DEFINITION
- Overtourism is the potential pollution or overcrowding by visitors, which contributes to local variations.
One good thing is to only take photographs and leave your footprints when you visit a new area particularly locations of wonders of the world which are endangered and at risk.
Positive impacts of tourism in your specific destinations
ECONOMIC IMPACTS
- Attracts relatively large-scale visitors from other advanced countries.
- Provides the governments, through hotels, restaurants, airport, tourist attractions (Inca Trail, Machu Picchu), with extra tax revenue each year.
- Creates the local jobs and opportunities for people who want to work directly or indirectly in the industry.
- The multiplier effect: Adds additional money to the financial resources of the economy. The host community will continue to receive tourist money, as it is continuously invested.
- Helps in attracting new companies or industries and tourism support services.
- Proceeds from valuable foreign exchange.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
• Promotes ecological, cultural and historical resource management and restoration.
SOCIAL IMPACTS
- Provides additional funds that could not otherwise be produced for Public infrastructure and services.
- Promotes municipal participation and pride.
- Fosters cultural interactions between host community and tourists.
- Promotes local festivals and cultural events to also be preserved and embraced.
- Residents may also profit greatly from facilities and tourism-supported technology (e.g. the advancement in transportation).
- This enables communication,skill and knowledge development.
POSITIVE IMPACT
The climate, though, still achieves the positive outcome of tourism with all these harmful effects. Through protecting and conserving natural resources for future generations, tourism shifts towards a sustainable side. Different nations and their conservatories are pursuing stringent measures to protect and conserve their flora and fauna and natural resources. Example ‘The groups per guide will be formed by a maximum of 16 people, and the re-entry to the monument is prohibited’. (Incatrailmachu.com, 2020).
In many areas, tourism can no longer be regarded as a harmful environmental factor. Many tourists locations globally have benefitted immensely from tourism conservation programs in many nations of the world.
According to Swarbrooke (1999) the term sustainable tourism can be defined as the approach towards tourism in which more focus is shown in preservation of the natural resources in a way that they can be consumed by the present generation and can be preserved for the future generation as well. (Bardolet, 2001)
Explore the external factors that have contributed to the growth of Overtourism in a specific destination from an international perspective
Ever more tourist come to experience and gain knowledge about the culture, the heritage and the natural world of a place.
‘It [tourism] is a human activity which encompasses human behaviour, use of resources, and interaction with other people, economies and environments.’ Bull, 1991:1 cited in Holden, A. (2008).
- The globalisation, which has tremendous impact on the development of Peru and its inhabitants, has greatly enhanced international tourism in Peru. When Peru adds more facilities to handle tourist demand and industrialises cities, it is impacting the climate as well as the economy.
- Social media generates a never stopping snowball effect: more posts by more users mean more visits.
- According to world travel award, Peru was named ‘World's Leading Tourist Attraction 2018’, this would have caused the number of visitors to increase tremendously. (World Travel Awards, 2020)
- Tourist numbers started creeping up in 1983, when UNESCO declared the area, a World Heritage Site. A further upsurge occurred in 2007, when Machu, Picchu was voted one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. According to the Peru Telegraph, In 1991 Machu Picchu had less than 80,000 visitors. In 2018 this number became about 1,5 million, which was 20 times higher. (Summer, 2020).
- Difficulty evening out demandMachu Picchu is more complicated than most. Rainy seasons make it much harder to walk and the chance of floods and slippage rises. In the past visitors have been threatened by mudslides in the small villages. This further increases the visit's success in the summer to escape these hazards and the better weather thus making it prone to over tourism during the peak period.
- Incatrailmachu.com. (2020). Machu Picchu new rules 2020. [online] Available at: https://www.incatrailmachu.com/en/travel-blog/machu-picchu-new-rules-2019
- Bull (1991:1) cited in Holden, A. (2008) Environment and Tourism (2nd edition), Routledge)
- Bardolet, E. (2001). Sustainable tourism management by John Swarbrooke. CABI Publishing, Division of CABI International, New York. No. of pages: 371. ISBN 0-85199-314-1. International Journal of Tourism Research, 3(1), pp.89-90.
- World Travel Awards. (2020). World's Leading Tourist Attraction 2018. [online] Available at: https://www.worldtravelawards.com/award-worlds-leading-tourist-attraction-2018
- Summer, E. (2020). How many tourists visited Machu Picchu in 2018?. [online] PeruTelegraph. Available at: https://www.perutelegraph.com/news/peru-travel/how-many-tourists-visited-machu-picchu-in-2018
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