Understanding the social impacts of tourism is vital to ensuring the sustainable management of the tourism industry. There are positive social impacts of tourism, demonstrating benefits to both the local community and the tourists. There are also negative social impacts of tourism.
This article explains the most common positive and negative social impacts of tourism, with examples, and how they can be managed. At the end there is a reading list for students of travel and tourism.
The social impacts of tourism
First, it is important to understand what is meant by the term ‘social impacts of tourism’.
To put it simply, social impacts of tourism are;
“The effects on host communities of direct and indirect relations with tourists, and of interaction with the tourism industry”
This is also often referred to as socio-cultural impacts.
Tourism is, at its core, an interactive service. This means that host-guest interaction is inevitable. This can have significant social/socio-cultural impacts.
These social impacts can be positive or negative, as explained below.
Video: The social impacts of tourism
Positive social impacts of tourism
There are many social benefits of tourism, demonstrating positive social impacts. These might include; preserving the local culture and heritage; strengthening communities; provision of social services; commercialisation of culture and art; revitalisation of customs and art forms and the preservation of heritage.
Preserving Local Culture
It is the local culture that the tourists are often coming to visit.
Tourists visit Beijing to learn more about the Chinese Dynasties. Tourists visit Thailand to taste authentic Thai food. Tourists travel to Brazil to go to the Rio Carnival, to mention a few…
Many destinations will make a concerted effort to preserve and protect the local culture. This often contributes to the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources, the protection of local heritage, and a renaissance of indigenous cultures, cultural arts and crafts.
This can be very positive- cultures are preserved and protected, and the effects of globalisation are limited. However, it raises an interesting question: is this always natural? Cultures in every society change over time.
So is it right to try to preserve the culture of an area in a fixed form for the purposes of tourism, or should communities be free to grow and change? This is an important debate in tourism studies.
Strengthening Communities
Tourism can be a catalyst for strengthening a local community.
Events and festivals of which local residents have been the primary participants and spectators are often rejuvenated and developed in response to tourist interest. The Running of the Bulls festival (San Fermín) in Pamplona, Spain, for example, is a local celebration that has grown into an international event while remaining at the heart of community life.
The jobs created by tourism can also be a great boost for the local community. Aside from the economic impacts created by enhanced employment prospects, employment can improve people’s wellbeing and social lives.
Local people can also increase their influence on tourism development, as well as improve their job and earnings prospects, through tourism-related professional training and development of business and organisational skills.
Read also: Economic leakage in tourism explained
Provision of Social Services
The tourism industry requires many facilities/ infrastructure to meet the needs of the tourist. This often means that many developments in an area as a result of tourism will be available for use by the locals also.
Local people often gain new roads, new sewage systems, new playgrounds, bus services etc as a result of tourism. This can provide a great boost to their quality of life and is a great example of a positive social impact of tourism.
Commercialisation of Culture and Art
Tourism can give rise to many commercial businesses, which can be a positive social impact of tourism. This helps to enhance the community spirit as people tend to have more disposable income as a result.
These businesses may also promote the local cultures and arts. Museums, shows and galleries are great ways to showcase the local customs and traditions of a destination. This can help to promote/ preserve local traditions.
Revitalisation of Culture and Art
Some destinations will encourage local cultures and arts to be revitalised. This may be in the form of museum exhibitions, in the way that restaurants and shops are decorated and in the entertainment on offer, for example.
This may help promote traditions that may have become distant.
Preservation of Heritage
Many tourists will visit the destination especially to see its local heritage. It is for this reason that many destinations will make every effort to preserve their heritage.
This could include putting restrictions in place or limiting tourist numbers, if necessary. This is often an example of careful tourism planning and sustainable tourism management.
This text by Hyung You Park explains the principles of heritage tourism in more detail.
Negative social impacts of tourism
Unfortunately, there are a large number of socio-cultural costs on the host communities. These negative social impacts include; social change; changing values; increased crime and gambling; changes in moral behaviour; changes in family structure and roles; problems with the tourist-host relationship and the destruction of heritage.
Social Change
Social change is basically referring to changes in the way that society acts or behaves. Unfortunately, there are many changes that come about as a result of tourism that are not desirable.
There are many examples throughout the world where local populations have changed because of tourism.
Perhaps they have changed the way that they speak or the way that they dress. Perhaps they have been introduced to alcohol through the tourism industry or they have become resentful of rich tourists and turned to crime. These are just a few examples of the negative social impacts of tourism.
Globalisation and the Destruction of Preservation and Heritage
Globalisation is the way in which the world is becoming increasingly connected. Some argue that this is leading to a loss of individuality and a sense of ‘global being’, whereby people are becoming more alike than ever before.
Globalisation is inevitable in the tourism industry because of the interaction between tourists and hosts, which typically come from different geographic and cultural backgrounds. It is this interaction that encourages people to become more alike.
Here are some examples:
- On jungle and village tours in places such as Goa, India, tourists have often given sweets to local children- introducing foods and habits that the children would not otherwise have encountered.
- In The Gambia, many young men who work informally with tourists (known locally as ‘bumsters’) wear Western football shirts and clothing given to them by visitors.
- In Thailand, many workers have exchanged their traditional work of ploughing the fields to work in the cities, in the tourism industry. They have learnt to speak English and to eat Western food. Without tourism, many would have a different line of work and fewer would speak English or eat Western food.
Many people believe globalisation to be a bad thing, but there are also positives for tourists.
Many tourists would rather use a Western-style toilet than a squat toilet, eat familiar foods for breakfast and find someone who speaks their language.
Most tourists want some sense of the ‘familiar’ when they travel, and globalisation helps to provide it.
You can learn more about globalisation in this post- What is globalisation? A simple explanation.
Loss of Authenticity
Along similar lines to globalisation is the loss of authenticity that often results from tourism.
Authenticity is essentially something that is original or unchanged. It is not fake or reproduced in any way.
Many in the Western world believe that a tourist destination is no longer authentic when its cultural values and traditions change. But it can be argued that this is natural- culture has always evolved from one generation to the next.
Some communities, such as the so-called long neck tribe in Thailand, have been criticised as examples where tourism encourages people to preserve a ‘frozen’ version of their culture- in dress, customs or performances- for visitors. Tours of Maasai villages in East Africa raise similar questions.
This raises the question of whether such experiences are actually authentic- or whether they are an example of ‘staged authenticity’, where culture is performed for tourists while daily life has moved on.
There are also important ethical questions about who benefits from such tourism and whether the communities involved have a genuine choice.
There is more on authenticity in tourism in this article, along with examples of staged authenticity in this article.
Read also: Environmental impacts of tourism
Standardisation and Commercialisation
Similarly, destinations risk standardisation in the process of satisfying tourists’ desires for familiar facilities and experiences.
While landscape, accommodation, food and drinks, etc., must meet the tourists’ desire for the new and unfamiliar, they must at the same time not be too new or strange because few tourists are actually looking for completely new things.
Tourists often look for recognisable facilities in an unfamiliar environment, like well-known fast-food restaurants and hotel chains. Tourist like some things to be standardised (the toilet, their breakfast, their drinks, the language spoken etc), but others to be different (dinner options, music, weather, tourist attractions etc).
However, too much standardisation can damage what makes a destination special. Many high streets around the world are now dominated by the same international chains, and part of the appeal of travel is discovering independent cafés, shops and restaurants. Italy, for example, had no Starbucks until 2018, partly because of the strength of its own coffee culture.
Tourism stakeholders therefore need to be careful when it comes to standardisation. Providing some familiar comforts is fine, but if a destination dilutes its culture and traditions too much, it risks losing the very things that attract visitors in the first place.
Culture clashes
On a less philosophical note, another of the negative social impacts of tourism is is culture clashes, which can have significant consequences.
Because tourism involves movement of people to different geographical locations cultural clashes can take place as a result of differences in cultures, ethnic and religious groups, values, lifestyles, languages and levels of prosperity.
The attitude of local residents towards tourism development may unfold through the stages of euphoria, where visitors are very welcome, through apathy, irritation and potentially antagonism when anti-tourist attitudes begin to grow among local people. This is represented in Doxey’s Irritation Index, as shown below. In recent years, this has been seen in large protests against mass tourism in destinations such as Barcelona, Mallorca and the Canary Islands, where residents have raised concerns about overcrowding and the impact of tourist rentals on housing costs. Barcelona has announced plans to phase out all of its licensed tourist apartments by 2028.
Tourist-host relationships
Culture clashes can also be exacerbated by the fundamental differences in culture between the hosts and the tourists.
There is likely to be economic inequality between locals and tourists who are spending more than they usually do at home. This can cause resentment from the hosts towards the tourists, particularly when they see them wearing expensive jewellery or using plush cameras etc that they know they can’t afford themselves.
Further to this, tourists often, out of ignorance or carelessness, fail to respect local customs and moral values.
For example, sunbathing topless on a beach may cause offence in a country where local people cover their shoulders and knees.
There are many examples of ways that tourists offend the local population, often unintentionally. For example, in Thailand it is considered disrespectful to point the soles of your feet at a person or a Buddha image, and in many Middle Eastern countries public displays of affection are frowned upon or even illegal.
A little education in this respect could go a long way, but unfortunately, many travellers are completely unaware of the negative social impacts that their actions may have.
Increase in crime, gambling and moral behaviour
The final social impact of tourism covered here is crime, gambling and moral behaviour. Crime rates typically increase with the growth and urbanisation of an area and the growth of mass tourism is often accompanied by increased crime.
The presence of a large number of tourists with a lot of money to spend and often carrying valuables such as cameras and jewellery increases the attraction for criminals and brings with it activities like robbery and drug dealing.
Although tourism is not the cause of sexual exploitation, it provides easy access to it e.g. prostitution and sex tourism. Therefore, tourism can contribute to rises in the numbers of sex workers in a given area. This has been well documented in destinations such as The Gambia and Thailand.
Lastly, gambling is a common occurrence as a result of tourism. Growth of casinos and other gambling facilities can encourage not only the tourists to part with their cash, but also the local population.
Social impacts of tourism: Conclusion
There are many social impacts of tourism. Some are positive, but many are negative, which is why careful planning and sustainable tourism management are so important.
Tourists can also help by learning about local customs before they travel, respecting local people and spending their money in locally owned businesses. Issues such as globalisation, authenticity and standardisation are also important topics for deeper thinking.
Social impacts of tourism: FAQs
Below are answers to some of the most common questions about the social impacts of tourism.
What are the social impacts of tourism?
The social impacts of tourism are the effects on host communities of their direct and indirect relationships with tourists and the tourism industry. They are also known as socio-cultural impacts and can be positive or negative.
What are the positive social impacts of tourism?
Positive social impacts include the preservation of local culture and heritage, stronger communities, new infrastructure and services that local people can also use, the revitalisation of traditional arts and crafts, and greater cross-cultural understanding.
What are the negative social impacts of tourism?
Negative social impacts include unwanted social change, loss of authenticity, standardisation, culture clashes, resentment between hosts and tourists, rising crime and sex tourism, and rising housing costs caused by tourist rentals.
What is Doxey’s Irritation Index?
Doxey’s Irritation Index (1975) is a model that shows how local residents’ attitudes towards tourists can change as tourism grows, moving through four stages: euphoria, apathy, annoyance (irritation) and antagonism.
How can the negative social impacts of tourism be reduced?
Negative social impacts can be reduced through careful tourism planning, involving local communities in decision-making, limiting visitor numbers where necessary, regulating short-term rentals, and educating tourists to respect local customs.
Social impacts of tourism- further reading
The social impacts of tourism are an important consideration for all industry stakeholders.
If you found this article on the social impacts of tourism useful, you may also find these articles helpful-
- Environmental impacts of tourism
- The 3 types of travel and tourism organisations
- 150 types of tourism! The ultimate tourism glossary
- Economic impacts of tourism
- What is overtourism?
- 50 fascinating facts about the travel and tourism industry
