Tourism

Benefits of tourism to the local community

Introduction
Twenty years ago, tourism was considered as an activity that didn’t contribute a lot on the global economy since according to World Tourism Organization, touristic activity only generated 273 million of dollars through 441 million of international tourist arrivals in 1990; this was because just a certain percentage of the population hadthe purchasing power for traveling. On the other hand, it is important to mention that the majority of the investments in those years were foreign; therefore, foreign investors had benefited more than the local community, as the local people didn’t have the enough capital and supports to develop its own business, and they weren’t also enough involved in the touristic activities. In addition, thegovernment thought tourism wasn’t important, and it only has little participation in the development of its programs and plans of the government; accordingly tourism didn’t have a proper systematic development.
Nowadays, tourism is seen with other eyes, as it has increased its contribution in the global economy since according to World Tourism Organization, tourism generated 919 million ofdollars through 980 million of international tourist arrivals in 2010. And as well as it assists in the economy, it helps to conserve the environment and improve the well-being of the society. Whereby, it is now considered as a phenomenon which implies economic, social and environmental development of a country, it is also an important means of development for the local or national investors and thegovernment.
Currently, the government is interested on including national or local investors more than foreigners for helping in the economic growth of the nation; however, most of the investments are still foreign, stopping the national development as the local investors don’t have the chance to compete with international companies in terms of facilities due to they don’t have enoughgovernment support and capital to invest; moreover, when there is foreign investment the revenues generated by the touristic activity don’t stay in the country, they go to the country where companies come from, benefiting very little to the nation.
On the other hand, another recent characteristic of tourism is that the people presently have a lot of facilities for traveling since the costs oftransportation and some touristic services, like hotels, are lower, besides both banks and businesses related with touristic services offer accessible forms of payment, one of them are credit cards. For example, if a credit cards’ user want to travel, he can pay their trips in three, six, nine and twelve months without interests, which makes easier traveling, and also doing of the tourism a profitableactivity.
Today, the government realizes that the tourism contributes hugely to the economy of a country, generating thousands of jobs in a direct or indirect form since there are many people that are employed in hotels, restaurants and tour operators, and there are a lot of people that work for transportation companies, stores, suppliers, launderettes. Therefore, since tourism is an excellentinstrument of growth for a country, it has to be implemented properly because the economic sector must create opportunities to enable marginalized members of society to participate in touristic activity.
Problem
Nowadays, tourism is being used as a tool of development since it is the world’s largest business and one of the fastest growing industries worldwide. In other words, “Tourism is increasinglybecoming an important economic sector in many Least Developed Countries” (Muganda, 2009) as it reduces the poverty in destination communities and countries. Currently, there are many countries where the use of tourism as an instrument of development has been successful; however, most of developing countries are not applying tourism properly as the majority of benefits generated by touristic...