The Positive Socio-Cultural Impacts of Tourism - Book Report/Review Example

Tourism- Impacts and Sustainability by Student’s Name Code + Course Name Professor University City/State Date Tourism- Impacts and Sustainability Lecture Topic 4 Topic 4 focused on positive socio-cultural impacts of tourism. I learnt the numerous positive socio-cultural impacts of tourism. On cultural impacts, tourism enables tourisms to gain an understanding of an unfamiliar people, place, or time and preservation of cultural traditions among others. On social impact, tourism increases the local community pride and self-confidence and creates new social and economic opportunities that decrease social inequity. The key areas of positive influence are architecture, heritage sites, language, handicrafts, traditions, religion, art and music, and gastronomy. Creative tourism provides tourism destination with opportunities for engaging with the local culture in order to offer a unique experience. This topic has enabled me to develop a critical understanding of the ways in which tourism can improve the welfare of people and protect the cultural and natural heritage. Due to the increased cultural understanding on the impacts of tourism, I am able to travel with an open mind, cultivate the habit of observing and listening, and discover the enrichment that comes from experiencing another way of life. I am also able to interact with local residents in a culturally appropriate way. I think this topic is important as it promotes a personal commitment to forms of tourism that maximize positive socio-cultural impacts. If managed carefully, I think that creative tourism can bring about positive changes in most tourism destinations. Although, most socio-cultural benefits of tourism are not quantifiable, the well-being of the tourist destination and hosts improves. Tourism contributes to the protection and enhancement of customs, traditions, and heritage, which would otherwise disappear through the waves of modernization. I have gained an understanding of the socio-cultural aspects of tourism and the relationship between tourism development and its socio-cultural impacts. The socio-cultural impacts of tourism are evident in the wide range of aspects from fundamental behavior of individuals and collective groups and tourism attraction artifacts. Lecture Topic 5 Topic five focused on tourism and socio-cultural impacts; benefits and disbenefits of tourism to societies. The benefits include fostering peace, tolerance, and understanding; catalyst for reviving culture; building self-esteem and keeping young people attached to the community. It also leads to the acceptance of universal norms such as women’s rights, human rights, and protection of minorities. The disbenefits include bringing social tensions, degrading and commodifying culture; creating servility in the employees of tourism, promoting prostitution and crime. It also leads to modernization, westernization, cultural homogenization, or Americanization through the demonstration effect. Understanding the benefits and disbenefits of tourism and its socio-cultural impact is important as it raises awareness on the importance of sustainable forms of tourism. For instance, awareness that tourism can turn local cultures into commodities where local customs, traditions, as well as festivals are reduced to meet the tourist expectations. These factors damage the beauty and variation of diverse cultures due to standardization. The tourist destinations risk standardization in the process of satisfying tourists desires by making the accommodation, landscape, and foods and drinks to match the tourists expectation for new as well as unfamiliar situations. Cultural erosion also occurs in the process of commercialization of cultural traditions. I think it is important to understand the negative impact of tourism on society and culture as the numerous benefits of tourisms usually conceal them and they end up having a negative impact on the local communities. There is a tradition of studying the socio-cultural impacts of tourisms solely on its benefits and in terms of the contact that occurs between the visiting and host populations, which is a very limited approach. I believe the true impact of tourism on the local society and culture is far reaching and includes direct and indirect effects in a way similar to the economic benefits. A good case in point is when tourists travel abroad to enjoy casual sex encounters with the local women and men; lately, a large tourism market has developed around sex tourisms and destinations, for instance, Central European countries, and Thailand; these countries actively market the sexual content of their products. Commoditization is also a long-standing criticism related to tourism impact on art and culture. Rituals, crafts, and ceremonies are often driven into an exploitation stance; they are made more spectacular, dramatic, and colorful in order to capture the imagination and attention of an audience that does not often have underlying experience or knowledge that would make the un-adapted version appealing. It also leads to resentment and conflict with local people, especially once the reality of its impact becomes clear. Nonetheless, in spite of these hidden negative impacts of tourism on culture, there are many positive social-cultural impacts associated with tourism such as provision of direct socio-cultural support, provision of shared infrastructure, fostering local pride and tourism for socio-cultural awareness and peace. It is also strengthens communities; revitalizes traditions, and cultures, and encourages social involvement and pride. It is thus important to understand both the positive and negative impact of tourism on culture. A host community can use various methods to maximize the positive socio-cultural impacts of tourisms and reduce the negative impacts (Cooper, Fletcher, & Gilbert et al. 2005). I believe much can be done to reduce the negative socio-cultural influences during the planning of tourism development. Various steps can also be undertaken to maximize the positive socio-cultural effect of tourism on a host community, for instance education local communities about tourists, maintaining authenticity and conserving heritage sites, instilling local pride and using selective marketing and promotion to encourage the type of tourists that will respect and appreciate the local traditions and culture. Lecture Topic 6 Topic 6 focused on tourism and the environment. Tourism has a positive impact on environment, for instance, it fosters ecologically sustainable tourism with a key focus on experiencing natural areas, which foster cultural and environmental conservation, appreciation, and understanding. Ecotourists also assist in habitat maintenance and improvements, for instance they donate to conservation programs, park, and wildlife rehabilitation projects. Tourism offers the environment as part of its product hence the quality of tourism products is largely depending on quality of environment. Ecotourism is very beneficial as the main motivation of tourists is to view and appreciate nature and traditional culture. It has interpretation and education aspects and is often organized for small groups by small, locally owned, specialized businesses. It curtails harmful social cultural and environmental impacts and promotes safeguarding of natural areas through generating economic advantages for hosts and conservation personnel; providing alternative income and employment opportunities for locals; and increasing awareness towards the conservation of natural and cultural aspects among tourists and local people. A good case in point is preservation and improvement of natural parks of Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, and South Africa. Environmental attitude change amongst locals has also been noted in Madagascar, Rwanda, and Nepal, however it is directly related to the locals believing that they benefit from ecotourism operations. I believe it is important to study the impact of tourism and environment as the tourism industry has greatly grown over the last decades and it has profound environmental impacts. The impact is global and unrestricted and hence the need to ensure sustainable tourism. Ecotourism can be viewed as a vehicle for enhancing understanding of environmental values and an activity, which has arisen owing to a fundamental shift in the way the society views nature. Ecotourism is an important concept as it monitors, evaluates and handles the effects of tourism, develops dependable means of environment accountability, and counteracts any negative outcome. The local community benefits from recreational facilities, which can also be used by local and worldwide tourists. It is also important as it encourages and helps to pay for preservation of archaeological, domestic, and international visitors. It also promotes and facilitates pay for protection of archaeological locations, and historic districts and buildings. Nonetheless, I think that differentiating particular activities is important in establishing the link between the environment and human activity, particularly in recognizing the particular values that the activities exemplify; this will facilitate an understanding of the change in importance of nature that ecotourism exemplifies. It is the environment that provides both the raw materials and motivation for individual existence and hence the importance of tourism in preservation of nature. Nature sustains the very existence of human beings, from the most basic needs-air, food, and water- to the materials, which they fashion, their distinctive culture-the meanings, behaviors, and symbols that comprise their culture. I believe that environment greatly influences the tourism industry. The environmental quality, both natural and man-made, is important to tourism Nonetheless, the relationship between tourism and environment is multifaceted as it also entails numerous activities which, can negatively impact the environment. Most of these impacts are associated with construction of general infrastructures, for instance airports, roads, and tourism facilities, such as restaurants, hotels, reports, marinas, golf courses and shops. Nonetheless, the negative impact of tourism development can steadily harm the environmental resources on which it dependent. Alternatively, I think tourism has the potential of creating beneficial impacts on the environment through contributing to environment protection as well as preservation. I think, tourism is a way of raising awareness of environment values and can serve as a means of financial safeguard of natural areas and increasing their economic significance. Reference List Cooper, C, Fletcher, J, Gilbert, D, Fyall, A & Wanhill, S 2005, Tourism: Principle and Practice, 3ed, Prentice Hall, UK. Read More