and attractions like golf courses. These social impacts have led to a loss in culture and heritage. Another significant impact is the turning of Balinese culture into a commodity. The major influx of tourists has plagued Bali’s culture. Dances, ceremonies and arts and crafts are all now adapted to tourists timetables and tastes, and are mass produced to reduce cost. Also because more people are choosing to work in the tourism industry, this has meant that fewer are available doe traditional ceremonies and communal tasks, placing more pressure on traditional community organisations.

     Tourism also has its costs/down-sides. One of the social costs to the community because of tourism is that it may attract visitors whose lifestyles and ideas may conflict with the community’s (which commonly happens throughout the world, a good example of this can be seen in the settling of North America, and the effect it had on the Native Americans). Tourism could also lead to the overloading of porters which would lead to health problems. A loss of traditional values and culture is a possible outcome as well, through imitation of visitor behavior or

The problematic nature of cultural tourism is a topic that is heavily debated in multiple academic disciplines. Anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics all have extensive theories about the consequences cultural tourism has on the cultures being exploited by the tourism industry. Further examination of cultural tourism has turned the focus onto the tourists themselves and questioned the validity of their gaze as they are the ones consuming the culture through the witnessing of particular “displays of culture.” These displays could be in the form of community life, food, historical sites, and museums, but arguably the most popular displays of culture tourists consume are the performative aspects of said culture. Including but not exclusive to displays of dance, theatre, and song, tourists see performance as an accessible gateway into a culture. When considering the identity of a spectator in any situation, drama theory is a useful tool in deconstructing the complicated role a spectator has, however, when the situation being viewed is inherently performative, the spectator’s role becomes even more complex. In the use of the term ‘inherently performative,’ one is not limited in analyzing merely performances that are created for spectacle. The function of performance can be regarded as entertainment, political commentary, or in the case of this essay, religious worship.

Tourism has greatly increased over the years and has brought people of different cultures closer. There are many places to go explore and learn about how other live in different countries. Tourism has allowed travelers to the world around them, however the impacts from tourism on the host country are not known by many of the travelers. Some of these impacts from tourism can be negatively affecting the host country and those travelers who do not educate themselves on where they are going are most likely contributing to the negative impact. The Kayan people are one of the societies that are greatly affected by the tourism that comes to their village. The women are the main attraction of the village due to the rings that they wear around

Britain has been over the news due to the British exit the European Union, which this event is known as Brexit (Hunt, 2016). This decision brought a large impact on every country in Britain, but the Britain has not started negotiate with European Union about adapting regulations to minimize their negative consequences. Before people can list potential impacts of Brexit on Britain’s tourism, it is important for people to understand how well the Britain was doing in the tourism industry. In addition, it is important to analyze and understand what type of tourism impacts on Britain. So, people would know how Brexit will change its policy and what impacts will bring to their current life. It will provide an idea of how the changes of regulations will impact different countries and the region. Thus, it provides an understanding of how tourism helps to develop the Britain in terms of environmental impacts, socio-cultural impacts, and economic impacts.

The current research paper covers the main effects of global tourism, both positive and negative. International tourism is a significant sector of business. For some countries it is one of the main sources of national income. The most important positive economic effects of tourism are as follows: increase in budget revenues, production expansion, stimulation of investments, and improvement in the population’s welfare. Tourism influences social and cultural lives of people in a positive way by stimulating the development and revival of local cultures and encouraging intercultural exchange.

From an environmental perspective, it is apparent that the world is starting to realise that increases in tourism are having a negative impact on the environment. This is due to increases in energy consumption, which in turn heightens the effects of global warming (Neto, 2002). There are many controls that governments are trying to put into place, such as flight rationing (Liverpool Business School, 2009). However, it can be argued that these have not really begun to have a significant effect on tourism, as they are still insufficient to dampen demand. It may become a problem in future years, as the number of controls is likely to increase. Perhaps the largest environmental factor would be natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina (Cashell, 2005) and the tsunami that hit Asia in December 2004 (Birkland, 2006). These will impact negatively on people’s confidence in visiting places that have been hit severely by such disasters.

However, some studies indicate that tourists might have cultural, social, economic and environmental impacts on the local residents. In fact, these recent studies have awakened

At last, the ecological element is also important when investigating the business environment and the CSR has gradually ended up coordinated in numerous associations' business goals. For a hotel industry to be socially, dependable it must finish numerous approaches, for example, submitting to the energy consumption laws, lessening carbon footprint, and connecting with the local community. Then again, the natural disaster has turned out to be incessant. Subsequently, numerous destination spots are intensely influenced and sustainable tourism must be practiced to save natural resources (Levonsky & Conley, 2004).

The Travel and Tourism industry is still one of the largest single businesses in world commerce and its importance is widely recognized. The tourism industry is now one of the largest sectors earning foreign exchange. In the face of many benefits, many countries have started assigning due weight age to the tourism industry in their national development agenda. Tourism is an industry that operates on a massively broad scale: it embraces activities ranging from the smallest sea-side hotel; to air-lines, multi-national hotel chains and major international tour operators. Originally, non-traditional industries such as tourism emerged as a solution to strike a balance between ecology and industry

Planning and development are both extremely important factors within the tourism industry and can have both positive and negative effects on the environment, local communities and tourist destinations. “Destination planning aims to limit the negative impacts of cultural tourism upon the history and lifestyles of the local community. An understanding of sustainable tourist development allows for the development of culture without loss of its authentic identity” (Maidment. T. 2012). This statement discusses the importance of planning to avoid having any negative impacts on environments and communities. Because the effects of tourism are so severe to destinations, many natural and cultural resources have been destroyed, therefore tourism planning is vital to preserve and maintain these places for future generations.