1. Economic
Tourism increases employment opportunities. Additional jobs, ranging from lowwage entry-level to high-paying professional positions in management and technical fields, generate income and raise standards of living. Particularly in rural areas, the diversification created by tourism helps communities that are possibly dependent on only one industry. As tourism grows, additional opportunities are created for investment, development, and infrastructure spending. Tourism often induces improvements in public utilities such as water, sewer, sidewalks, lighting, parking, public restrooms, litter control, and landscaping.
Such improvements benefit tourists and residents alike. Likewise, tourism encourages improvements in transport infrastructure resulting in upgraded roads, airports, public transportation, and non-traditional transportation. Tourism encourages new elements to join the retail mix, increasing opportunities for shopping and adding healthy competitiveness. It often increases a community's tax revenues. Lodging and sales taxes most notably increase but additional tax revenues include air travel and other transportation taxes, business taxes, and fuel taxes. New jobs generate more income tax revenues.
Jobs created by tourism are often seasonal and poorly paid, yet tourism can push up local property prices and the cost of goods and services. Money generated by tourism does not always benefit the local community, as some of it leaks out to huge international companies, such as hotel chains. Destinations dependent on tourism can be adversely affected by events such as terrorism, natural disasters and economic recession.
2. Social and Cultural
Arrival of tourists brings diverse values to the community and influence behaviors and family life. Individuals and the collective community might try to please tourists or adopt tourist behaviors. Interactions between residents and tourists can impact creative expression by providing new opportunities (positive) or by stifling individuality with new restrictions (negative). Increased tourism can push a community to adopt a different moral conduct such as improved understanding between sexes (positive) or increased illegal drug use (negative).
Safety and health facilities and staffing tend to increase at the same time safety problems such as crime and accidents increase. Traditional ceremonies may be renewed and revived by tourist interest or lost in alternative activities. Community organizations can be invigorated by facing the opportunities of tourism or overwhelmed by its associated problems. Calamities such as natural disasters, energy shortages, terrorism, political upheaval, disease outbreak, a chemical spill, or even widespread negative publicity could shut down tourism abruptly but sometimes can attract curious visitors. Tourism can improve the quality of life in an area by increasing the number of attractions, recreational opportunities, and services.
Tourism offers residents opportunities to meet interesting people, make friendships, learn about the world, and expose themselves to new perspectives. Experiencing different cultural practices enriches experiences, broadens horizons, and increases insight and appreciation for different approaches to living. Often, dwindling interest in host cultures is revived by reawakening cultural heritage as part of tourism development, which increases demand for historical and cultural exhibits. This interest by tourists in local culture and history provides opportunities to support preservation of historical artifacts and architecture. By learning more about others, their differences become less threatening and more interesting. At the same time, tourism often promotes higher levels of psychological satisfaction from opportunities created by tourism development and through interactions with travelers.
3. Environmental
Areas with high-value natural resources, like oceans, lakes, waterfalls, mountains, unique flora and fauna, and great scenic beauty attract tourists and new residents (immigrants) who seek emotional and spiritual connections with nature. Because these people value nature, selected natural environments are preserved, protected, and kept from further ecological decline. Lands that could be developed can generate income by accommodating the recreational activities of visitors. Tourist income often makes it possible to preserve and restore historic buildings and monuments. Improvements in the area’s appearance through cleanup or repairs and the addition of public art such as murals, water fountains, and monuments (part of making a community ready for tourism) benefit visitors and residents alike. Tourism is generally considered a "clean" industry, one that is based on hotels, restaurants, shops and attractions, instead of factories.
Tourism can also degrade an environment. Visitors generate waste and pollution (air, water, solid waste, noise, and visual). Natural resource attractions can be jeopardized through improper uses or overuse. Providing tourist services can alter the landscape's appearance. For instance, visual pollution may occur from billboard proliferation. As tourism develops, demand for land increases, especially for prime locations like beachfronts, special views, and mountains. Without forethought, natural landscape and open space can be lost. The destruction or loss of flora and fauna can happen when desirable plants and animals are collected for sale or the land is trampled. Tourists or the businesses that cater to them often remove plants, animals, rocks, fossils, coral, and cultural or historical artifacts from an area.
Uncontrolled visitation or overuse by visitors can degrade landscapes, historic sites, and monuments. Where water is scarce, tourists can overwhelm the available supply. Travelers can also inadvertently introduce no indigenous species, as can increases in the trade of animals and plants. A constant stream of visitors and domestic pets may disrupt wildlife by disturbing their breeding cycles and altering natural behaviors.
