Tourism Assignment Examining The Socio-Cultural Impacts
Question
Task: Write a report on tourism assignment outlining the socio-cultural impacts on tourism in a tourist destination.
Answer
Introduction:
The socio-cultural influences examined in this tourism assignment are affecting the tourism of a tourist destination are described here along with the explanation of the effects of the host societies that have an indirect or a direct relationship with the tourists and deep communication with the industry of tourism. For a wide variety of different causes, the weaker section of the interactive part in the society mostly comprises of the host communities, thereby leverages any sort of impact they shall obtain. These kinds of impacts are always not apparent because of the difficulty in measuring them. They rely on value judgments and often are found tough to recognize and can be indirect.
Such kind of influences discussed in this tourism assignment takes place when tourism pulls in changes in the system or behavior thus putting a threat to the indigenous recognition. These changes can often be seen in the family, the structure of society, traditional living styles, mortality, and ceremonies. Nevertheless, impacts can also produce positive results as it can act as a support for peace, fostering the fraternity and one’s solemn pride in the regional traditions. It plays a significant role in contributing to the success of a nation. This tourism assignment has an objective of evaluation of the various changes noticed in the cultural, economic, and social development for the continuous growth of the local Philippine tourism. Tourism also plays an important role in the identification of local products and goods. It also can aid the Philippines in the maintenance of tradition and own culture to search for various ways to work on the improvement of the nation. Thus, the tourist destination chosen for the study is- Philippines.
Introduce the destination:
Through the past years of competitive developmental activities in various nations, the tourism has slowly upgraded and evolved along with the changes that would flourish to progress in the following upcoming years (Piuchan, Chan & Kaale, 2018). It necessarily brings about a huge change in the lifestyle of the people of the present and past years. It is noted in this tourism assignment that in the past decades, traveling or tourism was only done by the rich people of ancient Rome, but as the medieval era approached, the pilgrims showed keen interest to travel and enjoy while visiting various holy shrines. There came up people those can afford to travel for educational purpose to study various arts. The business started growing when inns, resorts, and hotels were established. This was not before the 1960s when tourism for people became quite affordable with friendly prices for the ordinary mass (Kornilaki & Font, 2019). The business society grabbed this chance to establish various sorts of architecture and monuments to attract tourists to earn money.
In the present years, tourism is still progressing and developing in the Philippines. The Philippines alone is known for its rich biodiversity having mountains, beaches, islands that aids in the local and foreign people's invitation for visiting and getting themselves involved. Tourism has a huge impact on Philippine's culture along with the social development of the nation and the different aspects of the environment. This study of tourism assignment aims at learning the negative and positive impacts of the contribution of tourism of the Philippines and its people and getting to know if this has improved the development of the nation beginning from the year of 2000 until 2019. The Philippines is the only nation located in South East Asia where Western colonization took place before getting a chance to develop into either a centralized power of government rule or a dominant culture. In the previous times, the residents of the Philippines were a varied agglomeration of mass those migrated from Asia (McCaughey, Mao & Dowling, 2018). The Christian churches mentioned in this tourism assignment were established by the Spanish while the Muslims, followed by the educational system set up by the United States and extended by Filipinos, built the mosques. This turned out into an emblem of cultural unity and progress of the socio-economic efforts. The Philippines strengthened the base of the Asian heritages without letting go of the acquisitions of Western culture.
Clearly, describe the socio-cultural impacts within this tourism assignment:
In the Philippines, the industry of tourism gradually blossomed during the 1970s and was at their success, while soon got flanked down due to the lack of congestions, conveniences, crimes, and pollution. The terrorism might pose the greatest threat to the Philippines affecting the safety of the tourists and the locals of the Philippines(Esfehani & Albrecht, 2018). Though most of the areas of the Philippines archipelagos are safe for tourism, there are places where the terrorists have been at large and should be prevented like the areas around the Marawi islands. Other threats focus on the destruction of cultural heritage like the demolition of various heritage monuments. The government structures, as for the road projects might destroy or destruct the heritage monuments and archeological sites along with illegal activities like treasure hunting by the locals and foreigners. There might also be a limited fund for the restoration of the infrastructure (Lee & Jan, 2019). The urbanization of the present developing generations discussed in this tourism assignment causes a variety of rituals and cultural practices to fade away because of the absence of a future bearer or one’s upgradation.
Analyze the socio-cultural impact on the selected destination using specific examples: Positive and negative impacts.
In the case of the positive cultural impact explored in this tourism assignment, tourism brought a huge change in customs and values, thereby aiding in the promotion of the cultural exchange with the other cultures for the unification of one and the other and crossing over the cultural interaction for the preservation of cultural recognition. It also produced a sense of pride and recognition for the locals (Ambrus et al., 2018). This resulted in the enhancement of the feeling of pride regarding one's nation. In addition, it displays the local products and goods produced and the cultural festivals to the visitors. There are negative cultural impacts as well discussed in this tourism assignment, as the Philippines is heterogeneous and has a blend of different masses. This variety of cultural behavior serves as a disaster. In the year of 1980s, the image of the nation was half-ruined while making a tourism advertisement for the attraction of tourists. It kept a continuation of the motive of crimes involving child prostitution and sexual tourism. These two impacts shook the world. Secondly, tourism might be considered as one of the causes that led to the complete disappearance of the Local cultures. This is because many of the local people decided that in adopting the lifestyle of the foreigners who were visiting the nation. The presence of the tourists threw an impact on the pattern of lifestyle of the locals where the locals might have started liking the way of life one leads (Peters, Chan & Legerer, 2018). Often these minor things are imitated and copied by the locals of the tourist destination. The development of the social positive effects mentioned in this tourism assignment might influence a person by the virtue of which tourism can improve the quality of the lifestyle involving the introduction of a sense of high satisfaction and comfort living. It influences the improvement of various sorts of facilities thereby encouraging the locals in the production of more local goods for selling them to the visitors.
However, this tourism causes overcrowding in various tourist attractions spots. It might as well lead to the loss of pride for the local people due to the poor treatment of the workers by the tourists from foreign or local nations. Along with the development of the business and establishments, there would be high corruption of the local mass thereby the locals would try taking advantage of their individuals. Along with such positive effects, there are a huge lot of negative effects on the environment. A few of them involve pollution, destruction of natural biodiversity for the setup of large infrastructures (Wijerathne & Ranasinghe, 2019). It also stresses the water resource leading to degradation of the atmosphere. The concept of tourism explored in this tourism assignment contributes the most to the disposal of waste and the destruction of natural places. These sorts of negative impacts are inevitable but can be prevented by the locals who can reduce the pollution by various methods. The Philippines can work on this by committing environmental planning and execution of the anti-smoke nation. The tourists can be prohibited and educated or can be penalized if found doing something against the protection of the environment. Another such problem of tourism is the separation of the local people from foreigners. The foreigners were highly pampered and treated much differently as compared to the local people there.
What are the benefits of socio-cultural impact on the selected destination within this tourism assignment? Discuss with examples.
While speaking about the influence of tourism on the environment, the industry gives an adequate amount of money in support of protection of the culture and heritage by the conservation of the natural biodiversity available there, protecting the flora and fauna and alerting the people about the awareness of the environment (Zhuang, Yao & Li, 2019). Due to tourism, there is a will to restore and repair damage and sites along with the development of the supply source and organization of various cleaning programs for the restoration of a clean area. In a case study discussed in this tourism assignment, Cooper and Hall gave their statement that the environment is an important element serving the purpose of attraction of the islands for promotion of tourism used for snarling, diving and has made enough efforts in the conservation of marine and land biodiversity.
Sustainable tourism management discussed in this tourism assignment concerning the sociocultural has huge potential affecting the promotion of social progress with the creation of employment, redistribution of income and the mitigation of poverty(Amerta, Sara & Bagiada, 2018). The tourism acts as a force of peace. Travelling and touring unifies the people together promoting mass interaction among them. Tourism also encompasses and promotes education thereby fostering clear understandings between the individuals and cultures and giving a scope of cultural exchange between the guests or the foreign people and hosts or the locals. This enhances the opportunities between people resulting in the growth of mutual sympathy and understandings, reducing the prejudices. Sustainable tourism illustrated in this tourism assignment adds the importance and vital values of societies in various methods. For instance, many festivals are there and events held by the local people where their mass is the spectators and initial participants of the shows. These are often held repeatedly to attract the interests of the tourists (Martín et al., 2018). These as developed for tourism serve as vital centers of encouragement for lessening the emigration from the rural parts. By this, the local people can also enhance their impact on the development of tourism along with the improvement of the jobs, prospects of earnings via tourism-related training in the profession, organization skills and set up of the businesses.
In such cases, the tourism industry provides support to the creation of facilities for communities and the services that might otherwise not be able to develop as it can bring a higher standard of lifestyle to an area. Some benefits involve health and transport improvement, established infrastructure, restaurants, and recreational space along with a good influx of high-quality food and commodities. Sustainable tourism explored in this tourism assignment has the potential to work for the improvement of the transmission and preservation of historical and ancient cultures (Garau-Vadell, Gutierrez-Taño & Diaz-Armas, 2018). They often contribute to the sustainability and conservation of biodiversity resources, by the creation of a renaissance and protection of the local heritage sites and monuments. In many cases, tourism also aids in raising and elevating awareness among local people regarding the most beneficial and valuable cultural and natural sites. It can cause stimulation of a feeling of intense pride in the national and local heritage development and conservation. To speak broadly, it leads to the involvement of the local societies in the development of tourism and the operation seems to be a vital condition for biodiversity conservatism. The benefits illustrated in this tourism assignment are thereby numerous, for the visitors, where they can enjoy the conserved nature with beautiful landscapes, a healthy society that contains no crime at all or a low or suppressed condition and a thriving and yet authentic tradition and cultural flow.
Report on management decisions and strategies that enhance the contribution of sustainable tourism in light of the impacts:
Various alternatives can be opted while deciding for a trip that would be light on the congested tourist spots. Some of the methods for a sustainable tourism approach can be, traveling in the off-season, which would reduce the congestion of the tourist attraction areas (Kim & Reijnders, 2018). The city would have fewer burdens of people from around the globe that would provide relief to the city. It is noted in this tourism assignment that never say ‘yes’ to the illegal trades. Any sort of product must be bought from the local businesses so that the spent money is circulated among the local mass there, leading to progress in the economy of the nation and the creation of jobs for the local mass. Only those businesses must be patronized that are not related to any illegal trade or do not exploit any human of the Philippines such as girl prostitution and child labor or any looting of the artifacts. To provide an example, Southeast Asia has witnessed one of the most illegal trades of rosewood that is used in cars, luxury furnishings, yatchs, and pens and so on.
This is destroying the Cambodia forest for rosewood. Another approach is by supporting sustainable options. The coastal islands and cities mentioned in this tourism assignment very frequently rely on tourist dollars thereby more and more coastal areas and islands are developing in various nations all over the globe (Tournois & Djeric, 2019). For attracting new tourists, these are the areas that are being built with luxurious resorts, paved highways, villas, and spas, landing pads for helicopters and golf grounds. For all these attractions, the locals are being forced to relocate their original houses or places of residence away from their livelihoods.
Lastly, the heritage monuments or the sites one visits are most likely to be toured by billions of other people in a year thus must be taken good care of to allow the others to enjoy as well (Munro et al., 2019). It is discussed in this tourism assignment that one must take care that no litter is thrown open in the site or any of the personal names carved in the sides of the walls of an ancient site. These artifacts and monuments are quite fragile and old while being highly sensitive to the touch of nay hand or shoes.
The support of the community-based initiatives is one huge step. One must be polite and discreet while the locals are praying in the mosques, churches,or temples. To respect the culture, wearing appropriate clothes in proper places of worship is necessary. Along with abiding by the strict wear of proper clothes, one must be sure of maintaining the silence and restrictions imposed on a place(Ernawati, Sudarmini & Sukmawati, 2018). In case a pair of shoes are noticed kept outside in such a place, one must take off their owner's too.
Conclusion:
Thereby concluding from the entire research paper of tourism assignment, we can put forward a few of our drawn conclusions as there are some positive effects and signs of tourism that can get enhanced and upgraded only as and when the tourism is practiced and developed appropriately and suitably. Thus, the involvement of the local mass is very necessary for the growth of tourist spots and working for activities to get them attracted and engaged. A community that is more involved in the proper execution, organization and planning of the tourism has a more positive influence along with a good support system that works in a better way to obtain more profits from the foreign people via tourism rather than a mass that is completely ruled over by or ignored by tourism.
One of the vital parts of sustainable tourism discussed in this tourism assignment is the development of the community, which is a continuous process and can take decisions matter that is helpful for the long run of a business or economy of the tourist spot. There should be a good balance between the ecology, economy, and equity between every community. Even though there are negative impacts of tourism that have led to a high mass of girl prostitution in the Philippine nation, and has become in parallel with the growth of the tourist people coming to visit the tourist places, this sex slavery can be prevented and prohibited by the strict discipline of the local residents of the nation. The strict laws of the residents would be led to every foreigner to abide by all the rules of the nation to survey, research and visit the place. The tourists must respect the local workers who have been present in the heritage sites and cities for years. It is noted in this tourism assignment that mutual understanding would lead to final success in a global form.
References
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