Faculty Malay Sarker

Program BHMT

Course code & Title HMT 451 Environmental

Issues in Tourism Industry

Chapter Negative Impacts of Natural

Environment on Tourists and
Tourism Resources
Length of Duration 1.5×3=4.5 hrs
 Negative Impacts of Natural
Environment on Tourists and Tourism
Resources
 two major categories:
1. Impacts caused by external natural factors completely
independent from humans, such as volcano eruptions or
hurricanes, and thus unpreventable.
 
2. Impacts caused by the environment due to lack of caution by
tourists, e.g., fatalities from white-water rafting, or canoeing and
mountaineering accidents. These effects of nature on tourists
are, in various degrees, preventable.
Tourists frequently ignore the fact that they are at risk from
certain elements of the natural environment. For example, while
some attacks of grizzly bears on tourists have been completely
unprovoked, other fatal encounters have been caused by tourists
irresponsibly approaching the animals.
 classification of natural events

1. Natural disasters threatening human life

and destruction of tourist facilities.
2. Other natural factors and phenomena
hazardous to health and life of tourists.
3. Dangerous contacts of tourists with wild
animals, plants, and insects.
4. Environmental diseases.
 1. Natural Disasters

a. Meteorological, such as hurricanes, typhoons,

cyclones and tornadoes, floods, snowstorms,
and sandstorms.
b. Tectonic and geomorphic (geological), such as
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami,
landslides, rockslides, rock avalanches, snow
avalanches, and mudflows.
c. Other natural disasters, such as forest fires,
especially in National Parks.
 1. Natural Disasters (Cont’d)
a. Meteorological and Hydrological Disasters

Meteorologically there is no essential difference between hurricanes, cyclone, typhoons and, to a lesser
degree, tornadoes. As a rule, these storms are associated not only with high speed winds and destructive
waves, but also with torrential rains.
 
The greatest impact on tourism from hurricane-type storms occurs in the Caribbean, which experiences
about six severe hurricanes annually. Although the death toll seems to be limited to the local population,
there has been considerable economic damage to tourism, mainly because of destroyed general and tourism
infrastructure.
Natural tourism resources are also frequently affected, e.g., the vegetation is leveled. This occurred in
September 1989, when Hurricane Hugo did considerable damage to the El Yunque U.S. National Forest on
Puerto Rico. Equally destructive are the typhoons of the western Pacific. For example, in October 1991
Typhoon Ruth killed 36 people, who were crushed by falling trees and buried by landslides, and did
considerable infrastructural damage to Baguio of the Philippines.
 
The Caribbean is certainly the tourist area most affected by destructive winds. However, they may occur
almost anywhere, including the midlatitudes.
 
The physical damage caused to the tourism infrastructure and resources by such meteorological disasters is
not the only problem. Surprisingly, the major problem is psychological: the reluctance of tourists to return
after the rebuilding had been completed. Another reason tourists stay away is simple fear. Some stay away
for years after a hurricane has hit, and some choose never to return.
 1. Natural Disasters (Cont’d)
b. Tectonic and Geomorphic Disasters

The negative impacts of tectonic and geomorphic disasters on tourists and tourism infrastructure may be
considerable, especially during and after earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
 
Earthquakes constitute one of the main threats to the monuments of antiquity in the Mediterranean area,
particularly in Italy, Greece and Egypt.
 
Tsunamis are especially feared in the Pacific area, where they constitute a potential danger for beach
resorts, since they destroy marinas, hotels and other tourist facilities.
 
As with earthquakes, volcano eruptions endanger the local population more than tourists. Nevertheless,
considerable damage has been done to highways and buildings, including tourist facilities.
 
There is a growing concern about another aspect of volcanic activity that threatens the lives of tourists.
Dust clouds composed of volcanic ash have caused a number of dangerous incidents that involved jets
flying through dust clouds composed of volcanic ash.
 
Sometimes the destructive forces of volcano eruptions may be disastrously combined with other
devastating processes, such as earthquakes and/or torrential rains.
 1. Natural Disasters (Cont’d)
c. Other Natural Disasters
Snow avalanches, mudflows, rockfalls, landslides and natural vegetation
fires are natural disasters on a lesser scale than earthquakes and volcano
eruption, although, as mentioned above, they may be caused by them.
 
Mountain climbers are at risk not only from snow avalanches but from
rockfalls, and their death rate is higher than that of skiers. Another
danger is inclement weather, which makes Denali the most perilous peak
in North America.
Natural fires are an integral part of the environmental process and
promote a diversity of ecosystems as habitats for plants and wildlife. Fire
can destroy tourist facilities, such mountain huts. Fires also damage the
“natural” forest landscapes, especially the slow-growing boreal forests.
 2. Other natural factors and phenomena hazardous to health and life of tourists.

There are a number of natural factors and phenomena which can be classified
as hazards rather than disasters.
 
Hypoxia and Mountain Sickness
 
The high altitudes may lead to the sudden affliction of hypoxia or oxygen
insufficiency or the abnormally low level of oxygen in human blood.
 
Hypoxia leads frequently to the mountain sickness or altitude sickness called
soroche in the Andes. The symptoms of this sickness are dizziness, headache,
nausea, nose-bleeds, insomnia and loss of appetite.
 
Mountain sickness may progress to a more severe stage. The most common
form of acute mountain sickness is pulmonary edema, an affliction resulting
from the accumulation of fluid in the lungs.
 
 2. Other natural factors and phenomena hazardous
to health and life of tourists.
Weather and Climate, Temperature Extremes
 
Weather and climate are important environmental factors that affect the degree of comfort
experienced by tourists. Weather and climate in the form of air or water temperature extremes may
cause considerable harm to the health of tourists. Hypothermia and frostbite, heat exhaustion and
heat strokes, are examples of such detrimental impacts, as are multiple skin problems, largely caused
by climatic extremes.
 
Jet Lag
 
Jet lag is a unique, natural phenomenon associated with modern jet transportation, which enables
tourists to cross many time zones in hours instead of days or weeks. The result is fatigue, headaches,
sleeplessness and other unpleasant physical effects.
 
Other Natural Hazards
 
There are still a number of the natural hazards that may inconvenience or endanger tourists and
impact on tourism facilities. Some of them are sea- and motion sickness, water undercurrents, falling
trees, radioactivity, and hypothetical long-term climatic change.
 
 3. Dangerous contacts of tourists with wild animals, plants, and insects.

In this category, we explore the hazards that stem from tourism coming in contact with the flora and fauna
of air, land and sea. On land, the large carnivores (bears, tigers, lions, leopards, hyenas) are not the only
threat to the health and life of tourist. There were also many attacks, sometimes deadly, by bisons,
buffalos, elephants, and even hippos and wild pigs.
 
Even animals that are basically not aggressive and generally avoid humans, such as black bears, can kill.
Attacks of black bears on tourists are extremely rare; however, they do happen.
 
The dangerous encounters between tourist and large wild mammals occur mostly in national parks, where
the responsibility for managing both tourists and animals lies with the authorities in charge.
 
Rabies is another danger associated with dogs and some wild animals, such as skunks, raccoons, foxes,
bats, and mongooses. Rodents are dangerous not only because of rabies but because they are frequently
carriers of viruses.
 
Tourists’ contacts with animals at sea seem to be less threatening and the number of victims is much
smaller. Sharks are the most feared. Most dangerous are the great white shark, tiger shark, hammerhead
shark, mako shark and bull shark.
 
Tourists should also avoid direct physical contact with poisonous flora, especially with grasses, bushes, and
vines such as poison ivy, poison oak, and death angel mushroom.
 4. Environmental diseases.

Environmental diseases can be classified into following way:

a. Infectious Environmental Diseases
To the infectious category belong the natural plagues propagated by the so-
called vectors, such as ticks, mosquitoes, and snails that act as carriers and
transmitters of viruses, bacteria, or other compounds causing infectious
illnesses.
Malaria is the most common diseases transmitted by mosquito. The other is
dengue fever.
 
b. Noninfectious Environmental Diseases
The sun’s rays have been the source of all life since the beginning of our
planet. However, not all that comes from the sun is a blessing: one component
of solar radiation, ultraviolet ray (UVs), is potentially deadly to life.
The link between the ultraviolet solar radiation and skin cancer in overzealous
sunbather, skiers, mountain hikers and other outdoor recreationists is firmly
established.