Tourism Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Tourism Management - Essay Example Most of the developing countries promote tourism considering the perspective of economic development. However, tourism must be seen in a broader context of development as it has the potential to impact the socio economic aspects, and environmental aspects on the destination tourist regions (Batta 2000). There is presence of cumulative relationship between the development of tourism, the environment and the socio-economic environment. For tourism to contribute to the sustainable development, it must be ecologically and environmentally sensitive, economically viable and culturally appropriate (Reisinger and Dimanche 2009). There are both positive and negative impacts of tourism on socio-cultural and environmental aspects. It is essential to manage these impacts by encouraging positive ones and doing away with negative ones through appropriate planning and strategies. Sustainable development is possible through necessary management of tourism. Environmental impact of tourism In context of tourism industry, the environment performs three vital functions. Firstly, it is the supplier of natural goods, for example, mountains, beautiful landscape, and so on. It forms the core of the tourism product. Secondly, it is the provider of natural resources that is used for creation of economic goods. Thirdly, the environment has the sink function in which the desirable by-products which are generated during the process of both the production and consumption are discarded (Terkenli et al 2007). The quality of tourism depends on the quality of the environment. There are both positive and negative impacts of tourism on the environment as environment constitutes a very essential part of the overall tourism industry. Positive impact of tourism on environment The growth and development of tourist destinations encourages the conservation of flora and fauna. For instance, savannah parks of eastern Uganda have rich flora and fauna that are preserved and protected in order to attract la rge number of tourists in the region. It also leads to preservation of attractive landscapes and the infrastructure of tourism utilizes the lands that has remained as waste and idle until tourist activities were started (Richards and Hall 2000). With the blooming tourism activities, there is better infrastructure with availability of resources and maintenance of the heritage characteristics of the park due to working of three factors. Firstly, tourists are attracted through projection of the tourist place as the place having some scenic beauty, historical monuments and natural parks. This projection results in an increased allocation of required resources from the government for their maintenance and related publicity activities. Secondly, visiting tourists are required to pay for seeing these monuments and natural parks, etc. which also adds to the resource pool for maintenance and further growth of the region. Thirdly, due to the combined effect of increased expenditure of governm ent on building infrastructure facilities and publicity, and increasing number of arrivals of tourists, the private investment also starts emerging (Richards and Hal