Impacts of Tourism Development

Sustainable tourism is an industry that attempts to make a low impact on the environment and local culture while helping to generate income, employment, and the conservation of local ecosystems. It is responsible tourism that is both ecologically and culturally sensitive. Meaning, sustainable tourism activities have minimal impact on the environment and culture of the host community. It aims to meet the needs of the present tourists and host communities whilst protecting and enhancing needs in the future. According to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), sustainability principles refer to the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development, and a suitable balance must be established between these three dimensions to guarantee its long-term sustainability. Thus, sustainable tourism should make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity; respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance; ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.
The travel and tourism industry may have many different positive and negative impacts on the social, cultural, economic and environmental aspects of life in a particular area or region. The major benefit of tourism for a country is economic therefore the industry has a variety of economic impacts. Tourists coming into the country contribute to sales, profits, jobs, tax revenues, and income into the area. The most direct effects occur within the primary tourism sectors like accommodation,