Tourism In Pacific Asia: Positive And Negative Impacts On The Environment And Socioculture

Tourism in Australia

Discuss about the Tourism in Pacific Asia.

Over the years, tourism has been an important industry that affects in both ways to a country. It has been influential in things like creating jobs, developing economical factors and reducing unemployment, though at times things have been a bit messy. This paper would take into consideration two countries lying in the Pan-Asia region, Australia and Thailand.

In Australia, tourism is taken in as an enormously significant industry. This industry generates thousands of jobs, producing a great arrangement of wealth for the country.  The financial period of 2004-05 put in roughly 4 per cent towards Australia’s Gross domestic Product (GDP), which witnessed around 5.5 per cent employment of Australian workforce, making up to 12 per cent of all exports (Dwyer et al. 2013). In recent times, the Australian tourism industry has developed like anything.

Push-Pull Theory can be associated with the Australian tourism where the tourists either are pushed out of their native place or are pulled into another place. Australia has been able to pull tourists into its country with its unique and diversified culture and social attractions. Australia boasts of some of the major cultures across the globe, which creates desire among tourists to visit the country.

In 2011-12, total tourism GDP increased by approximately 6.8 per cent, reflecting a solid revival after the downturn that happened due to global financial crisis in 2008-09 (Mason 2015). To a period ranging from 1997-98 and 2011-12, tourism’s total GDP increased to an average annual velocity of 4.6 per cent, with Australian GDP growing at a stronger rate, average of 6.8 per cent during the same period.

Tourism has been affecting heavily upon the Australian environment. A chief factor that led to the development of the tourism industry is its capability of providing opportunities for employment and generation of wealth in the host country.  Generation of wealth in small coastal town have created jobs and opportunities in business for the locals and leading incursion of new residents. Local economies are positively affected and works as a driving force behind infrastructure like hospitals and schools. Direct contact of natural resources, both non-renewable and renewable, can be originated by utilization of land for the purpose of accommodation and other provisions for infrastructure.

Positive effects include tourism’s ability to raise attentiveness of issues of environmental apprehension has many positive benefits for the physical environment. People are often encouraged to see things personally and have been an effective way of promoting environmental conservation. Under these circumstances, over the past few years, the tourism industry has mixed up with the environmentalist movement, indicating it towards becoming more environmental friendly (Moyle et al. 2014). More interests are being generated in areas that possess natural connotation, making people desirable in experiencing situations of real-life, where tourism has played a vital role in making everyone understand the beauty of the natural world and that they require to strongly shielding it. Environmental conservation and tourism has produced a relationship focusing upon dependence and mutual benefit.

Positive Impacts of Tourism in Australia

There are certain examples where tourism has been impacted negatively on the physical environment. Coastal strips (gold coast in Queensland) have witnessed over-development creating ecological problems among many beaches in Australia. The rainforests have seen removal of plants and shrubs, making room for walking stalks. Certain recreational activities such as driving of four-wheelers have been obliterating vegetation and sand dunes, with bottom trawling in Great Barrier Reef having unfavorable effects on biodiversity (Day and Dobbs 2013). Visitors have been discarding rubbish of non-biodegradable nature into ecosystems that were not previously spoilt. The ever-increasing presence of humans in far-flung areas, deficient of infrastructure has caused imperative waste management problems. Over the years, the human traffic has been causing problems and affecting the natural environment of Australia in negative way.

The impact of socio-culture on conventional tourism can be stated as the effects on host communities directly or indirectly with tourists and its interaction with the tourism industry. There are different reasons for the host community to be the weaker link among its interactions with service providers and guests. The impacts do arise when tourism convey about changes in value systems and activities, providing threat to indigenous identity.

Positive socio-cultural impacts include boosting the overseas image of Australia and lifting the international profile, building the goodwill of Australia and greater understanding of cross-cultures and respect. Tourism has the capability of turning local culture into commodities when local customs and religious traditions are abridged to match the expectations of tourist, resulting in “reconstructed ethnicity.”

Standardizations are being risked by destinations in the course of satisfying desires of the tourists. Accommodation, landscape and food should meet aspirations of tourists, both for the new and familiar. However, things should not be presented in a very new way as certain tourists actually look for entirely new things.

Negative impacts include increased infringements in customs, increase in under-age smoking and drinking, crime, prostitution and drugs along with effects in language and culture (Amelung and Nicholls 2014).

There is economic inequality between the tourists and the locals who have started spending more than they usually do when they are at home. There is lack in professional training as there is existence of many low-paid tourism jobs, which generally go to the local people, whereas prestigious and higher paying are being offered to foreigners or nationals who are “urban” (Chubchuwong, Beise-Zee and Speece 2015). Tourists have the habit of failing to value local customs, which generally comes out of carelessness. The kind of people who visits the country only looks for clichés and do not show any interest in caring about the local values. These kinds of people do not break laws in their own country by drinking in the streets, shouting and committing nuisance.

Negative Impacts of Tourism in Australia

Increase in mass tourism often comes with increased crime. Tourists do carry many valuables along with them while touring different countries which increases lure among criminals encouraging activities like drug dealing and robbery.

Thailand is a country that has a big diversity of cultures, natural resources and traditions, making it an attractive destination for tourists. Thailand’s culture integrates a great deal of sway from Cambodia and India. Development in tourism has created impacts in socio-culture referring to associated changes in the daily life of residents, ways of life and intellectual products and customs.

Thailand tourism can be best refereed to Hall’s tourism market system where he stated that the experience of tourism is main to it where it places the market as the focus area of entire system. Things such as effects of environment and community are after-thoughts in the system. In Thailand, improvements in tourism are made keeping in mind the visiting tourists to the country and their desire. The communities’ feelings are not taken into account through those developments, like prostitution is illegal in Thailand, it affects the country in a negative way but it still exists as the majority of the tourists visit the country for that.

The social and cultural consequences of tourism require careful deliberation because impacts can either become detriments to the community of Thailand. The exercise of culture as an attraction for tourists improves support for the cultures existing in the traditional Thailand, displaying ethnic identity. It increases the renaissance of traditional arts, festivals and language. Culture has long being used as a way of attracting tourists, which in turn increases the preservation of the country’s cultural heritage. Moreover, it assists in the maintenance and development of museums, theatres and any other facilities related to culture. There has always been a sense of pride, honor when they observe tourists realizing their culture.

The direct contact between inhabitants and tourists leading to a breakdown of negative typecast and increase social prospects. Moreover, it presents with an opening for exchanges in cross-cultures between tourists and residents, learning about one another’s culture. The direct contact with foreign people tenders residents the opportunity to convene people, learning about the world and exposing themselves to new standpoints (Biggs et al. 2015). The experience that they gather of different cultures expands horizons and amplifies the admiration of different living ways. Tourism generates changes in economic structure with jobs ensuing changes in social rules. It produces social and economic prospects to locals resulting in decrease of inequity socially. Moreover, it improves the residents’ living standards, providing money to the community for developing the services and facilities.

Tourism in Thailand

Negative impacts include Thailand’s risk of standardization trying to gratify the demands of tourists for the familiarity shown and concerning facilities of destination. Even in Thailand, people look for hotel chains to be accommodated along with searching for famous restaurants. Cultural clashes exist in Thailand die to diversification of tourists with different religion, languages, and level of inclination. This can lead to over-exploitation of the carrying capacity of socio-culture life of the host community. Thailand residents’ attitude towards development of tourism may unfurl through boredom, potential animosity and irritation.

Economically, tourism has made possible impacts on Thailand. Tourism’s contribution to GDP is in high ratio in Thailand. This is primarily being replicated through economic activities produced by the travel agents, hotels and airline services. It also takes into account the consumption activities supported by tourists. A high proportion of GDP of Thailand, in all probable would get the required support from tourism and other related activities (Bennett and Dearden 2014).

The graph as depicted from the World Travel and Tourism Council illustrates that around 7% of the GDP is being supported by the tourism annually. The ratio is quite high and it proves the fact that the economy of Thailand is being positively affected by tourism.

Moreover, tourism opens the opportunity for lot of jobs to the local population, which according to World Travel and Tourism Council stands at 2,000,000 in 2011 (Ingram, Tabari and Watthanakhomprathip 2013). Over the years, tourism has created job opportunities in Thailand, reducing the rate of unemployment immensely.

Thailand has always been environmentally harmed by tourism, which has given birth to some of the serious concerns that the country faces in recent times. Tourists visiting Thailand are very much interested in nightlives that exist in the resort area. Red-light districts and prostitutions are extended in these resort areas, becoming the major attraction of Thailand tourism. Prostitution is not legal in Thailand, but over the years, it has been tolerated and regulated partly (Hall 2015). Masculinity tourism brings out other negative aspects of the tourism industry in Thailand like child prostitution and wide spreading of HIV/AIDS. Going by the reports published in Country Reports on Human rights practices in Thailand for 2013, children made up 40% of Thailand’s prostitution estimate, adding to that is another 1.7% of population between 15-45 years suffering from the HIV, as reported by World Bank (KanlayanasuKho, Ritchie and Campiranon 2014).

It can be concluded that tourism not only brings about wealth to a country but many issues that keeps on creeping up with increase in tourism. Country as Thailand is heavily dependent on tourism and for that, they have to overlook certain factors that are affecting the country in a bad way. Tourism is great but only when it does not affect the culture and tradition of the host country, giving it a whole new identity which is never desired.

Reference:

Amelung, B. and Nicholls, S., 2014. Implications of climate change for tourism in Australia. Tourism Management, 41, pp.228-244.

Bennett, N.J. and Dearden, P., 2014. Why local people do not support conservation: community perceptions of marine protected area livelihood impacts, governance and management in Thailand. Marine Policy, 44, pp.107-116.

Biggs, D., Hicks, C.C., Cinner, J.E. and Hall, C.M., 2015. Marine tourism in the face of global change: The resilience of enterprises to crises in Thailand and Australia. Ocean & Coastal Management, 105, pp.65-74.

Chubchuwong, M., Beise-Zee, R. and Speece, M.W., 2015. The Effect of Nature-based Tourism, Destination Attachment and Property Ownership on Environmental-friendliness of Visitors: A Study in Thailand. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 20(6), pp.656-679.

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