Social and Cultural Impacts of Tourism

Olasile Babatunde Adedoyin

Near East University

1.0 Introduction
Tourism as define by John (2011), means visitation for a minimum of a night for leisure,
recreation and vacation, commercial and professional or additional purposes like medical and
education. Macintosh and Goeldner as cited in Kalaiya and Kumar (2015) also defined tourism
as combination of events, services and industries that provides travel experience that consist of
transit, housing, foods and drinks, business and additional hospitality services for individual or
group of people that left a particular location preferably their home to another location.

From the above definitions of tourism, the similarity and emphases are on “visiting” which
means a short-term movement to places outside the usual home and workplace of persons
involved, the “duration” which ranges from a night to two or more years, and the “purpose”
which refers to the drive behind the movement and this not limited to holiday, business,
professional, recreation and education. Tourism development is the process geared towards
establishment of plans, policies and strategies to increase the positive and reduce the negative
impact of tourism for a country.

The debate on the positive and negative social and cultural impacts of tourism has been a
common reemerging issue that surround tourism development and sustainability. Tourism
development is the process geared towards establishment of plans, policies and strategies to
increase the positive and reduce the negative impact of tourism for a country. Kreag under the
introduction part of “Impacts of Tourism” stated that the lasting sustainability of tourism is
dependent on the community leaders’ capacity and tourism experts to optimize the advantages
while reducing the cost to barest minimum. Kim, Uysal, and Sirgy (2013) gave four perspectives
of tourism impacts on the host community, while the purpose of this academic research work
will only focus on only two of the four perspectives, namely Social and Cultural impacts of
tourism. It will also be necessary to note that both the negative and positive impacts of the two
perspectives (i.e. social and cultural) will be dissected thoroughly for better illumination.
2.0 Impacts of Tourism

Conventionally, the contributions of tourism have always been evaluated via its impacts on
Gross National Product and jobs provided by the industry, while the general effects of tourism on
the economy is calculated by assessing the effects of tourism expenditure via indirect, direct and
induced spending through the multiplier effect method.

However, contribution of tourism is wide and regularly have effects on communities more than
those frequently connected with tourism. Community frontrunners and people that possesses the
knowledge of the prospective contributions of tourism can effectively and efficiently incorporate
the travel and tourism industry into their community in a manner that community will benefit.
According to Kim, et al., (2013), contribution of tourism can be categorized into four, and these
four categories are; Economic, Environmental, Social and Cultural impacts.

The examination of the social and cultural impacts of tourism must first pay attention to the
understanding of the two terms “society” and “culture”. The study of society as a concept
belongs particularly to the field of sociology, because sociology is consistently concerned about
assessment of society, with major target on people in groups, their interactions, attitudes and
behavior while culture is a related concept and or subset of society and it covers the observation
of how people relate via social interaction, social affairs and material for historical interests.

The categorization of the impacts of tourism is said to be negative when the effects of tourism
add to disorderliness of societal elements, and when those effects leads to the improvement of
important elements is said to have positive impacts (Türker & Öztürk, 2013).

2.1 Social Impacts of Tourism

According to Deery, Jago, and Fredline (2012), sustainable tourism relies on the importance of
understanding the impacts of tourism on the host nation for monitoring and management. And
these scholars went further to state that the summary of the stages of development of enquiry
about social contributions of tourism has gone through are;

Stage 1: Definitions and Concept development

Stage 2: Model Development

Stage 3: Instrument Design and Development

Stage 4: Instrument Testing and Refinement

Khan, Seng, and Cheong (1990) added that there are several enquiries available for both negative
and positive social impacts of tourism.

2.1.1 Positive Social Impacts of Tourism

Positive social impacts are the social contributions or effects of tourism on the well-being of the
host community and these positive impacts are listed below.

Business and Employment Opportunities

According to Lee, Kim, and Kang (2003), as the number of tourists increases, there is
corresponding increment in the number of trading/commercial activities and this in turn open the
window of business opportunities for the local residents, while Sharma et al., (2008) also added
creation of job opportunities.

Increased Demand for Public Goods and Service

Public goods and services are good whereby the consumption by an individual does not affect its
consumption by others and examples are health, electricity, fire services. As a community is
open for mass tourism, there will be increment in the number of tourist and this result into
increment in the demand for public goods and services.

Infrastructural Development

Tourism come with development of infrastructures and these infrastructures includes parks,
hotels, ports and beaches. These infrastructures are either provided by the state or private sector
and at times public-private partnership in order to increase the number of tourist arrival and
revenues. The provision of those infrastructural developments are also beneficial to the local
residents of the community.

2.1.2 Negative Social Impacts of Tourism

Maintenance of Infrastructures
As it has been established that tourism brings infrastructural development, it is also worthy to
note that the cost of maintenance for those infrastructures rest on the people while some
individuals or groups will be affected for the development of those infrastructures. For there is
price for every success story.

Increase in Social Vices

As the number of tourist increases, there is increment in the crime rate in the community.
Overcrowding or rowdy activities in communities as a result of mass tourism attracts high rate of
social vices such as gambling, abuse of alcohol and drugs, prostitution etc.

Pollution

Tourism activities such as musical concerts, horse riding others too numerous to mention can
result to noise pollution for the local residents.

Traffic Congestion

Increment in the number of tourists’ arrival in a community can also result to traffic congestions,
because the number of the motorists will definitely jack up while having negative effects on the
local residents.

2.2 Cultural Impacts of Tourism

In assessing both the positive and negative cultural effects of tourism on the host communities,
Shahzalal (2016) stated that there exist a contemporary and general arguments on if one (i.e.
negative) overshadows the other (i.e. positive), and as a result of several variables (i.e. socio-
cultural and socio-economic) associated with tourism, some are of the opinion that it becomes
very inflexible to quantify how tourism has protected culture or otherwise. However, the
following subsections where the positive and negatives effects of tourism on culture will be
dissected will adequately do justice to the above assertions.

2.2.1 Positive Cultural Impacts of Tourism

Cultural Maintenance

According to Smith (2009), tourism gives the financial aid needed for the conservation and
preservation cultural heritage that offers cultural egotism, rejuvenation of traditional values and
customs while giving room for involvement and learning of culture. Wang et al., (2006) also
added that tourism serves as agent of revitalization for dying tradition due to the rejuvenation of
cultural values that are going into extinction for tourist attractions.

Construction of Institutional Infrastructure

Travel and tourism industry undoubtedly escalates the consciousness among native residents that
are not initially engaged in the commercial activities of traditional arts and crafts. Keeping of
those cultural elements flourishing through tourism is achievable by building of institutional
infrastructure.

Promotion of Collectivity

Social interactions and contacts gives room for people that are self-centered come out of their
self-illusion that every everything in the world should be personal to that, and begin to reason in
a collective mannerism. These social interactions assist people to display trustworthiness,
decency and friendliness to tourists.

2.2.1 Negative Cultural Impacts of Tourism

Acculturation Impacts

Culture is said to be the total way of life of the people, and as people travel or migrate for tourist
purposes, people tend to adjust their original cultural values as a result of their interaction with
the host community for proper integration. This is not only limited to tourist or immigrants, but
as well applicable to natives of the host community. This process of cultural adjustment or
assimilation is referred to as acculturation. Some natives may begin to the see ways of life of
tourist as superior to theirs while there will be a shift in the material things they use with
attitudes and gestures inclusive. This frequently occurs in urban communities in which weaker
culture are taken-over by the frontrunner culture (Burns as cited in Shahzalal, 2016).

Hybrid Culture

Hybridity is referred to as mixture of distinct things such as race, culture, and plants. Thus,
hybrid culture is the amalgamation or integration of several culture. As people travel/migrate
from different locations to their desire places or tourism centers, there is high tendency copying
and addition of non-natural components of other cultures to their culture. A typical example of
this can be traced to music, dance steps, and foods. This mixture is said to result to cultural
decadence or total loss.

Cultural Commodification

The alteration of tradition from sacred to irreligious and from actual to artificial is called cultural
commodification. According to Cole (2007), in travel and tourism industry, the gathering of
several cultural elements while adding some artificial components in order to influence tourist
arrival result into loosing of the real value of cultural components.

3.0 Discussion

As stated ab initio that the impacts of tourism are conventionally examined based on the
contribution of tourism to Gross National Product and jobs provided by the sector because
tourism is an untraditional industry because the goods and services provided in the industry are
dependent on the status of the consumers (i.e. tourists), and the production and consumption in
tourism industry are captured in national economic accounts.

Gloria Guevara Manzo, President & CEO of World Travel & Tourism Council stated that, the
more countries continue to look inward, tourism industry becomes essential driver for economic
development and means of projecting cultural values and mutual understanding.

However, there are several scholastic work that contributed to the examination of impacts of
tourism from wider perspectives of tourism impacts such as social and cultural effects of tourism
on the host communities, while some are also of the opinion that the negative effects of tourism
overshadow the positive impacts.

After cross examination of the negative and positive social and cultural impacts of tourism on the
host communities listed above, it becomes undeniable that in as much the negative impacts of
tourism cannot be totally eradicated. It becomes pertinent to change the narrative of the issue to
minimization of those negative impacts while maintaining optimal maximization of the positive
social and cultural impacts of tourism.

The said minimization of negative impacts with optimal maximization of positive social and
cultural impacts of tourism can only be possible when tourism development plans, monitoring
and executions are handled by the tourism stakeholders and professionals in order to attain
sustainable tourism.

Tourism development is the process geared towards establishment of plans, policies and
strategies to increase the progressive and reduce the undesirable impact of tourism for the nation.

4.0 Conclusion

Tosun (2002) stated that there are diverse cultural impacts of tourism that is dependent on local
residents’ social connection with tourists, and the dissimilarity in the social connection in the
host community can be associated local natives’ edification level, communication abilities with
tourist, as well as the perception of international visitors. The claim that tourism is an easy,
effective and reasonably economical tool to gain a persistent increase in the economic well-being
of the people (Tosun as cited in Egresi, 2016), has been ascertained by the World Travel &
Tourism Council’s (WTTC) report on global economic and employment effect of Travel &
Tourism in 185 countries and 25 regions, the findings shows that Travel & Tourism industries
are responsible for 10.4% of world GDP while providing 319 million employments that represent
10% of aggregate employment in 2018.

The negative social and cultural impacts of tourism on the host communities cannot be totally do
away from, but can be effectively and efficiently controlled by minimizing those negative
impacts, while not neglecting the fact that there is also the need to effectively and efficiently
manage the positive social and cultural impacts of tourism in order for the host communities to
derive optimal utilization of the travel and tourism industry.

Conclusively, the overturning of the negative social and cultural impacts of tourism to the
advantage of the host communities is dependent on the tourism development plans, monitoring
and executions of policies handled by the tourism professionals while priorities are given to all
tourism stakeholders.
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