The Effects of Tourism

Today there are a lot of activities which bring people joy and make them laugh. Easier communications, know-how, technological miracles, easiness of life at all are those elements which make humans happy for a while. However, if a person needs more excitement and deeper relaxation moments of which she or he will recall in the future during difficult situations, than this person decides to travel. Moreover, tourism is not considered to just one-sided excitement. It brings a lot of improvements in life standards, economic, cultural spheres and promotes process of globalization, deeper understanding and unity of the world population.

So far there is no unified approach as to conception of tourism. However, some types of definitions were provided by official agencies and organizations, such as UNO and WTO. It worth mentioning that definition of tourism was introduced with the passage of International Recommendations for Tourism Statistics. According to it tourism is a social, cultural and economic phenomenon related to the movement of people to places outside their usual place of residence pleasure being the usual motivation. (UN-WTO, 2008). Other type of definition was represented by WTO. They interpret it as activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited (Tourism Satellite Account:Recommended Methodological Framework). Another concept was represented by Mathieson and Wall in 1982, who stated that tourism is the temporary movement of people to destinations outside their normal places of work and residence, the activities undertaken during their stay in those destinations, and the facilities created to cater to their needs.(A.Bever) All of these definitions are considered to be the good ones and analyze of them allows to point out some features of the tourism as a social phenomenon and compare it with the term %u02DDtravelling%u02DD since both these terms are often identified. The main and inalienable characteristics of tourism are the following:

1. First of all, tourism is considered to be a set of movements or activity provided by a person which includes displacement that is a change of surroundings. So, if any person is engaged in tourism she or he leaves its usual place of living and moves to unknown or a distant place. A simple going or moving to work cannot be considered as tourism;

2. Secondly, tourism has its own aim. A person may visit other places in order to improve her or his health or to see exciting monuments wonders of nature etc. But all his activity can not include business or wage-earnings aims.

3. The duration of activity. There is no minimum term which is enough to affirm that the activity is tourism, but a maximum term of tourism is fixed and it is up to one year. If person leaves in other area more than one year she or he is supposed to be a resident.

As any social phenomenon, tourism has an impact on lives of people, as well as animals, environment etc. So, it has some negative and positive influence, which is divided by scholars in different groups according to spheres of life and whether this influence has direct or indirect character. Benefits of tourism seem to overwhelm its drawbacks, and in general no one had never met a person who would complain about tourism and its outcomes. However, it’s quite interesting to get aware of both positive and negative sides of so-called “clear’ industry in different spheres of life (Daniel J. Stynes, Economic Impacts of Tourism).

Tourism is highly valuable for its economic benefits. It goes without a doubt, that tourism in fact improves economic situation of any region where it is spread. First of all, tourism is a source of money for the country, a sort of investments made in it. Tourists who spend money give direct income to hotels, restaurants, shops etc, which, in its turn, on the one hand, pay taxes to budgets and increase it, which make possible implementations of improvements financed by this money, and on the other hand, it generates the salaries for the staffs. In addition, it creates new working places and decreases rate of unemployment. Also, because of a desire to meet the requirements of tourists a wide range of services and products become available. Moreover, infrastructure of the city almost always changes in the best way. As a result of it, standards of life are increasing. For example, residents as well as tourists of Ukraine and Poland are pleased by a lot of new stadiums, hotels, airports, reconstructed roads and routes which were improved to meet requirements of tourists who visited these countries during EURO-2012 (S. MatuszakandT.A. Olszanski, 2012). In addition, a lot of Polish and Ukrainian cities became known to tourists and now are considered to be a new direction for placing investments. In addition, tourism creates new business opportunities and attracts investors. From the other point of view, tourism is a source of different complications. Usually, if tourism is a prospective industry within a region, than high taxes on property, high prices of land, cost living, goods and services are observed. Of course, it serves as additional disappointment of residents. Moreover, building of new infrastructure also requires great sums of money. In addition, seasonal tourism is a source for high unemployment rate because a lot of foreign people arrive to region and deprives residents of their work places.

Consideration of environmental impact of tourism lets to say that in general it has positive influence, since it promotes access to unique, previously undercover places of amazing beauty and also it helps to preserve some historical monuments and buildings and save them from becoming a ruin since all reconstructions are usually funded by those money gathered from tourism. But, on the other hand, rapid development of this industry leads to additional pollution of air, water and ground and to loss of open space. All previously untouched territories begin to be full of tourists who not always influence it in the best way but bring harm and damage to them, especially if we are talking about overuse of such tourists’ attractions. Tourists and all this industry interrupt and disturb lifecycle of animals and plants which may lead to unexpected outcomes in the future (Daniel J. Stynes, Economic Impacts of Tourism).

Social and cultural benefits of tourism also exceed its drawbacks since it favors improvements of life standards, cultural exchange and understanding of different communities. It may lead to renewal of old traditions and customs with the purpose of attracting as many tourists as possible and finally makes people more tolerated in their relationships with each other. Negative sides are the following: overuse of drinking, increase of illegal sale of drugs, which in its turn may lead to high crime rate and rate of accidents. Moreover, people can start using new models of behavior not used for them while forgetting their own, although it has been inherent for them for centuries. Also, this may find expression in mixed marriage which may lead to family scandals and stress (Daniel J. Stynes, Economic Impacts of Tourism).

The behavior of tourism depends on different factors, including climate, destination, infrastructure, the possibility of access without any documents or visa, upon safety and crime rate. In addition, the popularity of certain places depends upon demand and supply rule – so that if the industry of tourism is highly developed in, for example, Sweden, than it generates increasing interest of tourists to this place and as a result, creates a demand of such places. Moreover, it worth mentioning that distance and safety rate of a region also matters in such cases, so that, for example countries of Africa are less desirable destination than European countries, since the access to the latest one is easier and it goes without doubt that people feel safe in countries of Europe.

It is worth mentioning that tourism industry divides into two different spheres known as inbound and outbound tourism. In broad terms, inbound tourism is an activity of non-residents who are travelling to a certain country. On the contrary, outbound tourism is an activity of residents of a certain country who travel from their own country to other unknown places. Both of these branches of tourism are linked and have the same aim – that is to bring joy to its consumers. But nevertheless, both of them have different social, economical and cultural outcomes for countries of residents and non-residents.

According to definition, given by Organization for Economic Co-operation and development (2003), inbound tourism is the type of tourism of non-resident visitors within the economic territory of country of reference. The UNO emphasized in Recommendations on Tourism Statistics (1994) that inbound tourism involves non-residents traveling in the given country. Another definition of inbound tourism is given by S. White and E. Smith. According to it inbound tourism is travel to a country by people who live outside of that country is called inbound travel. Analyze of these very definitions allows to point out main features of inbound tourism. They are the following:

1. First of all, it is any movement of people to the country (not just a place) or even territory, outside their own country, there is to the country in which they don’t live permanently or the country which is not the country of their citizenship. In addition, all kinds of activity are brought within one economic territory and all money are spent for products and services produced in the visiting country.
2. The second main characteristic is connected with the aim of such a movement – it may be relaxation, meeting with relatives, visiting museums etc. But the aim of inbound tourism, as the aim of tourism in general is not connected with earning money.
3. Thirdly, the subjects of such activity are not citizens of the visited country.

Inbound tourism as one of industries is very important for countries, since it has all positive effects of tourism in general, which were mentioned above (including new investments, increasing of life standards, cultural exchange, overriding of social barriers, improvements in infrastructure etc) as well as negative factors, including different rates of unemployment, environment It goes without a doubt, that each country has an aim to attract as many tourists as possible since they bring additional money and these sums contribute to its budgets. Inbound tourism has a vital importance, for example, for Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, Monaco, since these countries have a very little-sized territory and so that they do not posses resources. The only thing which left is to attract tourists.

One more reason for considering inbound tourism as an industry of great value is that benefits which are created are used both by residents and non-residents, which are tourists of the country. China experience may serve as the best example of inbound tourism development. For example, Chinese inbound tourism market has grown rapidly, with over 8 million foreign tourists visiting the country in 1999, which is almost five times the number in 1990.(C. Lima and Grace W. Panb). Since economic crises China had even strengthened its policy as to inbound tourism, paying special attention to attraction of its own population. Great sums of investments were putted especially in development of rural areas, which in its turn led to improvements which actually touched every sphere of life. Indirect effects also had increased work places, competitiveness of products, high quality of services etc.

Speaking about tourism behavior, it has to be pointed out one more characteristic of inbound tourism which has to be taken into account, when a state is fulfilling the policy of inbound tourism. The needs and desires of countries which are closed situated to them, as one of the reference points for this policy, since it’s proved that the residents of neighbor country belong to those who visit a country very often. For example, according to latest researches, 88 % of visitors of European union countries come from other EU countries (European Communities, 2007). So that, politics of China while taking measures aimed at improvement and development of inbound tourism must take into consideration special requirements of visitors of such states as Japan, Indonesia and Singapore, since that very simple to travel from those countries to China. In general, all tourists while creating their travelling route are taking into consideration the same factors as those of international tourism. Thus, it can be inferred that the main determinants of inbound tourism are the price of journey, distance to place of desire, peculiarities of tourists themselves (that is health, physical, educational conditions).