Background
The essay agrees with the argument that; given environmental concerns, tourism in the developing world is unsustainable, this is because of various reasons which are: Developing nations usually have problems with infrastructure, water quality, and there is an existing pressure on resource scarcity in this countries such as food and energy; Tourism puts a lot of pressure on the communities that are already struggling, therefore making the locals strive for the essential resources; There is a lot of untreated sewage disposal in the water ways that are meant for household consumption; Lack of environmental protection regulations in the developing world; and the tourists reduce the scarce food supply for the native community as the tourists consume diverse food quantity (Butler 2011).
Tourism has a number of definitions, in 1994 Theobald etymologically suggested that the term “tour” was derived from “tornare” a Latin word and the term “tornos” a Greek term meaning “a circle or lathe; the process of movement around an axis or a central point”. The meaning was changed to modern English to mean “one’s turn”. The ‘–ism’ suffix is explained as “a process or action; typical quality or behavior” and the ‘-ist’ suffix represents the one that conducts a particular action (Hall 2008). The term tour and the –ism suffix are combined to suggest the action of moving around an axis, and when the term tour and –ist suffix are combined they suggest the one that is moving around an axis. The Dictionary of Macmillan describes tourism as a business process of service provision for individuals who are holiday travelling. The OECD statistical terms glossary, on the other hand, describes tourism as the person’s activities of travelling to a place and staying at the place away from their usual home environment not exceeding one successive year for purposes such as business and leisure and the purposes are not associated to the practical activity remunerated from within the place of visit (Hall 2008).
The development of tourism has proved to be the fastest growing industry in the 21st era and has brought about various environmental issues. Any industrial developments in a country brings about impacts on the environment in which the development takes place. Tourism therefore has various impacts on the environment as the activity involves tourists visiting a production place and consuming the place’s output (Pigram and Wahab 2005). Therefore, tourism can result in negative environmental consequences especially in the developing countries. The highly diverged nature of tourism’s development causes intense problems to the environment (Muhanna 2006). The environmental problems created by the development of the tourist industry in the developing nations can reduce the life quality of the tourists, locals and the problems can also threaten the feasibility of the tourism itself (Buckley 2012).
Discussion
The depletion of the natural resources can lead to water shortages and this generates pressure on the other resources such as food, energy and air, the resources become scarce, therefore the attractive scenic landscapes are destroyed. Contamination from tourists creates great negative impacts on the universal levels and this results in disturbance of the population locally of the affected community. Littering and solid wastes in the nature plunders the normal environment (Butler 2011). Greater environmental physical impacts experienced in the developing countries due to tourism are loss and degradation of the habitats of wildlife as well as scenery degradation. There is also erosion and disturbance of the native ecosystem that is as a result of forest land clearing and building of tourist infrastructure and facilities (Tosun 2001).
Some of the developing nations in the world have an amusing cultural; heritage and natural beauty that is very attractive. However, tourism in these countries in unsustainable as the tourism sector is just praised for being the income source in the developing country but the governments in these states do not invest in the sector such as by building better roads and providing clean water (Pigram and Wahab 2005). The developing nations usually have problems with infrastructure, water quality, and there is an existing pressure on resource scarcity in this countries such as food and energy. Therefore, the tourism sector has failed to offer the main economic income to the nations, and instead it has led to increased environmental and land degradation in the countries. Developing countries, such as India; which is known to have one of the most diverse and distinct cultural legacy that attracts a large tourist number who come for its colossal forts, museums, heritage monuments and the scenic landscapes, undergo great land degradation consequences due to tourism (Hardy, Beeton, and Pearson 2002.).
Convergence of large tourist numbers from varied backgrounds on a particular historic site or monument and the positioning of the tourist facilities on the ethnic heritage areas results in the alteration of the unique features of the monuments. The siting of tourist facilities also results in pollutions as well as damaging of the monuments’ fabric and the landscape of the countries. The developing countries therefore, being unable to provide adequate income for the purpose of repairing the damages as well as building high quality infrastructure and facilities on land regions that are appropriate, face great land degradation consequences as a result of tourism (Dodds, Graci, and Holmes 2010). The joint impact of atmospheric pollution attack, excessive tourism, generation of solid wastes, urbanization inappropriate measures for damage restoration, negligence usually leads to irremediable alterations and even the complete disappearance of the movable or immovable heritage an aspect that indicates land degradation. For this reason, tourism in the developing world is unsustainable as there are no adequate resources to attain the requirements that come with the industry and maintain the standards of the industry (McDonald 2009).
Tourism and land degradation in developing countries
The developing nations do not have adequate resources to ensure the goal of a clean and sustainable tourism sector is achieved. The tourism sector puts a lot of pressure on the local communities that are already struggling, therefore making the locals strive for the essential resources such as clean water. The development of tourism in the developing nations has led to increased environmental pollution (Gössling 2000). These republics fail to have appropriate waste treatment means and therefore, solid disposal of non-degradable wastes by the tourists results to soil pollution, this affects crop growth especially the food crops in the local communities therefore causing food scarcity. The food crop scarcity forces the locals to venture into activities such as fishing and hunting and pouching, this results in degradation of marine life as well as the destruction of the wildlife which are the key aspects that attract the tourists to the developing nations (Tosun 2001).
Disposal of waste products in the water systems might lead to untreated sewage ending up in the clean water systems, therefore causing water pollution. Tourism leads to increased untreated sewage disposal in the clean water ways that are meant for household consumption. Increased tourism results in urbanization which is associated with increased car travelling resulting in air pollution (McDonald 2009). The developing nations laud the tourism sector for its economic development purpose and fail to allow the travel industry to maintain the sustainability of the tourist industry by limiting the level of car and air travel to reduce the amount of wastes, particularly the exhaust gases, that are released to the environment. The combined actions of the tourists together with the continued negligence and failure or inappropriate input of the renovation measures to the pollution damages caused makes tourism unsustainable in the developing world (Neto 2003).
Most of the developing world nations have inadequate or lack the appropriate environmental protection regulations this makes it easier for the occurrence of the deforestation activities. Most of the countries in Africa are third world and therefore are developing countries, the republics have rich tourist attraction sites that are greatly fading away due to the effects of deforestation and desertification (Mowforth and Munt 2015). Tourism development results in need for increased infrastructure as well as increased need for tourist facilities this forces the need for clearance of forests in order to create space for the establishment of facilities and roads. Tourism is also associated with increased urbanization a factor that puts a lot of pressure on forests as the trees are cleared to create space for human settlement and establishment of new industries. This has resulted in forest degradation and loss of some essential tree species especially the hard word tree species found in the tropical forests (Newsome, Moore, and Dowling 2012).
Tourism and pollution in the developing countries
Deforestation has led to development of the desert-like conditions in the countries especially in the developing world where desert never existed before. Deforestation has led to alteration of the climatic conditions therefore there is increased desertification in the third world nations, this is due to the increased loss of plant diversity and vegetative cover on the land surface. Deforestation and desertification comprise a radical alteration in the microclimates, the changes then bring about changes ecologically (Muhanna 2006). The processes of desertification and deforestation result in biological productivity loss and degradation of the microclimates on the surface.
Desertification results in green house and global warming effects, therefore threatening tourism sustainability in the nations as the third world countries have inadequate first class resources that will ensure establishment of a sustainable and friendly environment for the tourists. The climatic change effects that affect tourism greatly in most of the African nations are; saline intrusion, beach erosions, landslides, flash floods and droughts (Swanson and Edgell Sr 2013). Since the third world states have insufficient resources to ensure environmental sustainability due to climate change, the tourism sector in the countries is unstable.
Development of tourism in the third world nations has resulted in sand dunes erosions, biodiversity loss, decline in the fish catches, ground water depletion and siltation. The tourists reduce the scarce food supply for the native community as the they consume diverse food quantity, this forces the local members to venture into activities such as overfishing, in the long run the activities lead to reduced fish catches (Muhanna 2006). Increased urbanization which is a resultant effect of tourism affects the water catchment areas of the developing countries as the countries don’t have appropriate measures to conserve the areas and this leads to ground water depletion (Honey 2008). Lack of adequate first class resources in the third world countries to ensure construction of high quality facilities and infrastructure for tourism leads to land degradation and loss of essential sceneries of attraction such as the sand dunes, indicating tourism unsustainability in the developing world (Sunderlin et al. 2005).
Conclusion
Most of the types of tourism involve travelling and visiting spectacular and incentive places in the world. Developing countries, especially those in Africa are endowed with beautiful sites that attract most tourists. The culture as well as the natural scenery as well as landscape of such nations is very captivating, therefore attracting a diverse number of tourists who visit such places for recreational purposes (Holden 2007). Therefore, some of the African nations relay heavily on tourism as the leading source of income. However, the tourist industries of the developing world fail to adequately invest in the tourism sector in order to maintain high quality standards to ensure providence of efficient services as well as avoid the negative impacts of tourism. For these reasons, the topic; ‘Given environmental concerns, tourism in the developing world is unsustainable’ is true.
References
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