Реферат: Влияние туризма на экономику и социально-культурную сферу

1.Introduction.

Tourism is the world’slargest and fastest growing industry. In recent years there have been increasesin international tourism for the purpose of experiencing another culture. Thereis a wide-spread opinion that the economic impact of tourism is always positivewhile the social and environmental impact is always negative. Indeed,increasing incomes to regions due to tourists are easy to see as well asnumerous host-tourist conflicts and destruction of the environment and localcultures. However, tourism can have both positive and negative outcomes forresidents in communities when sharing and preserving their culture and naturecould be seen as conflicting goals. (Besculides, Lee, McCormick, 2002:303) Inthis paper I will consider impacts of tourism with reference to the <st1:place w:st=«on»><st1:PlaceName w:st=«on»>Lofoten</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st=«on»>Islands</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>. This is a popular touristdestination in <st1:place w:st=«on»>Northern Norway</st1:place>. The area isunique because of its nature and variety of sea activities, e.g. fishing, boattrips, sailing etc. It is also known in <st1:country-region w:st=«on»><st1:place w:st=«on»>Norway</st1:place></st1:country-region> as a traditional fishingcommunity, where the fishing industry dominates the economy and the social lifeof the local people. Today those resources which used to be source of livingfor the local community have become very attractive for tourists. It is a challengeto get most profits of the situation and avoid possible conflicts.

2. Economic impacts of tourism

According to recentstatistics, tourism provides 10 percent of the world’s income and employsalmost one tenth of the world’s workforce (www.investigate.html). By the year2010 these numbers will double. All considered, tourism’s actual and potentialeconomic impact is astounding. Many people emphasise positive aspects oftourism as a source of foreign exchange, a way to balance foreign trade, an “industrywithout chimney” – in short, manna from heaven.(L.van den Berghe, source unknown)But there are also negative sides of tourism’s economic boom for localcommunities:

Economic impacts to thelocal community depend on how much of the incomes generated by tourists go tothe host communities. In most all-inclusive package tours more than 80 percentof travellers’ fees go to the airlines, hotels and other internationalcompanies, not to local businessmen and workers (www.ecotourism.org).

Large hotel chainrestaurants often import food to satisfy foreign visitors and rarely employlocal staff for senior management positions, preventing local farmers andworkers from reaping the benefit of their presence.

Resorts and hotels oftenover-consume natural resources like water and power, forcing utility prices upand causing blackouts and water shortages for locals.

Many tourists neverleave the hotel grounds or cruise ship, reducing the possibility of touristincome for local businesses. “Rug sack tourists” have little effect on hostcommunities as they consume very little during the trip.

Faced with limitedeconomic prospects, locals lose the incentive to preserve and conserve theirnatural and cultural resources.

Sometimes the costsconnected with tourism overcome the incomes that tourists generate. Forexample, in all-inclusive packages, as I have said, most of the expenditures goto the airlines, hotel chains and touroperators, while the local communitieshave to work with pollution and destruction in their region caused by tourists. As a result, it costs a lot for thelocal communities to preserve the nature and the cultural monuments in theregion while a good deal of incomes flow out of the host-region.

With reference to the <st1:place w:st=«on»><st1:PlaceName w:st=«on»>Lofoten</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st=«on»>Islands</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> the question is how the fishingsociety can get the most of the tourism industry, and whether the local peoplecan get positive economic effects out of the developing tourism in theirregion.

Here is a figure showingrelationship between tourism and local community based on economic impacts.

How much income does tourism give to the                local community?

How much resource does tourism use in the area?

A lot of

Little

A lot of

      Acceptable tourism

     Undesirable tourism

Little

        Desirable tourism

     “Invisible” tourism

Fig.1 “ A general model of the local communities’ opinion about tourism”Rønningen 1996

Kilde: Kulturturisme. Lofoten som reiselivsattraksjon. Hovedfag.PDF,www.nhh.no/geo/prosjekt/kbl/r200rapport.pdf

The figure shows 4 typesof economic impacts of tourism, based on the coming incomes and the use ofresources. No community would want tourism that uses a lot of resources in thearea but leaves little money to the local population. Such tourism can becalled undesirable. Communities can put up with tourism that gives tem a lot ofincomes but also uses a lot of resources. It is the so-called acceptabletourism. In case when the use of resources is little and the incomes to theregion are also little, the effect of tourism is almost not seen. This is theso-called “invisible” tourism. So the economic impact will be considered aspositive even if the resources are used to great extent, in case if tourismgives large incomes to the local people as a result. Hovland (source unknown)divided economic impacts of tourism into direct and indirect. Direct effectsare most visible and easy to measure. These are contacts between a visitor andlocal actors, such as the tourist industry, other industries, municipality andother local actors. Indirect effects of tourism appear when local businesses,population, municipalities and other actors are influenced by tourism throughother actors. I shall now discuss these relations between tourism and fisheryindustry on the <st1:place w:st=«on»><st1:PlaceName w:st=«on»>Lofoten</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st=«on»>Islands</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>. As I have emphasisedLofoten is an international destination with coast life culture as a primary tourismresource. From1960 there have been problems in fishing industry and the numberof employees has decreased. So increasing development of tourism compensatesdecreasing development of fishery industry. If we take direct impacts oftourism, they are following here: people have a possibility to get jobs intourism industry and tourists spend lots of money in local-owned restaurants,hotels, museums. Tourism industry uses some resources that are not used byfishermen today. Old fishing houses-rorbuer<span Times New Roman",«serif»; mso-fareast-font-family:«Times New Roman»;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-fareast-language: NO-BOK;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">[1] — may have disappeared from the local landscapes if they were not used today ashotels. Here are some numbers to show the development of tourism in the region.In 1964 there were just 200 beds in local hotels and guesthouses and 150 bedsin rorbuer in the whole Lofoten. In 1997 there were about 1360 beds just inVågan district. The total amount of overnight stays in Lofoten hasincreased from 25000 in 1965 to 230000 in 1997. (Puijk 1996, SSB 1997) As wecan see there is a flow of incomes to the region and this is a direct economicimpact of tourism.

Still there are negativeeconomic impacts of tourism as well caused by common resources for tourism andfishery industries on the Lofoten islands. That’s why in spite of co-existingside by side these two industries compete with each other. Many fishermen inLofoten think that tourists prevent successful development of the fishingindustry as before. First of all, the problem is common area. The number ofquays in the fishing villages is limited. And what was used by fishing boats isnow to be shared with tourists. Fishermen are afraid that tourism organisationswill take over a lot of fishing bays, buildings, even boats. Here is an opinionof a local fisherman written in a local newspaper “Lofotposten” (9/2-98)“Svolvær bay is reserved for guestboats. There is almost no harbour leftfor local people to place their boats or build a warehouse.” This effect can beconsidered as indirect. Tourism organisations in Lofoten trying to get morebenefits from tourists, interfere into the fishing industry and force them somechanges.

The same concerns the fishitself.  Many tourists come to Lofoten tofish. And at this moment there are no fishing quotes for tourists. So whathappens is that “people come, fish freely and actively, make fish filets, freezethem, take them with them to Europe without any permission that are requiredfrom the local fishermen. Tourists can in fact take with them up to 200 kg fishin the fridge, sell it later, come back and fish again.” (www.nhh.no/geo/prosjekt)Thus, tourists decrease the fishermen’s incomes in a direct way.  So we see how the tourism can ehave directnegative effects on the fishing industry, decreasing their resources. Although touristsleave money in the region as well, this effect becomes less visible because thelocal people see first of all decrease of their main incomes.

Here is another exampleof indirect economic impact. Tourism organisations often want to change thetraditional way of fishing by the local fishermen so that coming tourists wouldconsider their work to be more esthetical. For example, fishing wastes havealways been thrown back into the sea. Now suddenly there are tourists to thinkabout, and they find the fishing wastes smell bad. That’s why some touristorganisations ask the fishermen to install dump systems in order to clean theharbours. This brings extra costs for the community. 

The tourism industry onthe <st1:place w:st=«on»><st1:PlaceName w:st=«on»>Lofoten</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st=«on»>Islands</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> makes use of the resources to agreat extent. The incomes the local community gets are big enough but they comepartly at the cost of fishing incomes. There is a certain lack of regulationsabout the use of common resources. Obviously, to escape conflicts the tourismindustry should not take over the most important for the fishermen areas. Thereare surely lots of areas not suitable for the fishing industry (due to lowamount of fish or small capacity of the harbour) but which would suit tourists.Still, the problem lies deeper because of social conflicts in the area.

3. Social and environmental impacts of tourism.

Socially tourism has agreat influence on the host societies. Tourism can be both a source ofinternational amity, peace and understanding and a destroyer and corrupter ofindigenous cultures, a source of ecological destruction, an assault of people’sprivacy, dignity and authenticity. (L.van den Berghe, source unknown)

Here are possiblepositive effects of tourism, according to Reisinger (source unknown)

Developing positive attitudes towards each other Learning about each other’s culture and customs Reducing negative perceptions and stereotypes Developing friendships Developing pride, appreciation, understanding, respect and tolerance for each other’s culture Increasing self-esteem of hosts and tourists Psychological satisfaction with interaction

So, social contactsbetween tourists and local people may result in mutual appreciation,understanding, tolerance, awareness, learning, family bonding respect, andliking. Residents are educated about the outside world without leaving theirhomes, while their visitors significantly learn about a distinctive culture.  Besides, if local culture is the base forattracting tourists to the region, it helps to preserve the local tradition,handicrafts which maybe were on the link of the extinction. Benefits includealso reciprocity, community pride, and a stronger sense of ethnic identity.

On the other sidetourism can increase tension, hostility, suspicion.  Claims of tourism as a vital force for peaceare exaggerated. Indeed there is little evidence that tourism is drawing theworld together (Robinson,1999:22). While the tourist is engaged in leisure, thehost is engaged in work. While the tourists arrive with loads of expectations,many of the local stakeholders have no idea of what to expect.

Negative effects can bethe following, according to Reisinger (source unknown)

Developing negative attitudes towards each other Tension, hostility, suspicion and misunderstanding Clashes of values Difficulties in forming friendships Feeling of inferiority and superiority Communication problems Ethnocentrism Culture shock Dissatisfaction with mutual interaction.

Tourism has the power toaffect cultural change. Successful development of a resource can lead tonumerous negative impacts. Among these are over-development, assimilation,conflict and artificial reconstruction. While presenting a culture to touristsmay help preserve the culture, it can also dilute or even destroy it. Tourismoften leads to non-authentic forms of cultural traditions, an example beingfestivals or dances staged entirely for tourists, or production of handicraftclearly distinctive from traditional ones. We can take example of saami culture. Saami duodji is sold both with andwithout a quality mark. A lot of things known and promoted as saami things isjust a “trash”, produced far from saami regions. Some tourist organisationspresent saami people as drunkards, out of their mind, dirty and uneducated. Thepoint is to promote a region so that it would both give incomes and createrespect for the local culture (Gustavsen, 1998).

When it comes toecology, it is again easier to see negative impact than positive. Tourism oftengrows into masstourism. It leads to the over-consumption, pollution and lack ofresources. But in some regions alternative industries are even more harmful tothe environment than tourism industry. Nature will manage fine without tourists,but in many places tourism is the only source of income or the friendliest tothe environment. It is at least better than chopping down the forests ordestroying the corral reefs. (Munch-Petersen,1998 (from lecturenotes))

On the <st1:place w:st=«on»><st1:PlaceName w:st=«on»>Lofoten</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st=«on»>Islands</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>the conflict between the host community and the tourists is more of culturalorigin, e.g. in Svolvær or Vågan. The fishermen can see that one harbour after another is beingreconstructed for a café, a rorbucamp, a quay hotel. For the fishermenit is an expression that their traditional industry is getting less and lessimportant.  Even if it does not happen atthe cost of the fishery industry it is mostly a psychological problem. Thelocal people want to behold their identity, their traditional way of work.  Here are some opinions (www.nhh.no/geo/prosjekt):

“I am a fisherman and Idon’t wish to become any guide or anything like that”, “I am a fisherman, and Iappreciate the freedom this way of life means.” Tourists seek some exoticexperiences when they come to Lofoten; the fishermen get perplexed and confusedthinking about it. “There is so much blood and fishing wastes here thattourists can’t bear. Ladies in fine clothes come here and watch how we cut thehead of the fish. They think we are some barbarians!” These are culturalconflicts that can be observed on Lofoten. Though some people insist there areno conflicts. They mean the tourism industry uses resources that the fishermendon’t get use of. Tourism employs mostly women when fishery involves men.

Non-authentic forms ofthe local cultural monuments can be found here as well. On the one side tourismhelps to preserve old rorbuer. On the other side they become modernised inside,furnished with modern furniture, supplied with electricity, water, TV etc. Thusthey lose their authenticity.

In spite of all thenegative changes in the local communities tourism has positive social andcultural impact as well. Changes are inevitable; it is a very complicatedmatter to preserve things as they used to be. In Lofoten tourists help topreserve the harbours, rorbuer, old boats.  If not tourism the coastal landscape couldinclude only modern buildings and boats. Many museums have been opened showingthe local traditions of fishing. Growing interest in this culture makes thelocal people proud of their way of life.

If we take ecologicalimpacts of tourism in the Lofoten region, we should bare in mind that thefishing industry is no 100 percent environmentally friendly either. So it is aquestion which industry brings more negative effects to the environment.Tourists coming to Lofoten are not satisfied with just enjoying the nature;there are many visitors who want to fish as well. The difference is maybe thattourists stay in the region for short periods and their welfare does not dependon the amount of fish they catch. They fish for pleasure and often let the fishgo. Still, as I have mentioned above there are no regulations or fishing quotesfor tourists and if masstourism will develop on the Lofoten Islands it willbecome a threaten to the fish.

From ecological point ofview tourism is often more acceptable and preferable than traditionalproduction, as it is environmentally friendlier. The problem is that it is noteasy to change traditional way of life of the local communities. It oftencreates pseudo conflicts.

4. Conclusion.

 We have shown that the impact of tourism onlocal communities can be both positive and negative, whether it comes toeconomic, social or environmental effects. All depends on to which extenttourism is developed in a particular region. Every region has its bearingcapacity, that is to say the limit of the outcoming influence that does notharm the host community.  If we overcomethat limit negative impacts of tourism will follow.

Here is a figure whichshows the dynamics between people, resources and tourism in successful tourism:each makes positive contribution to the others.

Fig.2  The ecotourism paradigm. Source: Page andDowling (2002:27)

LOCAL

COMMUNITIES

<img src="/cache/referats/17260/image001.gif" v:shapes="_x0000_s1028">

BIOLOGICAL

DIVERSITY

<img src="/cache/referats/17260/image002.gif" v:shapes="_x0000_s1029"> 

                                                            Integratedsustainable resource use

<img src="/cache/referats/17260/image003.gif" v:shapes="_x0000_s1041"><img src="/cache/referats/17260/image004.gif" v:shapes="_x0000_s1039">                                                               Environmentaladvocacy

<img src="/cache/referats/17260/image005.gif" align=«left» v:shapes="_x0000_s1035 _x0000_s1034 _x0000_s1036 _x0000_s1037 _x0000_s1038 _x0000_s1040 _x0000_s1042 _x0000_s1043 _x0000_s1044 _x0000_s1045 _x0000_s1052 _x0000_s1053 _x0000_s1054 _x0000_s1055 _x0000_s1056">

                                                        

                                             

                                            

                                Economic                                                                                                                                Education;

                                    Benefits;

                                 Inter-cultural

                                   Values;

                                  appreciation                                                                                                                                     revenuesfor

TOURISM

<img src="/cache/referats/17260/image006.gif" v:shapes="_x0000_s1030">                                                                                                                                                         protection

All the three elementsin this model are in co-interaction. Local communities use the naturalresources but they also protect them. Tourists come to enjoy the nature and getknowledge about it, but they also can pollute and destroy it, or on the otherside help to protect it by drawing attention to unique natural resources in thearea. Local communities affect tourists by giving them knowledge of theirculture and way of life. Tourists’ impact on the local populations can beeconomic (giving incomes, using resources etc) and sociocultural (e.g.changingtraditions) When developing a new tourist destination we should always bare inmind this co-interaction.

In any case local communities shouldbe empowered to say”no” to undesirable tourism. In order to decrease negativeeffects on local societies we can check the following moments when arrangingtourism activity in a region or taking part in it: (Fennell,1999(from lecturenotes))

Are local people involved in tourism industry as employees? Does the organisation cooperate with the local businesses? Is it respectful attitude to the local culture? Is there respect to the nature and how is it protected? How much economic benefit the local population get from tourism? Are tour operators concerned about ecological hotels, transport, restaurants?

We can see it is a great challengeto make profitable business running tourism in an area without affectingnegatively the local communities. It is possible for tourism industry toco-operate with other industries and bring benefits to both the tourismorganisations and local businesses.  Thefirst step to achieve it is to understand needs and desires of both the hostcommunity and the tourists.


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Rorbu (Norwegian) – fisherman’s shack
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