Mass Tourism And Alternative Tourism On Local Communities

DISCUSSE THE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF
MASS TOURISM AND ALTERNATIVE TOURISM ON LOCAL COMMUNITIES AND EVALUATE TO WHAT EXTENT TOURISM CAN BE “PROPOOR”. ILLUSTRATE YOUR ANSWER WITH EXAMPLES, INCLUDING EXAMPLES FROM A COUNTRY OR REGION WITH WHICH YOU ARE FAMILIAR

VIRIDIANA DELGADO CARDONA
N0349829

LIA BLAJ-WARD

Group: 0
August 31st 2012
Word count: 2.291
 
Since 1970, tourismhas been recognised as a socio-economic phenomenon (Lewis and Brown, 2007). Furthermore, it is one of the industrial sectors that could improve the livelihoods of communities in Less Economically Developed Countries – LEDCs (Knox and Marston, 2003). However, it does not always generate benefits for poor local communities. Pro-poor tourism strategies propose to generate net benefits for the poor”(Lewis and Brown, 2007) but it is not an alternative form of tourism. Tourism has been divided in mass tourism which implicates a large amount of tourists and alternative tourism which claims for increasing community participation and more coordinated state involvement in tourism planning to serve broadly based development goals (Brohman, 1996).This paper will argue that mass tourism and alternativetourism could become successful abolishing the poverty when it is based in local necessities, identified with the participation of poor communities, permeate all sectors and it is planned and management with develop sustainable principles. This essay deal with the description of negative and positive impacts of mass tourism and alternative tourism in local communities divided in three parts:economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts. Through this essay is evaluated and illustrated how mass tourism and alternative tourism could be pro-poor.

Population located in tourist places faces consequences that are usually quantifiable just in money terms. Economic impacts of mass and alternative tourism has been divided in the next subjects: Foreign currency, economic leakage and thecreation of new jobs. These main effects will be examining bellow.

The first positive economic impact of mass and alternative tourism is the generation of foreign currency. Mass tourism could maximize this positive effect because the larger number of visitors which increase the rates of foreign currency market. However, tourism as other economy sectors, become vulnerable to natural disasters andpolitical instability conditions. In consequence there are negative changes against local economy which impact direct and indirectly local communities when they are mainly supported by tourism. Foreign currency generate further rounds of economic activity (Archer et al, 2005), this is an opportunity to enhance net benefits and opportunities for the poor. In particular, it is the main contributorto the nation´s GDP such Trinidad and Tobago (Renard, 2001 see Lewis and Brown, 2007).

Secondly, a negative economic impact is that mass tourism is frequently associated with contributing to a loss of control over local resources in less developed countries (Brohman, 1996) and “mass tourism development is often associate with high levels of leakage, foreign dominance of the industry andexpatriate domination of management at high level” (Weaver, 1995 and Hall and Page, 1996, see Lewis and Brown, 2007: 7). On the other hand, alternative tourism argues that could involve local communities in the tourism industry and by the way, avoid the monopolisation of foreign countries in tourism industry. Nevertheless, monopolisation is also visible in alternative tourism but sometimes, it is doneby community members. Scheyvens (2002) support that: “Elites often co-opt and come to dominate community-based development efforts and monopolise the benefits of tourism” (Scheyvens, 2002 p: 9). The negative impact on poor residents is that there is an inequitable and unfair distribution of benefits by and for local communities which could be avoid with the implementation of pro-poor strategies...