Chapter 2

• Globalisation causing growth in international tourism:

  • People can search and buy for tourism related services more easily
  • Greater competition to provide value for money travel experience -> more affordable travel options
  • New online media makes it easier to gain new ideas for places to go to -> increased motivation to travel
  • Destination becomes more connected due to advancement in transport -> place more accessible
  • More direct flights increasing mobility
• Tourist generating and destinatig regions becoming more diverse

  • Developing countries such as China and Malaysia are becoming increasingly popular among tourist
  • Most tourist come from developed countries like the US but more are coming from rapidly developing countries like china and india
• Increased popularity of lesser know destinations:

  • Tourist seek new destinations to fulfil their needs of unique travel experience
  • Often, these destinations are not previously popular or easily accessible
  • Globalisation caused greater flow of information that entice people to visit remote travel destinations
  • Transportation advancements such as new modes of transport and expansion of transport infrastructure makes travelling more accessible

  Example: Antarctica

  • Fulfills need of unique travel experiences
  • Increased availability of cruise services makes it more convenient to travel there
• Visiting second cites:

  • Globalisation entices people to visit Second cities for unique travel experiences
  • This avoids exceeding carrying capacity of traditional tourist site allowing the environment to recover
  • Tourist also enjoy lower travel course

  Examples:

  • People visit Manchester UK instead of London
• Adventure tourism:

  • Travel for natural environment and challenging physical activites
  • Seek personal growth and self fulfilment
  • Mainly visit places of natural beauties to enjoy scenic views and carry out physical challenging activities

  Example: Climbing Mount Everest
• Heritage tourism:

  • Visit to experience culture and history
  • Fulfil need for unique travel experience and understand rich and diverse global cutures
  • Visits places with rich history and culture and sites with UNESCO World Heritage site status

  Example: Machu Picchu Peru that has unique history and culture in its ancient cities
• Sports tourism:

  • Observe or participate in sporting events
  • Participate to achieve personal growth and self fulfilment
  • Observe to seek enjoyment and escape from stressful work
  • Visit locations where sporting evens are held
  • Places visited often equipped with sporting facilities

  Example: Football fans visit Manchester to watch their favourite team play during the English Premier League
• Health tourism:

  • Seek medical care or activities to enhance metal, physical or spiritual wellness
  • Seek medical procedures as it is either cheaper, not available in their home country or has a shorter waiting time
  • Allows tourist to feel sense of self fulfilment
  • Tourist participate in activities that help them relax such as yoga

  Examples:

  • People visit Bali for its wellness resorts
  • People visit South Korea for cosmetic procedures
• Mass market tour opperators:

  • Supply tour packages for large groups of people
  • Includes other tourism services such as transport
  • Offers cheap prices due to opperators mass buying tour packages
  • Reduce hassle of booking different tourism services
  • Tour opperators have knowlege and is able to provide help when needed

  Example:

  Klook provides large variety of tours to many destinations for Singaporeans
• Specialist tour operators:

  • Provide tours for niche travel
  • Specialise in specific destinations that mass market tour operators do not offer
  • Not as widely purchased
  • Tour operators experts in such experiences and can give advice and recommendation to tourist
  • Is becoming more popular
  • Can be customised as it targets a smaller group

  Example

  • Quark Expeditions offers tours to Arctic and Antarctica and offers activities such as sea kayaking and iceberg cruising
• Marketing:

  • Traditionally marketed through traditional print and broadcast media (TV and newspaper)
  • Now, these are being replaced by new online media
  • Tourism businesses resorted to online advertisments

  Examples:

  • 70% of tourist use internet to research and plan their trips
  • Klook promotes itself on multiple social media platforms
• Increased employment oppertunity due to tourism:

  • Tourism is labour intensive and creates large number and wide range of jobs for people of varying skill
  • Able to reduce national unemployment

  Example:

  • Tourism acconted for 330 million formal jobs, representing 10% of global workforce in 2019
  • Between 2015 and 2019, 25% of all new jobs are created by tourism
• Income generation due to tourism:

  • Tourist spend money increasing income for locals and government
  • Money can be used to improve infrastructure and pay for education and healthcare, increasing the standard of living
  • Tourism can alleviate poverty as it transfer wealth from wealthy regions to poorer regions

  Example:

  • In 1980s Maldives was one of the poorest countries
  • Due to tourism, its economy has grown and theres low poverty rates
• Economic leakage:

  • Revenue generated is lost to economy of other country
  • May be due to tourist businesses having to pay to import goods and services from other countries to support their business
  • Government receives less revenue to improve the country.
  • Can be so severe that it wipes out economic benefits from tourism

  Example:

  • According to United Nations Environmental Programme, for every 100USD spent, only 5USD remains in tourist destination region
• Overdependence on tourism:

  • Country overdependent on tourism for imcome and employment may cause it to be vulnerable to sudden falls in tourism numbers
  • This may be due to unforseen circumstances such as natural diseasters, unfavourable political situations and economic downturn

  Example:

  • Maldives is highly dependent on tourism suffered a 4% drop in tourism arrival in 2009 due to global ecoomic crisis
• Unexpected event: Natural disasters

  • Disasters such as earthquakes can cause significant damage to infrastructure
  • This may cause people to fear for their safety and postpone or cancel their trip

  Example:

  • Hurricans struct the Caribbean islands in 2017
  • 95% of the buildings were destroyed
  • Caused a decrease in 1 million tourist arrivals and loss of 700 million USD
• Unpredictable events: Unfavourable political tourist situation

  • Causes riots and protests, leading to closure of hotels and tourist attractions
  • People fear for their safety and may postpone and cancel their travel plans
  • Government may close off affected area or discourage travelling to affected areas, reducing number of tourist arrivals

  Example:

  • In 2020 there were protests in Thailand against military rule
  • Several countries issued travel advisory dissuading citizens from visiting Thailand
  • This thus reduced tourist arrivals
• Unpredictable events: Economic downturn

  • Economies of country negatively affected
  • Companies attempt to cut jobs or have pay cuts
  • People have less disposable income and thus may choose to not travel to save money

  Example:

  • Maldives which is highly dependent on tourism suffered a drop of 4% in tourism numbers during the 2009 economic crisis
• Unpredictable events: Outbreak of diseases

  • People may postpone or cancel their trips for fear of their safety
  • Countries close off affected area or issue travel advisory to discourage traveling to affected area

  Example:

  • Covid pandemic infected 205 million people and killed 4 million
  • Countries went into lockdown and tourist arrival fell by > 65% in 2020
  • Tourism arrival to the Maldives in 2020 decreased to 1/3 of the arrivals in 2019
• Social impact: Cultural preservation

  • Tourist keen to visit places rich in culture and heritage, revenue generated provides incentive to protect traditional culture
  • Planning authorities may invest more money to encourage traditional practises
  • This enhances preservation efforts and builds local’s sense of belonging, ensuring the passing down of cultural practises

  Example:

  • Shadow puppetry is an important art form as it passes down history and traditions
  • Innovations such as using VR to watch the show revitalised the art form when tourist showed interest in the art form
• Social impact: enhancing cultural ecosystem services

  • Protecting environment provides tourist with aesthetic, educational, recreational and spiritual benefits

  Example: SanJiangYuan National park, China

  • Tourist drawn by rare sighting of snow leopards
  • Tourist can stay with local family under community based tourism
  • Allows people to enjoy scenery of park and learn about conservation efforts for snow leopards
  • Provides space for recreational activities
  • Allows buddhist locals to connect spiritually to mountain and snow leopards sacred to them
• Commodification of culture:

  • Demand for heritage tourism increases, traditions may be commodified and lose its authenticity
  • This weakens the cultural value and causes conflict among locals (守旧 VS 赚钱)
  • Rituals may be exaggerated and art forms may be mass produced

  Example: Kenya

  • Many national parks have traditional homes of the African tribe Maasai
  • Tour companies may bring tourist to such places for tourist to interact with locals
  • However, events in the interaction are highly exaggerated and are not meaningful, tourist may not be sastisfied with such experience
• Cultural clashes:

  • Tourist do not respect local norms such as religious customs and traditions, locals have negative sentiment against tourist
  • Tourist also cause congestion and pollution to environment
  • Locals feel tourism threaten their sense of identity and increase their cost of living

  Example: Hawaii, USA

  • Locals did not wish for tourist to return after covid as tourist do not respect their culture and do not follow safety guidelines
• Rise in crime:

  • Tourist are lucrative target for pickpockets as they carry large sums of cash and other valuables
  • Tourist are relaxed and may be targetted due to negative sentiments against them
  • Rise in crime rate makes locals feel less safe

  Example: Spain 2017

  • Tour bus attacked by anti tourist protestors
  • Tyres were punctured and bus had anti tourism graffiti on it
• Interaction between locals and tourist affecting tourism

  • Tourist often in position of power and locals have to accommodate for them
  • Greater the difference in power, the more likely that negative social impacts would occur
  • Negative social impacts are more felt by locals, but locals might still depend on tourism and would be disadvantage if tourist stopped visiting

  Example：Thailand's long neck women

  • Tourist have to pay to enter but will take pictures without permission
  • Some are happy to wear but other feel exploited but they have no choice since they need the money
• Environmental effect: Conservation of natural environments

  • Want to maintain environment to attract tourist
  • Revenue generated can be used to fund protection of ecosystem by establishing protected areas, employing and training specialised staff and setting up education programmes

  Example: Galapagos National park, Ecuador

  • Charges $100 as entrance fee
  • Revenue used for conservation and upkeep of park such as hiring park rangers
• Environmental impact: Restoration of degraded ecosystems

  • Motivated to create new attractions to attract tourist
  • Can stop and reverse degradation through reforestation

  Example: Mauritius and Seychelles

  • Coral reefs are damaged by overfishing and unsustainable fishing practises, lowering locals' livelihoods
  • Regional project set up by UN development fund to restore coral reef ecosystem
• Pollution: Greenhouse emissions

  • Travelling causes large amounts of fuel to be burnt
  • Air conditioned accommodation also contributes to large amts of greenhouse gas emitted
  • Gases such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides causes respiratory illnesses
  • Air pollution can circulate over large areas, affecting a lot of people
• Pollution: improper waste disposal

  • No proper waste disposal = littering, causing environmental degradation and land and water pollution

  Example: People leave trash on mount everest when climbing

  • Accommodations may lack proper sewage system
  • Untreated sewage gets released into the water, causing water pollution

  Example: Boracy Islands, Philippines

  • 200 local accommodations not connected to sewage line
  • Sewage dumped directly in sea, causing degradation in water quality
• Depletion in natural resources:

  • Overuse in natural resources causing negative impacts like doughts harming people and ecosystems

  Example: Bali, Indonesia

  • 3 million litres of water drawn everyday from public water supply
  • Rivers drying up, less water for locals and other species
  • Water prices increase, agriculture less profitable, less income for farmers
• Threat to wildlife habitats:

  • Construction of tourist facilities encroach on natural areas
  • Tourist may also trample or make too much noise

  Example: Maldives

  • Building of large scale facilities threatening costal environment
  • Rock and sand dumped into sea, suffocating coral
  • Big coral observed to be lacking near resorts, animals dependent on coral lose habitat and source of food