Impact of Tourism on Destinations and Host Communities

“The tourism industry is a diverse and fully-integrated global business which brings a series of positive and negative impacts to destinations and host communities.”

Tourism is a global industry, which grows every day more and more, however it brings a series of negative and positive impacts to the tourist countries as well as to the communities or residents. To put it another way, the fastest growing industry worldwide is tourism and leads to an important source of income for many countries. Tourism works thanks to people and for this reason this industry provides many position jobs, which have helped to revitalize local economies. (Fennell, 2017). According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO, 1994), “tourism it includes the activities that people carry out during their trips and stays in places different from their usual environment, for a period of consecutive time less than a year, for entertainment purposes, for business and others’’. In addition, sustainable tourism reflects the social, cultural, economic, environmental and current environmental impacts to help with the needs of people, the environment, wildlife and tourism. Thanks to the diversity of relationships implicit in tourism activity, sustainable tourism has the capacity to act as a motor of change in the world, benefiting the fight against causes such as hunger, peace and security (Mowforth and Munt, n.d.). As reported by Sharpley (2002), In the nineteenth century was born what is called tourism, with the arrival of the industrial revolution, the first trips arose for business, culture, leisure and other reasons arose. These movements are characterized by the purpose of other types of travel motivated by wars, migratory movements, conquest, trade, among others. Since ancient times, travel has already taken place for many different reasons. At the beginning of the existence of man, people and animals migrated due to the seasons, since then tourism began to evolve. “One thing that is known with certainty is that as civilizations were established and spread geographically, travel became a necessity.” (Jansen-Verbeke, M) pp.79-100. Sharpley (2002), affirms that Great Britain has a very important role in the tourism industry and its evolution as helping create the resort-based tourism, within spa and seaside. Furthermore, Thomas Cook, corresponds to a major British tour operator that provides millions of visitors to different cities around the world. It is named after its founder and works since the mid-nineteenth century. On July 5, 1841, Thomas Cook made the first trip organized in history, having the idea of ​​integrating people with alcohol addiction into society. Thomas’s motive was that of a congress against alcoholism and thus transferred 500 people on a train from Harborough to Leicester, England. Another important fact is that tourism can be defined as essential for the life of nations because of its direct effects on the educational, social, cultural and economic sectors of international societies and their national relations. That is why its participation in globalization is an important and impressive sector. Moreover, tourism by its nature is one of the most vulnerable activities in the face of globalization, that is, it can easily capture its positive or negative impacts (Asian entrepreneur, 2019).

In recent times, there has been widespread concern among certain social sectors for the sustainability of a tourism that has become mass, and that has a high economic, social and environmental influence in cities, towns and the natural environment. Regardless of the debate surrounding the beneficial or harmful impact, the truth is that the sector has shifted since the advent of low-cost tourism and social networks. It has reached the point where it must be analysed whether tourism has become a new consumer product, beyond the personal experience that has predominantly represented so far (Fischer, 2014). Kettle (2019), believes that human beings are an infestation for the planet. Nowadays many cities are demonstrating against tourists, measures are being taken to limit mass tourism. Venezia is one of the cities most affected by mass tourism, because of this Venezia has lost more population than the reason of the plague. Similarly, the impacts of mass tourism are repeated in almost all countries, especially in the most visited European cities such as Barcelona where there have been many protests since the cost of living has increased. On the other hand, tourism is the industry that employs the most people to work in the world and for this reason, few governments want to oppress that source of income. The writer Elizabeth Becker argued that the only ones that can handle or solve the problems of mass tourism are governments. Governments are the only ones that could avoid the misuse of hotels, help the local population and use taxes. The ideal would be for governments to find some effective way to solve the problems of mass tourism (Usborne, 2019). It usually focuses on the good impacts that the industry leaves on the economy, but in turn this does not occur with sociocultural impacts since the negative side of these is usually analysed. However, tourism can also have very positive benefits since it encourages contact with other people from different communities or vice versa. Kozak, (2011) stated that the positive socio-cultural impacts are many, such as the improvement in medicine and health care, other examples are the arrangements and cleaning of the streets and also improve the lighting, thanks to this a better life is created for the residents. With the help of tourism, the culture and traditions of the residents can be preserved or stimulated interest. The exposure of culture to other groups can lead to the adaptation of artistic traditions through the modification of the original art, which could also maintain and revive the original traditions. Tourism helps with the conservation and rehabilitation of monuments, historical places and the revitalization of local customs: crafts, festivals, gastronomy, etc. As can be seen, there are many positive social impacts that the tourism industry can offer, the opportunity to change cultures around the world is magnificent, since it is one of the unique experiences where understanding and respect for people of different culture. By contrast, there are also many negative sociocultural impacts, such as the emergence of great luxury ghettos in poor or low-class places, the best qualified jobs are being occupied by foreign workers, wages are being much lower for local workers, etc. For countries that are developing, tourism is the new form of colonialism that is based on the dependence on foreign money. In many places, because of this, the delinquency has increased. prostitution, terrorism and many conflicts caused by the use of drugs. Many times, tourists are considered as elements through which they can do business and obtain publicity (as, for example, in the case of terrorism). Importantly, as reported by Fletcher et. Al (2018), The tourism industry impacts the environment, with positive and negative effects. The environment that surrounds the living beings is fundamental as a product of tourism. That is to say, the environment is constantly changing or modified to facilitate tourism. There are many negative impacts caused by tourism on different elements of the environment, such as the indiscriminate felling of trees, on the one hand the massive ones for construction, or also the excessive accumulation of garbage, besides being a negative visual impact, and altering other elements of nature, generating alterations in vegetation. Many studies mention water pollution and its quality as a problem in the sea, especially for the hierarchy of them. The main pollution problems are the pathogens of inadequately treated wastewater that is thrown on rives, beaches and lakes and in which tourism contributes through the discharges of tourism infrastructure. The presence of oil derivatives, by the use of recreational vehicles, or spills of ships or cruises in ports, has decreased oxygen and altered the colour of the waters. Even so there are many more negative impacts, however, there are also positive environmental impacts, the care and restoration of monuments and historic sites such as the Great Wall of China, he creation of decent communication routes, allowing access to numerous population centres until then virtually isolated. The care of natural areas and their own valuation as a resource. What’s more, on the economic tourism impact Wttc.org, (2019) reported that, tourism and travel accounted for almost 10% of world GDP, having a growth of 3.1% over 2014 data. This percentage makes it one of the sectors economic growth in the world and is the sixth consecutive year that grows. The tourism sector generates more than 284 million jobs. Likewise, tourism earned 1340 billion US $ worldwide in 2017 (+5% growth). On the other hand, A problem with employability and the tourism industry is that in a season in any tourism sector there is a strong position job are creating for people who want to obtain resources but the problem is that these type of jobs are only or usually temporary and when the season ends owners who offer the service are forced in some way to fire their workers because there is not much tourist to attend; this issue could classify as a negative economic impact of tourism. A curious fact is the growth of the holidays with everything included. McVeigh (2019), stated that trips where everything is paid and anticipated in advance is increasing more and more, as there is more demand. The United Kingdom charity organization called Tourism concern, reported that this trend is affecting the local population as many of them depend on tourism to survive. To add information, the organization that researches hotels around the world, founded hotel workers in Barbados in poor working conditions where the employees were subjected to many hours of work. To give an illustration, Mark Watson believes that the “all-inclusive” industry is ruining other businesses, since local residents are not benefiting, this is because the insurance contracted by tourists does not cover when going outside the hotel grounds, in summary, these tourists usually pay simply to be seated and relaxed in front of the sea on a sunny day. According to BBC (2019), for everything to be as sustainable as possible, it must be the need to seek and create a way to empower local residents in order to residents are the ones who suffer the most with the tourism industry and the all-inclusive, should be imposed rules and incentives that help with commercial partnerships with local entrepreneurs. At the end of everything, it can be observed that tourism impacts the whole world in different ways, the economic impacts of tourism are important but at the same time it has disadvantages, on the one hand it offers a great source of income and with this helps many economies growing tourist areas. But on the contrary, the jobs that are created in the area of ​​tourism are usually for a limited time and this can harm many people who only work in tourism and will have to take into account other sources to generate resources to be able to survive. Another interesting fact that Holmes (2019) affirms is that Thailand is a country that suffers a lot from massive tourism, for that reason the Thai authorities have decreed the closure to the tourism the island of Koh Tachai, to protect the corals, the flora and the fauna of one of the favourite destinations for diving in Thailand, this island has been visited by too many tourists, where the ecology and corals have been destroyed. It is believed that with the closure of the island for an indefinite time will help to conserve the fauna of this. for more information, an interesting fact is that of the new trend that is already working currently on the Internet and that we cannot ignore since it is directly

related to the travel industry. It is the phenomenon of “couchsurfing” (surfing sofas), which is presented as an innovative way to find accommodation for our vacations. The

“couchsurfing” is a web application through which people offer their home as accommodation to other people and on the other hand people seek accommodation.

(Sany, N. 2014).

This study analysed the perception of the environmental, political, social, economic and cultural impacts of the tourism phenomenon. Finally, as tourism highlights the value of a culture Instead, the boost of tourism helps visitors to a region they can appreciate the diverse cultural expressions and generate wealth for those who investigate and conserve the cultural heritage, motivating the new generations of the place to appropriate of their traditions and values ​​and learn the practice of respect for other ways of seeing the world To finish, it is known that the planet has much to offer. It would be a pity if everything collapses because at the time people did not give importance. It is the duty of all human beings to leave the places that are visited as if no one had passed by. The only thing that should be left are wonderful memories for having established relationships with the local community. These places must be there for more people to visit them and to know the wonders of the world, as well as to experience different cultures and communities. Summing up all this study, tourism is an industry that has quickly become the most competitive in the world, there is a great concentration of tourist wealth. Tourism offers great benefits to tourist places and due to globalization, tourism is available to almost everyone. It is understood that to avoid the negative impacts of tourism education to tourists is necessary, a good method would be to give brochures or posters that indicate what can and what cannot be done. To avoid all these impacts requires more awareness on the part of both parties, the local population and visitors or tourists; as well as a greater publicity of prevention on the part of the organisms. Mass media such as the Internet or television are a great example of communication channels of indefinite arrival, that is to say, who exactly arrives is unknow, where it can be disseminate not only the social impacts but any type of impact that the tourism, as well as economic, environmental and cultural impacts.

REFERENCES

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