Tourism Costs and Benefits (2024)

Costs

Social Costs

• May attract visitors whose lifestyles and ideas conflict with thecommunity's. An example may be the visitors' use of drugs and alcohol.
• May change individual behaviour and family relationships.
• May lead to an increase in sexually transmitted diseases.
• Loss of traditional values and culture through imitation of visitorbehaviour or cultural diffusion resulting from normal, everyday interaction.
• May create crowding and congestion.
• May compete with residents for available services, facilities, and existingrecreation opportunities.
• May result in harassment of visitors perceived to be wealthy and an increasein crime.
• Can involve violations of human rights. People have been displaced fromtheir land and beaches have been reserved for hotel guests while access isbarred to local people.

Benefits

Social Benefits

• Brings in outside dollars to support community facilities and services thatotherwise might not be developed.
• Encourages civic involvement and pride.
• Provides cultural exchange between hosts and guests.
• Encourages the preservation and celebration of local festivals and culturalevents.
• Facilities and infrastructure developed for tourism can also benefitresidents.
• Encourages the learning of new languages and skills.
• Tourism related funds have contributed towards schools being built in someareas.

Environmental Benefits

• Fosters conservation and preservation of natural, cultural and historicalresources.
• Encourages community beautification and revitalization.
• Could be considered a clean industry.

Environmental Costs

• May threaten specific natural resources such as beaches and coral reefs orhistorical sites.
• May increase litter, noise, and pollution.
• Brings increased competition for limited resources such as water and land,resulting in land degradation, loss of wildlife habitats and deterioration ofscenery. Tourismseasonality
• Directly contributes to sewage and solid waste pollution.
• Emissions generated by forms of transport are one of the mainenvironmental problems of tourism.

Economic Benefits

• Helps diversify and stabilize the local economy.
• Provides governments with extra tax revenues
  each year through accommodation and restaurant taxes, airport taxes, salestaxes,
  park entrance fees, employee income tax etc..
• Creates local jobs and business opportunities. These include those jobsdirectly related to tourism (hotel and tour services) and those that indirectlysupport tourism (such as food production and housing construction).
• The multiplier effect:
  • Brings new money into the economy. Tourist money is returned to the localeconomy as it is spent over and over again.
  • Helps attract additional businesses and services to support the touristindustry.
    Touristmultiplier effect
• Is labour-intensive.
• Earns valuable foreign exchange.

Economic Costs

• Tourism development of infrastructure (airports, roads, etc.) can cost thelocal government a great deal of money.
• May inflate property values and prices of goods and services.
• Leakages:
  • If outside interests own the tourism development, most of the economicbenefits will leave the community.
  • Considerable amount of foreign exchange revenues leaks back out of thedestination countries for tourism-related imports.
    Touristmultiplier effect
• Employment tends to be seasonal. Workers may be laid off in the winterseason.
  Tourismseasonality
• Many jobs in the tourism industry are poorly paid. This is a particularproblem in LEDCs where the local workforce lack the skills to fill the betterpaid management positions.
• Tourist numbers can be adversely affected by events beyond the control ofthe destination e.g. terrorism, economic recession. This is a big problemin LEDC countries dependent on tourism.
  Tourismdependency
• Tourism follows a "product life cycle", with a final stage ofdecline, where the destination no longer offers new attractions for the tourist,and the quality has diminished with the rise of competition and touristsaturation.
  Tourismlife cycle model