Task 2 Sample

International tourism has brought enormous benefit to many places. At the same
time,
there is concern about its impact on local inhabitants and the environment.

Do the disadvantages of international tourism outweigh the advantages?

In the following essay I will be discussing about the concerns International tourism brings to a
country and the impacts on local habitants and the environment regardless of the enormous
benefits that come along with it. Tourism over the years has expanded in numbers of travellers,
however, with more people gathering at once in a touristic location it can have massive implications
to the local habitants as well as the local environment. During the discussion I will be using my place
of origin as a case study to compare the two sides of the coin. Moreover, I will focus on how tourism
affects the local culture and environment as a result of its expansion.

I come from Cyprus, the third largest island of the Mediterranean sea. It is a place that attracts many
tourists due to the beaches and its weather. In the summer of 2012 it attracted over 4 million
tourists and as the years have passed, the numbers have increased. International tourism can impact
the economy. In fact the economy of the country is highly dependent on the tourism that it attracts.

Along with the amount of tourists the island attracts, however, there come negative implications
with them. If we consider that the island is inhabited by 1 million people and we assume that the
number of tourists haven’t increased annually since 2012, over the period of May until September,
the amount of individuals that are on the island is 5 times the amount of the population of the
country as a whole.

With the numbers of people increasing to such extent annually this impacts the island spanning
further than the economy of the local government. For one, let’s consider how the habitants of the
island are affected. When the island has experienced increase of tourist input from international
origins, first and foremost, vendors have increased the costs of products so they can increase their
income, this results to the increase of the lifestyle cost for local Cypriots as well. With salaries not
being impacted by international tourism, local people are struggling to afford their lifestyle as well as
they could in the past.

Going past the financial implications increasing tourism has caused to the habitants of the country,
another aspect that has changed over the years is the increase of tourist attractions. Businesses
focus to create locations for tourists to visit. The more attractions there are, the more incentive
tourists have to visit the island. These attractions lack in the rich local culture that the island is
famous for to the point where they mask the heritage. This in turn affects the population of the
island as there is a decreasingly less amount of cultural locations to visit. This may come in the form
of restaurants catering to less traditional cuisine tastes, entertainment being impacted to meet the
general standards to serve tourists as well or places of cultural and traditional nightlife masked by
mainstream clubs.

In addition to the local habitats of the island, the environment is impacted in a negative way also.
The more people that gather in one place, the more effect there is on the environment. Cyprus used
to hold the record of most clean beaches in Europe. Even though unsure if the island still holds the
record, from personal experiences and recent observations, there is increasingly more litter in the
beaches and attractions as well as more cars are required for tourist rentals, therefore the pollution,
in turn, increases.

Even though these observations are from one holiday destination, the principle stands to be the
same regardless where that destination is. The more people who gather in one place, the more
impact there is for both the local population, but more than anything, to the environment. These can
also impact tourists in turn. If tourists wish to experience the culture of their destination, this might
prove to be difficult if the traditional entertainment, cuisine or nightlife is masked by tourist
attractions and increased pollution.

Word count: 661

Time completed: 30 min 49 sec