Environmental Impacts of Tourism

Dr. Radhika Kapur

Abstract
The tourism industry has contributed a significant part in the development of the
country. There have also been programs and advertisements on television, radios, airports and
other places that have increased the significance of tourism within the country. The tourism
industry has played a vital role in the development of social, cultural and economic sectors of
the country. India has the major tourism industry, it is referred to the collection of services,
activities and experiences that make provision of new and innovative set of ideas to the
individuals who are residents as well as people from all over the world. Transportation,
accommodation, eating, sight-seeing, shopping are the various activities that people get
involved into when they are visiting new places or regions. Due to these reasons, the tourism
sector can be regarded as instrumental for the maintainable progress of the national wealth. It
has the potential to motivate other economic sectors through its backward and forward
connections and cross-sectoral synergies with sectors such as, agriculture, horticulture,
poultry, handicrafts, transport, construction, and floriculture. Tourism has been making an
innovative and a noteworthy influence on the world economic scenario. It has become the
rapidly increasing service industry within the country. The tourism industry has great
potentials that would lead to additional development and diversification, it has a direct and an
indirect chain connection with various sectors within an economy. The tourism industry has
both positive and negative impacts that would far reach on the economic, social, political and
environmental expressions of the country.
Keywords: Environmental Impacts, Tourism, Economy, Development, Regions,
Places

Introduction
In the developing countries like India, tourism has been one of the major sectors of
the economy, contributing to a large proportion of the National Income and generating
number of employment opportunities. It has become the fastest growing service industry in
the country with huge prospective for its further growth and diversification. However, there
are pros and cons involved with the development of tourism industry in the country. The
Government took several significant steps. A National Policy on tourism was announced in
1982. Later in 1988, the National Committee on Tourism formulated a comprehensive plan
for achieving a sustainable growth in tourism. In 1992, a National Action Plan was prepared
and in 1996 the National Strategy for Promotion of Tourism was drafted. In 1997, the New
Tourism Policy recognises the roles of Central and State governments, public sector
undertakings and the private sector in the development of tourism (Rath, Singh & Lopes,
n.d.).
In the present world, tourism is the major service industry in India, with a contribution
of 6.77% to the national GDP and providing 8.78% of the total employment. India observed
more than five million annual foreign tourist arrivals and 562 million domestic tourism visits.
The tourism industry in India generated about US$100 billion in 2008 and that is expected to
increase to US$275.5 billion by 2018 at a 9.4% annual growth rate. The Ministry of Tourism
is the nodal agency for the development and promotion of tourism in India and maintains the
"Incredible India" campaign (Rath, Singh & Lopes, n.d.).
Environmental Impacts of Tourism
The environmental impacts of tourism in India have positive and negative impacts,
these have been discussed below: (Dayananda, 2016).
Positive Impacts
Direct Financial Contributions - Tourism can contribute directly to the preservation of
sensitive areas and habitats. Revenue from parks, entrance fees and similar sources can be
distributed unambiguously to contribute for the safeguard and management of the
environmentally sensitive areas. Special fees for park operations or conservation activities
can be collected from tourists or tour operators.
Contributions to Government Revenues - The Indian government through the tourism
department also collect money in more comprehensive and indirect ways that are not
connected to specific parks or conservation areas. User fees, income taxes, taxes on sales or
rental of recreation equipment, and license fees for activities such as rafting and fishing can
provide governments with the funds required to manage natural resources. Such funds can be
utilized for inclusive conservation programs and activities, such as park ranger salaries and
park maintenance.
Improved Environmental Management and Planning - Complete environmental
management of tourism facilities and especially hotels can raise the benefits to natural
environment. By preparing early for tourism development, detrimental and costly errors can
be prohibited, evading the gradual weakening of environmental assets significant to tourism.
The development of tourism has moved the Indian government towards this course leading to
enhanced environmental management.
 Raising Environmental Awareness - Tourism has the potential to lead to a rise in
public recognition of the environment and to spread the responsiveness of environmental
problems when it brings people into closer contact with nature and the environment. This link
increases the awareness of the value of nature among the community and lead to
environmentally cognizant behaviour and activities to maintain the environment.
Protection and Preservation of Environment - Tourism can meaningfully contribute to
environmental protection, conservation and restoration of biological diversity and supportable
use of natural resources. Due of their desirability, primeval sites and natural areas are
identified as treasured and the need to keep the charm alive can lead to creation of national
parks and wildlife parks. In India, new laws and regulations have been enacted to preserve
the forest and to safeguard native species. The coral reefs around the coastal areas and the
marine life that depend on them for existence are also secure.
Negative Impacts
Depletion of Natural Resources – The negative impact of tourism is that it leads to
depletion of natural resources. Fresh water is one of the critical natural resources and the
tourism industry makes use of water for golf courses, swimming pools and other activities for
the tourists, this results in water shortages and degradation of the water supplies. Tourism can
put immense pressure on local resources like energy, food, and other raw materials that may
be scarce. Larger withdrawal and transport of these resources aggravates the physical effects
associated with their exploitation. Important land resources include minerals, fossil fuels,
fertile soil, forests, wetland and wildlife. Augmented structure of tourism and recreational
facilities has increased the pressure on these resources and on scenic landscapes.
Pollution – There are various forms of pollution such as air and noise pollution. The
noise pollution is caused due to means of transportation or when any kind of work or
construction is going on than too it leads to noise pollution. The emissions of gases into the
atmosphere leads to air pollution. In areas with high use of tourist activities and interesting
natural attractions, waste disposal is a severe problem and improper disposal can be a major
despoiler of the natural environment, rivers, scenic areas, and roadsides. Construction of
hotels, recreation and other facilities often leads to increased sewage pollution. Wastewater
has polluted seas and lakes surrounding tourist attractions, causing damage of the flora and
fauna.
Destruction and Alteration of the Ecosystem - An ecosystem is a geographic area
including all the living organisms, such as, the people, plants, animals, and micro-organisms,
their physical surroundings, such as soil, water, and air, and the natural cycles that withstand
them. Appealing landscape sites, such as sandy beaches in Goa, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil
Nadu; lakes, riversides, and mountain tops and slopes, are often transitional zones,
categorized by the species rich ecosystems. The risks and pressures on these ecosystems are
often severe because such places are quite appealing and interesting to both tourists and the
developers.
Problems affecting the Development of Tourism
Access and connectivity in the infrastructure facilities such as air, rail, road
connectivity, and hospitality services are still required to get improved in order to form links
between various cities across the country. This remains a major issue for the development of
tourism. Tourists in most cases depend on the road network rather than any other manner.
Despite several efforts will be taken to revolutionize the road facilities and connectivity
remains the major challenge. There is a better requirement to lead to improvement in road
and rail network to link various locations across different regions and areas within the
country (Venkatesh, & Raj, 2016). The deprived conditions of the roads, too much traffic,
various kinds of pollution are the main problems that do affect the tourism within the country.
Amenities and facilities that are available at various tourist locations and en route
need to be upgraded. These include basic amenities such as clean drinking water, well
maintained and clean waiting rooms and restrooms, first aid and wayside such as lounge,
cafeteria, and parking facilities, among others. In India, the availability of these infrastructure
facilities are not very appropriate and measures need to be formulated in order to improve
these. Human resources to withstand the growth in the tourism industry requires trained
manpower at the various levels such as managerial, supervisory, skilled or semi-skilled. At
middle and senior management levels, the industry experiences the talent crunch and at the
front-line staff level, although human resources are acceptable, a boom in other service
industries such as banking, retail, airline and business process outsourcing have resulted in
scarcity of manpower at this level for the travel and tourism industry. Thus, there is a demand
and supply mismatch with respect to manpower in the tourism sector in India. Attrition,
shortage of tourism training infrastructure, qualified trainers, and lack of proper strategies and
policies for human resource development also affect the industry. The industry is required to
look into these problems at the earliest (Venkatesh, & Raj, 2016).
Security has been a major problem for the development of tourism for a number of
years. Terrorist violence or occurrence of situations leading to political unrest in different
parts of the country have unfavourably affected the feelings of foreign tourists. However, the
government needs to take a proactive approach in referring to these issues and in prevention
of the potential influence on the industry. Cybercrime is another major challenge within the
tourism industry. There needs to be improvements brought about in the regulatory issues, a
number of countries competing with India for tourists provide visa on arrival. India should
provide visa on arrival for more countries or for certain categories of tourists for a specific
duration. A delay in the projects in the tourism infrastructure section and in the hotels
industry is due to non-attainment of licenses and approvals on time (Venkatesh, & Raj,
2016). The prevalence of crime, corruption, and any kinds of misconduct have hindered the
development of the tourism industry.
Physical Impacts of Tourism Development
There have been physical impacts of the tourism development and these have been
stated as follows: (Sunlu, 2003).
Construction Activities and Infrastructure Development - The development of tourism
facilities such as, room, water supplies, restaurants and recreation facilities can involve sand
mining, beach and sand erosion, soil erosion and extensive paving. In addition, the
development of roads and other means of transportation, the construction of airports can lead
to land degradation, loss of wildlife habitats and weakening of the background.
Deforestation and Intensified or Unsustainable use of Land - Construction of ski
resort accommodation and services normally requires the clearing of forested land. Coastal
wetlands are frequently drained and filled due to lack of more appropriate sites for the
construction of tourism facilities and infrastructure. These accomplishments can cause
problems and disturbance and erosion of the local ecosystem, even leading to damage in the
long term.
Marina development - Development of marinas and breakwaters can lead to changes
in currents and coastlines. Additionally, withdrawal of building materials such as, sand
affects coral reefs, mangroves, and hinterland forests, leading to erosion and destruction of
habitats. In the Philippines and the Maldives, dynamiting and mining of coral for resort
building materials has harmed insubstantial coral reefs and depleted the fisheries.
Trampling - Tourists that use the same path or track over and over again trample the
vegetation and the soil, ultimately leading to damage that can lead to loss of biodiversity and
other influences. Such damage can be even more extensive when visitors often wander off the
established tracks.
SWOT Analysis of the Indian Tourism
SWOT analysis means the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the
tourism in India: (Venkatesh, & Raj, 2016).
 Strengths – In India, the places and the destinations for tourism are diverse. There are
beaches, national parks, historical places, museums, religious places and number of other
areas that attract tourists from all over the world. The socio-cultural influences were
considered essentially advantageous and included increased respect for local culture, arts and
crafts, knowledge of the outside world and friendship with the tourists. As there have been
improvements in towns and increase in amenities and facilities, often through assistance
programmes, inhabitants’ awareness of environmental concerns appear to have increased
(Mekong River Commission, 2010).
India has a rich cultural heritage, size, and massive natural, geographic, artistic and
cultural diversity makes available numerous opportunities for the travel. The production of
various kinds of handicrafts and artworks in India have largely attracted the tourists. The
tourists get attracted by the ethnic and colourful designs, and production strategies of not only
artworks and handicrafts, but also food and other things. The tourism and the hospitality
industry is referred to one of the largest segments of the Indian economy. Tourists normally
get curious to know about the lives of the tribal and the rural people. The rural lifestyle,
culture, art and heritage of the rural locations benefitting the local community economically
and socially as well as enabling communications between the tourists and the locals. India is
endowed with various forms of flora and fauna, and it has numerous species of birds,
animals, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and also there is presence of different environmental
features. India has a pleasing and a delightful promotional campaign that has attracted the
attention of millions of people throughout the world.
Weaknesses – There is a lack of direction and co-ordination amongst the states as well
as the centre in the promotion of destinations and products. The centre as well as the states
encourages destinations on an independent basis. Such variety of destinations creates
confusion in the minds of the foreign tourists visiting or willing to visit India as where should
one start from. In India, there are appealing and attractive tourist destinations that people
often experience problems in making decisions regarding which place to visit. There are
urban areas in India, which are densely populated, there is a problem of pollution, air and
noise which normally leads to problems.
In some of the places and regions, there is lack of quality accommodation facilities
amongst major destinations that are located across the country. Normally, the
accommodations are too expensive, which consumes a considerable proportion of a foreign
tourist’s budget. Consequently, the tourist stays for a noticeably lesser time and in the process
has limited period of experience to the country and its resources in general. The tourists visit
India for normally a week to a month and due to lack of quality accommodation, over-
crowded places, they experience problems and are sometimes not able to get acquainted with
the places that they have come to visit.
Opportunities - Traveling and tourism has been an integral part of Indian culture and
tradition. The opportunities that come under tourism are that there have been developments
and improvements in various areas such as infrastructure, means of transportation,
technology and so forth, in order to enhance the tourism industry. Tourism Industry is one of
the liveliest tertiary activity and a multibillion industry in India. The potential and the
performance of India's tourism industry needs to get measured in terms of its socio- economic
degrees. This aspect confers how India is developing as a popular tourist destination in the
world, determined by the emphasis on modernization and creating value for the tourists. It
aimed to transform the approach and behaviour toward foreign tourists by putting emphasis
on the part that a guest has been held in high esteem in India since ancient times. It also
examines the influence of India's economic growth on tourism, contributors to economic
growth, role of Tourism industry in India's GDP, and foreign versus domestic tourists.
Opportunities also discovers that there has been a remarkable growth of tourism in India
because of the policies of the government and support acquired from all levels.
Threats – As the common property resource, the environment is vulnerable to damage
(Tourism and the Environment, 2007). The reason being that people always benefit from the
environment; the rural and the tribal communities always benefit and live on the natural
resources that are provided by the environment. People cut down trees in order to obtain
wood, they make use of water that are provided by the water bodies, water bodies are
normally polluted because all the waste materials are thrown into them from the industries as
well as the households. The government has formulated means and measures that water
bodies should be kept clean and pollution free and any kinds of waste materials should not be
thrown into them.
The main areas and regions that contribute towards the enhancement of the tourism
industry should be protected against the natural calamities and the disasters. These assets of
tourism include the landscapes, religious places, important views, clean and pollution free
water bodies, the historical buildings and monuments, and biodiversity. It is important to
establish a relationship between tourism and the environment and formulate measures that
would prevent the occurrence of any kinds of threats and hazards.
Conclusion
 The main purpose of this research paper is to look into the environmental impacts of
tourism. This has been understood that the tourism industry has contributed in enhancing the
social, cultural and economic domains of the country. India has a rich cultural heritage,
ethnicity and artistic features that attract not only the local people but also the people from
other countries. The environmental impacts on tourism can be positive and negative; the
positive impacts are direct financial contributions, contributions to government revenues,
improved environmental management and planning, raising environmental awareness, and
protection and preservation of environment. The negative impacts are, depletion of natural
resources, pollution and destruction and alteration of the ecosystem. The physical impacts on
the development of tourism are, construction activities and infrastructure development,
deforestation and intensified or unsustainable use of land, marina development and trampling.
The people residing in the rural areas and those belonging to tribal communities
largely make use of natural resources in order to sustain their living; they largely depend
upon the natural environmental conditions for their livelihoods. There are various factors that
affect the development of the tourism industry such as, lack of provision of good quality
accommodation, shortages of civic amenities and facilities, different kinds of pollution, air,
noise and water and the problem of security.
The tourism industry has several strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The
strengths of the industry are related to rich and cultural heritage sites and places and other
things that are appealing to the tourists and other visitors such as cultural performances, food,
attire and so forth. Weaknesses are related to problems such as over-crowding, congestion,
pollution and problems experienced by the individuals in the making of decisions regarding
which places to visit. Opportunities are relating to various kinds of improvements and
developments that have been initiated in the areas of transportation, infrastructural facilities,
technological means and so forth, that have generated space for more occasions and
prospects. Threats are concerning the occurrence of natural calamities and disasters that may
prove detrimental to the tourist places and sites. There has been productive contribution from
the governments, private sector and voluntary organizations that have become active partners
to accomplish the sustainable development of the tourism industry.
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