The tourist industry does more harm than good.

[lenagraham]

Tourism is one of the most powerful tools we have for convincing governments to save nature. For example, if tourists did not travel to see wildlife in Botswana’s celebrated Okavango Delta - home to some of the largest remaining elephant herds – the Delta’s vast grasslands would have long ago been converted to cattle ranches. The same with Brazil’s Pantanal, the largest freshwater wetland on Earth – nearly half of it is protected today by ecotourism lodges and camps. The list goes on. Flying contributes about 4% of global carbon emissions – bad enough - compared with deforestation, which accounts for almost 20 percent of harmful C02, more than all forms of transportation combined. The issue is not to stop traveling, but how to get it right (which will also help prevent deforestation). And that is where sustainable tourism principles come in, defined by three key pillars: environmentally-friendly practices; support for the protection of cultural and natural heritage; and direct and tangible benefits to local people. The question is no longer does sustainable tourism work – hundreds of well documented case studies have revealed it does. Rather, the real question is how far can we take it to truly transform the travel and tourism industry for the better.

[hellofriend]

Recently, there is heated discussion about wether tourist industry is harm or good. In my opinion, i think tourist industry has more benifit than disadvantages. Firstly, tourist industry coould help a city to urge their economy in a positive way, for instanc, Brizil held the world cup in 2014 and the Olympic Game is 2016, so they need to build more public transportation systems and basic facilities for tourists. And by doing this, more and more industries could effect by the highly developed transportation system. It's like a chian reaction. Secondly, tourists industry help people from other countries to know and experience the culture better. If a get a trailer of China and put it on Youtube, people may intersted in travelling to China.

[brendi]

I don't know if my motorbike does good for the ecology. I have been riding it for five years and I planning to sell or rent it online to somebody. I have posted a free ad via this link and I hope to be getting offers very soon. Then I'll buy myself a Tesla car and do the Earth good.

[Marjorie]

You said, you wanted to do the earth good by not riding your bike? How can you really do the earth good when it is still on the road and being ridden by others? That doesn’t make sense, isn’t it?

[AndreaThais]

I think everyone has different opinion. The tourist industry wants to move the economy, bring some special offers to the people who wants to travel every year. Its not to bad if you have money, sometimes you can get a cheap tickets. I like to do tourism with my family. Is important to have memories and also we have fun. Sometimes people needs to disconnect of work and do something different. Look your point and if you think is good, try it! The tourism industry does not to bad at all.

Thais A. Santos
August 26, 2021.

[HammondBears]

I think it all depends. Some tourism, like ecotourism does a lot of good. It exposes tourists to different parts of the world, raises awareness of ecological problems, and helps underdeveloped countries. However some tourism hurts the environment and the countries where the tourism is taking place. An example is when big hotels overdevelop pristine beaches. Tourism can also bring crime.

[AlexandraMalina]

The way the tourist industry is conducted generally does more harm than good to nature.
Often the tourist industry is profit oriented, thus either demolishing nature or at least not preserving it. One example for this are the ski resorts in Switzerland/Austria/Bulgaria, destroying the flora and fauna in the region to create huge ski lanes and ski lifts. After destroying the natural landscape, the region is more prone to avalanches. Additionally the natural region around the mountains is destroyed by building huge hotels and infrastructure.

[LearningToLearn]

Sometimes tourist industry does harm while sometimes it does good. The impact depends on both - the mentality of the tourists and the economy of the country offering tourism. Sometimes, tourism is the sole means of bread and butter for the country’s economy and a dip in the tourism affects it badly. A recent example can be how Covid-19 pandemic affected tourism dependent countries like Maldives. On the other hand, sometimes tourism can cause harm too. An example of this can be when the tourists vandalize the visiting country and do not respect its culture.
Personally, I believe that as long as tourists are respectful to their hosts, they have a lot to learn - be it new culture, traditions, way of living or maybe even way of cooking food. There is always a lot to learn from each other!

[Mingzuo]

It is not always true. To know whether tourism is beneficial or not, we should evaluate the relative size of its social benefits and costs, which varies from case to case. Tourism can be a gift to people living in remote and impoverished areas. A notable case is China's Yellow Mountain, where residents at the mountain foot lived subsistence farming lives before developers arrived. However, with the development of tourism in this area, residents can earn tens of times more income than before by hosting tourists. However, tourism can also be a burden to a region. For example, when the property rights are not clear, tourism resources can be over-exploited, causing irreversible impacts on the ecology.

[Jaekyoung]

I don’t think so. I think the tourist industry has lots of good things.
Firstly, through development, people can easily go anywhere. And people who live in different countries can get a chance of experiencing other cultures. Understanding each culture is very important theses days.
Secondly, tourist industry contributes to local society benefits and convenience. For example, there are famous sunrise spot in my city. Through development, more and more people can visit.

[AlexandraMalina]

Nowaday, tourism is becoming one of the most viable business markets in the world. So, the tourist industry has both negative and positive but i think it brings more advantages than disadvantages. For example, the tourist industry encompasses many different areas, so it also creates jobs in many different areas. With tourism comes hotel, restaurants, tour companies, service station, souvenier shops, sports equipment rental, and much more. All of this creates many different levels of employment for people. Futhermore, it creates employment, brings about economic growth and development and earns a significant amount of foreign dollar for the economy.
Vu Thi Phuong Loan TA03-01.dnu

I disagree with you regarding your economic growth. These arguments were brought up in some smaller countries like Bulgaria. However, instead of a overall growth there were just a hand few people profiting from developing tourism and smaller enterprise owner failed after a few years. These had different reasons for example less experience than bigger company owners or smaller profit margins because of smaller size. Additionally other industries were abandonment resulting in a almost 100% percent need of imports, thus higher overall prizes and a worse economic situation than before.

[LearningToLearn]

The way the tourist industry is conducted generally does more harm than good to nature.
Often the tourist industry is profit oriented, thus either demolishing nature or at least not preserving it. One example for this are the ski resorts in Switzerland/Austria/Bulgaria, destroying the flora and fauna in the region to create huge ski lanes and ski lifts. After destroying the natural landscape, the region is more prone to avalanches. Additionally the natural region around the mountains is destroyed by building huge hotels and infrastructure.

That is a good point. However, usually countries have strict environment laws to make sure such destruction does not occur. I'm wondering if the tourism industry in the countries you mentioned somehow circumvented such laws?

[DaviBrons]

A very controversial statement. From an ecological point of view - tourism (and even eco-tourism) can cause damage to the environment with the risk of erosion, pollution, loss of natural habitat for animals and forest fires. Even if the majority of tourists behave responsibly, a certain number of them will behave in the opposite way.
But on the social side, everything is different. There are many cities in the world that live solely on tourism. Yes, dirty beaches, garbage in forests and reservoirs are really bad, but with the right approach, this can be dealt with. But in tourist cities, with the disappearance of tourists (due to Covid 19, we can observe such a picture), many people found themselves in a very difficult situation. Many businesses and establishments were forced to close. People were losing everything they had earned over the years. And this is not to mention the enormous losses suffered by travel companies and airlines.
So whether we like it or not, without tourism, many countries (especially coastal areas) simply cannot survive.

[Sujata]

Informative Thread! Thanks for sharing it!

[Murazik]

Travelling is useful for general outlook, but I also do not deny that transport and a huge number of people harm the nature. but everything has its pros and cons and it should be understood.