Does tourism cause more harm than good?

Whether inside their country or not, most people have traveled to at least one other place in their lives. Touring around a new place or even a new country can help you learn new information about them, and you can use that information later on in the future. While some people may argue that tourism provides more harm than good, I believe that that is not true because tourism provides both cultural exchange and cultural preservation at the same time.

First of all, tourism brings more good than harm because it provides cultural exchange by allowing people from different countries to meet. All countries have different cultures so it’s likely that tourists will come from different backgrounds. It’s very beneficial for people with different backgrounds to meet up with one another because even if only one of them might be the tourist, the guide and the tourists may both be able to learn about their different cultures and deeply understand one another’s culture in more detail. Particularly as the world becomes more globalized, mutual understanding is important. Additionally, it can allow citizens to know more about a country than just what is presented by the media, which helps with challenging misconceptions. This is especially important in countries such as Iran, Cuba, and North Korea. Choosing locally-run accommodation and services can also give local people independence from their repressive governments.

Secondly, tourism is very beneficial because it also supports cultural preservation. Since tourists often come to see a country’s local culture, it supports the country’s efforts to maintain their culture. In particular, tourists will be a big help for a country because they will pay money to experience the local culture and partake in cultural activities, which will help the country to actively keep their culture. Without this kind of urgency, the country may not have a reason to keep some of their traditions if they are not seen as an “important” part of their culture. However, if that culture is the reason why their country’s economy is stable and why people want to travel to their country, they will try their best to maintain their cultural traditions so that their country will stay in the same good way. In other words, this can be seen as an effective method of cultural preservation. Tourists preserve all the important and valuable cultures and prevent them from disappearing. This means that tourism isn’t harming the country at all, more like the opposite. Tourists are helping the country, and even making the world into a better place for everyone. This is another reason why tourism can help a country in a supportive way.

Despite these benefits, tourism does undoubtedly have some downsides. One of these is overtourism, which is the situation where a destination receives more tourists than it can sustainably handle. Of course, tourism is a great thing since it’s very helpful for the country’s economy, however, sometimes, it can go a little too far. If there are too many tourists, it can overwhelm an area, which can have side-effects such as social disruptions, environmental damage, and even forcing residents out of their home. If too many people crowd around where a resident lives, they may end up having no choice but to move out because they won’t be able to handle all of the noises and distractions that tourists might make. However, we can still solve these problems by actively making sure that not single part of a country is crowded. We can do this, for example, by promoting sustainable tourism policies.

In conclusion, I believe that tourism definitely brings more good than harm because it provides cultural exchange, and it also supports cultural preservation. Globalization means that all of the different cultures in the world are becoming closer and interacting with each other more and more. This means that it’s important to know all of the foreign countries’ cultures. However, it won’t be very easy to find people with different backgrounds unless we… travel and tour! Like this, we can clearly see that tourism can benefit a variety of important things in our daily lives, and that is why I believe that tourism brings more good than harm at the end of the day.