Unpacking the Pros and Cons of Tourism

Last Updated on October 5, 2023

As travelers, it’s easy to see the benefits of travel on an individual level. Travel is relaxing, exciting, and gives us a chance to escape the routines of our daily lives. But there pros and cons of tourism.

While travel is experienced individually, it does have a big impact beyond the individual traveler. Travel is only possible because of the people who work in tourism, support tourism, and the communities that call “destinations” home. 

Unfortunately, the impacts of tourism aren’t all good. While there are plenty of benefits, there are downsides as well. Let’s unpack the pros and cons of tourism. 

What are the Pros of Tourism?

Read on for 5 of the key pros, or benefits, of tourism.

1. Helps Preserve Culture and Heritage

One major benefit of tourism is that it can help preserve culture and heritage through cultural promotion and preservation. 

Much of travel is centered around experiencing other cultures, whether it’s through formal experiences like visiting cultural sites, or informal experiences like simply dining in a local restaurant. 

Both types of experiences lead to increased cultural awareness. Visitors learn about a culture different from their own, which leads to better understanding. 

Tourism also helps preserve culture and heritage through the accumulation of resources that can be put toward cultural preservation. For example, purchasing a ticket to visit a heritage site will typically support the operation of that site. 

Essentially, tourism provides visitors experiences that lead to cultural understanding, as well as more funding for cultural sites. 

2. Stimulates Economic Growth

One of the biggest pros of tourism is economic. Tourism accounts for about 10% of employment worldwide, both directly and indirectly. Benefits can extend to a local economy, and broader, country-wide economy as well.

While there are the obvious jobs that tourism creates, like tour operators and hotel staff, there are also tourism adjacent jobs. The restaurant, retail, transportation, and entertainment industries all benefit from the presence of tourists. Local businesses selling all sorts of goods can benefit as well. 

In countries where employment rates are low, tourism can add valuable jobs, and contribute to economic growth. For example, tourism represents about 38% of the Maldives’ GDP.

3. Positive Social Effects of Tourism

When tourism helps to improve the economy of a country, there’s the opportunity for that growth to benefit the people of that country. A stronger economy can lead to positive social effects that impact everyday life. 

Tourism also creates incentives for investments that can have positive social effects. For example, tourism encourages infrastructure such as roads, transport networks, medical facilities, and education facilities.

While the main goal may be to support visitors, this investment in infrastructure often benefits local communities just as much. 

4. Supports Environmental Conservation

Some of the primary attractions in countries are the historical sights and beautiful landscapes. When sites start to gain attention from tourism, there’s more incentive, and money, to invest in protecting those places. 

Tourism demand can lead to the creation of protected areas, national parks, and designated heritage sites. This in turn often results in more funding and regular maintenance. 

5. Encourages Global Awareness and Learning

Another pro of tourism is that it encourages travelers to learn about cultures outside of their own. Often, this learning helps to create a sense of unity among people from various cultures and countries. 

Exposure to other cultures makes it possible for people to understand one another’s cultural practices, beliefs, and traditions. This in turn leads to global awareness and cross-cultural understanding. 

What are the Cons of Tourism?

While there are plenty of pros of tourism, there are cons of tourism as well. Read on to learn about the negative impact that tourism can cause. 

1. Overtourism, or Mass Tourism

Overtourism, also known as mass tourism, is one con of tourism that can’t be ignored. Overtourism is when too many tourists visit a particular destination. It describes the many side effects that mass tourism can create.

When tourism becomes unsustainable in a destination, you start to see negative consequences. These consequences can impact local life, culture, the land, animals, and more. 

For example, this has been seen in India, where the impact that tourism has had on the country’s Bengal tiger population is debated. The population of tigers is  

2. Impacts on Wildlife

Travel, and particularly overtourism, can lead to exploitative wildlife tourism by creating a demand for animal encounters. Tourists travel to places hoping to see beautiful animals, but this can put animals, particularly endangered ones, at risk. 

When there’s demand to see or visit with an animal, that animal is at greater risk to be brought into captivity. A tourism industry around interacting with that animal means that animal no longer gets to be wild. 

3. Commodification of Culture

The commodification of culture is a con of tourism that’s closely related to manufactured authenticity. Commodification often contributes to making a cultural experience feel less authentic. This is usually because that cultural experience or practice is being performed in a tourist setting. 

Commodification also points to how an aspect of culture can be made into an experience that is sold. While this isn’t always bad, there’s always the risk that the actual meaning of a cultural practice becomes lost because of this inauthenticity.

4. Environmental Damage

Natural areas can suffer when tourism becomes prevalent. With more people visiting a forest, park, or beach, there’s more opportunity for ecological damage. Typically more people leads to more litter and pollution, and animal habitats can end up disrupted. 

Tourism often puts pressure on natural resources through over-consumption, often in places where resources are already scarce. Tourism puts enormous stress on local land use, and can lead to soil erosion, increased pollution, natural habitat loss, and more pressure on endangered species.

5. Encourages Dependence on Tourism

A final con of tourism is that it can lead communities, and even countries, to depend on tourism. While tourism can contribute strongly to the economy of a destination, there’s the risk that that dependence will backfire. 

For example, when the pandemic began in 2020, many destinations felt the loss of tourism dollars. Iceland’s tourism sector is one of the country’s most dependable sources of economic growth, and the industry provides many jobs for locals. 

When pandemic restrictions led to a rapid drop in visitors, Icelanders lost their job security, and many lost their incomes. 

Weighing the Good and Bad of Tourism

Tourism is all about balance. While there are pros and cons of tourism, it is possible to create a responsible and sustainable tourism model that leads to positive effects for local communities. 

One thing that’s important to remember is that the cons of tourism are largely systemic. They aren’t the fault of small businesses, or individual travelers. These are issues that need to be addressed by government policy, tourism boards, and corporate entities.

How to Keep the Impact of Tourism Positive

As travelers, one of the best ways to keep the impact of tourism positive is to make travel choices that support good tourism. Researching your travels, the vendors you hire, and the properties you stay at is a great place to start. 

When considering the pros and cons of tourism, we also have the opportunity to amplify tourism issues amongst our own communities. By talking about the cons of tourism with others, we can bring more collective awareness, which can in turn motivate positive industry-level change. 

Want to learn some easy responsible travel tips that you can use on your next trip? Read How to Be a Responsible Tourist (+20 Responsible Travel Tips!)

Final Thoughts: The Pros vs. Cons of Tourism

Now that you know the pros and cons of tourism, you can go into your travels informed! You can use this knowledge to help make travel choices that are focused on positive social effects. 

Want to learn more about sustainable and responsible tourism? Here are more resources:

• Your Guide to Cultural Appropriation vs. Cultural Appreciation
• 12 Essential Sustainable Tourism Tips
• Why is Sustainable Tourism Important?
• How to Avoid Contributing to Overtourism