Cultural Tourism Essay

‘ To what extent do you agree that tourism protects traditional communities and their local cultures’

Tourism has had a large impact on many parts of the world, especially areas that are endangered as they are becoming more vulnerable and are at risk of being destroyed. Ethno tourism is a form of tourism in which the main reason tourists visit the particular area is due to them wanting to experience and interact with exotic ethnic people and cultures.

This essay will argue that tourism does not protect cultural communities and their local cultures to an extent.

Argument 1 :

Tourists who travel to these places are usually frequent travellers meaning they can carry harmful diseases form one place to another. These diseases can be transmitted

On the other hand, all the tourists coming into these communities bring in more income and this helps the economy. The tourists bring income as they have to pay for accommodation, food and various other factors for their experience. This also gives people in the community various different job opportunities which also benefits the society as they are able to learn new skills and get more work experience which can lead them on to better job opportunities. However, constructing more buildings to accommodate the tourists means the infrastructure of the existing area would expand and the original land would be adapted thus making it less original as the land in the area could be used for other cultural reasons or for the community to use other than a place for the tourists, after all the tourists are just the people visiting and the people in the community have to live in those areas for the long run. Furthermore, tourism can also have a direct impact on the environment, meaning the effect of water, air and noise level, sewage disposal into the water which all adds up to pollution problems. Statistics from The World Bank (2016) show that in the year 2014-2015, 24, 810, 000 million people visited Thailand, and as a country with a high level of visitors each year, pollution has

This benefits the community as the tourist learn more about their culture and this could help spread awareness about what is going on around the community, factors that some people may not know of. Tourists also help by bringing in donations to help the local community develop their homes and also purchase products that the local community produces for a living. Though tourists visiting the community may be beneficial in most ways, there are still risks of exploitation for both the community, indigenous groups and the environment around them itself. Most indigenous people are able to make a living out of the sources they have in the area, without really having to ask for materials from external sources of income. But on the other hand, the World Bank states that ethno tourism exposes the people in the community to a new level of consumerism. The people in the community are forced to use the materials and natural resources that are available for them to create hand made crafts and objects to sell to the tourists visiting the area (Verner, 2009). Therefor this may further lead to exploitation of the people in the indigenous groups as they do not receive adequate compensation for their contributions towards providing for the tourists (Bolnick,