Tourism

• Tourist attractions are places that attract tourists, such as historical sites or natural wonders.
• The tourism industry is the economic sector focused on providing services to travelers.
• Travel agencies assist with planning trips by offering advice, booking accommodations, transportation, tours, and activities.
• A tourist destination is any place visited by tourists.
• Transportation includes various modes of transport used during travel, including airplanes, trains, buses, cars, boats, bicycles, and walking.
• Environmental impacts of tourism occur when the level of visitor use is greater than the environment's ability to cope with this use within the acceptable limits of change.
• Uncontrolled conventional tourism poses potential threats to many natural areas around the world.
• Changes to the landscape from tourism can include changes to vegetation, soil erosion, and changes to the water table.
• Environmental impacts of tourism include pollution, waste, and changes to the landscape.
• Waste from tourism can include wastewater, solid waste, and hazardous waste.
• Pollution from tourism can include air pollution, water pollution, and noise pollution.
• Conventional tourism can put enormous pressure on an area and lead to impacts such as soil erosion, increased pollution, discharges into the sea, natural habitat loss, increased pressure on endangered species and heightened vulnerability to forest fires.
• Tourism development can put pressure on natural resources when it increases consumption in areas where resources are already scarce.
• Water, and especially fresh water, is one of the most critical natural resources.
• The tourism industry generally overuses water resources for hotels, swimming pools, golf courses and personal use of water by tourists.
• Golf course maintenance can deplete fresh water resources.
• Golf tourism has increased in popularity and the number of golf courses has grown rapidly.
• An average golf course in a tropical country such as Thailand needs 1500kg of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides per year and uses as much water as 60,000 rural villagers.
• Tourism can create great pressure on local resources like energy, food, and other raw materials that may already be in short supply.
• Increased construction of tourism and recreational facilities has increased the pressure on these resources and on scenic landscapes.
• Direct impact on natural resources, both renewable and nonrenewable, in the provision of tourist facilities can be caused by the use of land for accommodation and other infrastructure provision, and the use of building materials.
• Forests often suffer negative impacts of tourism in the form of deforestation caused by fuel wood collection and land clearing.
• One trekking tourist in Nepal, an area already suffering the effects of deforestation, can use four to five kilograms of wood a day.
• On average, passengers on a cruise ship each account for 3.5 kilograms of garbage daily - compared with the 0.8 kilograms each generated by the less well-endowed folk on shore.
• Air pollution from tourist transportation can contribute to severe local air pollution.
• Tourists on expedition leave behind their garbage, oxygen cylinders and even camping equipment, degrading the environment with all the detritus typical of the developed world, in remote areas that have few garbage collection or disposal facilities.
• The average cruise ship carries 600 crew members and 1,400 passengers.
• In areas with high concentrations of tourist activities and appealing natural attractions, waste disposal is a serious problem and improper disposal can be a major despoiler of the natural environment - rivers, scenic areas, and roadsides.
• Cruise ships in the Caribbean are estimated to produce more than 70,000 tons of waste each year.
• Air pollution and noise from transportation, especially tourist transportation, contribute to global warming, acid rain, and photochemical pollution.
• Noise pollution from airplanes, cars, and buses, as well as recreational vehicles such as snowmobiles and jet skis, is an ever-growing problem of modern life.
• Solid waste and littering can degrade the physical appearance of the water and shoreline and cause the death of marine animals.
• The Wider Caribbean Region, stretching from Florida to French Guiana, receives 63,000 port calls from ships each year, and they generate 82,000 tons of garbage.
• About 77% of all ship waste comes from cruise vessels.
• Some trails in the Peruvian Andes and in Nepal frequently visited by tourists have been nicknamed "Coca-Cola trail" and "Toilet paper trail".
• Some cruise lines are actively working to reduce waste-related impacts.
• Tourism can cause the same forms of pollution as any other industry: air emissions, noise, solid waste and littering, releases of sewage, oil and chemicals, even architectural/visual pollution.
• In the Philippines and the Maldives, dynamiting and mining of coral for resort building materials has damaged fragile coral reefs and depleted the fisheries that sustain local people and attract tourists.
• Development of marinas and breakwaters can cause changes in currents and coastlines.
• Overbuilding and extensive paving of shorelines can result in destruction of habitats and disruption of land-sea connections (such as sea-turtle nesting spots).