IGCSE GEOGRAPHY

COURSEWORK

HAS THE RISE OF TOURISM BEEN A GIFT OR A

CURSE TO GRAND BAIE?

MAY 2023 SESSION

WORD COUNT: 2000

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 Table of Contents

Chapter 1- Page 3-5

Chapter 2- Page 6-12
Chapter 3/4- Page 12-16
Chapter 5- Page 17-18
Bibliography- Page 18
Appendix- Page 19-21

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 Has the rise of tourism been a gift or a curse
to Grand Baie?

Grand Baie is situated along a stunning natural bay in the district of Rivière du Rempart in
the northwestern region of Mauritius. Sand beaches like La Cuvette and Grand Baie
beach is popular in Grand Baie. Grand Baie, Mauritius, is located at a latitude of -
20.013107 and longitude of 57.584435. Grand Bay is located around 25 kilometers (about
15.53 mi) north of Mauritius's capital, Port Louis. It can be found halfway between Trou aux
Biches and Pereybere. Grand Baie is a good area to carry out my coursework as it’s one of
the most popular places in Mauritius and attracts a lot of tourists for its infrastructure and sandy beaches

• ANNOTATED MAP OF GRAND BAIE

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• ANNOTATED MAP OF MAURITIUS

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Geographical background:

Over the past few decades, tourism has changed and evolved, and it has been viewed as
both a blessing and a scourge. Tourism has played a significant role in helping nations,
aiding in job creation and the economy, and encouraging cultural interchange between
locals and visitors. Most people travel for leisure, which contributes to the prosperity of the
nations they visit and boosts their economies. Therefore, tourism is a rising sector. With the
growth of tourism, nations have been able to improve the quality of life for their residents;
however, those jobs are sometimes transitory, meaning that they are only taken during
certain times of the year, and they are poorly paid. Tourism gave us work and made our
country wealthy. As tourists enjoy learning about new cultures as they travel further afield
within the nation, it has brought diverse cultures together, allowing us to explore them
together and preserve them. However, sometimes cultures are forgotten with the arrival of
tourists, and newer ones are brought to the area, preventing locals from enjoying their
cultures as before. Tourism generates revenue that can be used to improve local
infrastructure and the environment. However, tourism also has a negative impact on the
environment, causing pollution, littering, and waste that worsens the effects of climate
change. Habitats are also destroyed to make way for new tourist attractions.

Hypothesis:

1. There has been an inverse relationship between tourism and countries over the
years.
2. Tourism is one of the major reasons for the growth of a country/area.
Reason for hypothesis:

This topic has been chosen as it reflects a lot of parts of countries/areas, and it has helped
they grow over the years making them become an advantage or disadvantage to a
country/area depending on its impacts. The hypotheses have been selected as they will be
easier to test, and a lot of information will be available, they are both predictive and are able
to support my research.
Keywords:

Location – A specific place

Human-environment interactions – It is the interactions between the social system and the
ecosystem.
Region – An area that’s part of a country.

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CHAPTER 2 -

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Pedestrians count:

What
Does it need Are there How will hypotheses
Method Description Equipment to be any risks the risks does it
repeated? involved? be help
managed? answer?

Find a place where It needs to If you are Ensuring Tourism

you can see the be repeated not being that you is one of
Pen, Data
pedestrians, before 5 times. careful are the major
Pedestrians setting a Collection enough, reasons for
(each time is standing
count 5-minute timer Booklet, yes. the growth
a different away from
make sure to put Timer. location) of a
in the time you the road country/
and
started counting finding a area.
and when you safe place
finished. When to sit and
you finish count.
counting, split it
up into 3
sections, with a
section showing
the number of
pedestrians
moving in one
direction, the
other section
should have the
amount of people
moving in the
other direction.
Finally, the third
section is the
total amount of
pedestrians
moving in both
directions

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Litter count:

How will What

Does it Are there the risks hypotheses
Method Description Equipment need to be any risks be does it
repeated? involved? managed help
? answer?

Litter Please do not count Pen, Data

count every single litter that Collection Yes, it - There has
you see as it will be Booklet. needs to
No risks been an
never ending, instead be
estimate the amount repeated 5 are inverse
times. relation
of litter (each time involved. ship
that is on the ground, is a between
split it up into sections different tourism
according to the data location) and
booklet and estimate countries
for each one, in the over the
end add everything up years.
and write the total.

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Urban Transect:

How will What

Are there the risks hypotheses
Does it be does it
Method Description Equipment need to be any risks
involved? managed help
repeated? answer ?
?

Urban Using the pictures Tourism

transect Phone, No, it does No, unless
taken draw an urban Pencil/Pen, is one
not need you are not -
of the
transect Data to be being
and label it Collection careful with major
repeated. reasons
(street Booklet. taking the
labelling, photos. for the
floor growth of
labeling...) a country
Next to each /area.
building
make sure to
classify what
type of value it has
for tourists.
1 = No tourist
value, 2= Limited
tourist value, 3=
ONLY selling
tourist goods. Make
sure to label in what
categories the
buildings fall in
(Office, Shop,
Public Building...)

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Environment quality:

How will What

Does it need Are there hypotheses
to be any risks the risks
Method Description be does it
Equipment repeated? involved? help
managed
answer?
?

Observe your Yes, 5 No risks -

surroundings Phone, times involved. There has
(Building, Traffic, Pencil/Pen, (each time been an
Environment inverse
quality Open Space Data is a relationship
Gardens and Collection different between
General Quality) Booklet. location) tourism and
and rate them countries
from a 0 to 5. over
Make sure to the years.

give a brief
description of
the areas when
starting. Rate
each section
based on the
aesthetics such
as how well
designed it is if it
is low density
etc... After
everything is
done give each
section a score
out of 20 and
the total
environment
quality score out
of 80.

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Local population questionnaire:

Are there How will What

Does it the risks hypotheses
any risks
need to be be does it help
Method Description Equipment repeated? involved
managed answer?
?
?

While walking in Potentially, Picking out Tourism is

your area, pick
be careful people one of the
out some people and
walk up to them Pen and Yes, 5 of which beforehand. major
telling Data times. type of reasons for
Questionnaire
them about your Collection people you the growth
coursework and Booklet. are talking of a
start asking to. country/area.
them the

questions. If the
person does not
seem
comfortable
revealing his/her
age you need to
estimate. Ask
them how
tourists have
contributed to
several sections
in Grand Baie,
make sure they
answer from a
scale to 1 to 5. 1
– strongly
disagree, 2 –
disagree, 3-
Neither 4 -
Agree, 5 –
Disagree. Do
thank them for
their time after

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 -
.

CHAPTER 3/4
This line graph shows the amount of litter we counted around the 5 different sites in
Grand-Baie's area. The total amount of litter found can be seen clearly but it is not
shown in a precise number

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This shows the amount of litter that has accumulated around the areas which answer my
hypothesis of tourism and countries having an inverse relationship meaning that tourism
does bring a lot of advantages to Mauritius, but it also comes with its drawbacks such as an
increased amount of pollution/deforestation which destroys the mainland so that houses/hotels
get built. The highest total amount of litter was found to be at La Cuvette public beach,
which is quite a popular beach to be at, especially during weekends which increases the
litter thrown around. Data was collected using the traffic count which relates to my hypothesis on how tourism is the
reason for major growth in areas.

Sites TRAFFIC
COUNT
(TOTAL)

Sunset 119
Boulevard
Grand 51
Baie Beach

La Cuvette 138

Grand Baie 152

Coeur De
Ville

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Anse La
Raie

This table shows the total traffic count that was recorded for 5 minutes at each site, this
shows how tourism has affected some areas as it is shown to have heavy traffic in some
areas of Grand Baie such as ‘La Cuvette’. It relates to my hypothesis about how tourism is
one of the major reasons for major growths in areas/countries as Grand Baie is a popular
place in Mauritius and receives a lot of visits daily, especially on weekends.

Level 1 – Strongly disagree

Level 2 - Disagree
Level 3 – Neither agree nor disagree
Level 4 - Agree
Level 5 – Strongly agree

Below are the graphs showing the results of the local population questionnaire which
relates to my hypothesis of the major growth of an area due to tourism.

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This answers my hypothesis as it shows how tourism has contributed to areas of Grand
Baie whether it is negative or positive. It contains the opinion of 5 different people, and they
all mostly agree that tourism has had a positive impact on areas in Grand-Baie. However,
there have been negative impacts such as an increased crime rate due to more people
visiting the areas, and robbers mostly targeting tourists into defrauding them or stealing.

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CHAPTER 5-
Conclusion:

- There has been an inverse relationship between tourism and countries over the
years.
In conclusion, I think that there has been a negative relationship over time between tourism
and countries because tourism has brought remarkable success to some countries and has
helped them develop economically. With the aid of tourism, countries have been able to
raise their standards of living because it has helped with diversity and inclusion by providing
a variety of opportunities to people from all social classes. One of the main drivers of many
economies throughout the world is tourism, which has provided fantastic opportunities for
foreigners to learn about one another's cultures and foster numerous relationships based
on that. Even though it has been demonstrated that tourism has many benefits, countries
have relied heavily on it to "repair" or maintain their economies. Tourists frequently
change their destinations, which could be the result of several circumstances. A country's
reliance on tourists' annual visits is highly perilous because it does not take much for them
to cease coming.

- Tourism is one of the major reasons for the growth of a country/area.

People frequently ignore this subject and fail to consider the negative effects tourism is
having on a country or region, as was said above. It is true that tourism has helped many
people find work, but if the situation were to be viewed from a much more positive angle,
these occupations would pay significantly less and provide fewer opportunities for people to
advance in their careers. Most of these jobs are seasonal, which means that they only do
well during travel seasons; otherwise, the workers do not appear to advance. As much as it
is evident that tourism has unified cultures, some cultures are being overlooked because of
the sheer volume of visitors to a nation or region. Exposing locals to an entirely new way of
life may cause them to change their local culture and drift away from their own customs and
traditions.

Evaluation:

I believe that enough data has been collected throughout this study as it helped me to
answer my question and prove my hypotheses, however, I did face a few problems in terms
of the data collection as it was quite time-consuming such as losing count when counting
the traffic but otherwise it went on quite smoothly. My group and I did not count every
single litter during the litter count as it would have consumed a lot of time, so an estimation
was done. A disadvantage of the techniques used is that some of the data collected was
not really accurate and on the local questionnaire sections there were few people willing to
answer our questions since most of them were not familiar enough with the Grand Baie.

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I do think that the data would have stayed the same if collected at a different time except for
the traffic count as it depends on the time you are there to collect the data. More data was
not necessary as we were already given a booklet with the data that needed to be
collected. The methods used were all right, the only thing I would change if this could be
repeated would be the organization of the group and contribution, on the other hand, the
results were accurate as we used reliable methods by noting down the amount we got and
adding them all together when needed so that nothing was forgotten.

The study should have been improved by using better techniques to present the data such
as using pictures to present it, but these were limited as it could have helped to explain and
illustrate the stages by using geographical ideas. The limited pictures caused a
disadvantage as I could not present the data in other forms. All the results that have been
put in the data presentation relate to my hypothesis as it indirectly justifies both
hypotheses.

Bibliography:
Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. (n.d.). Tourism. [online] Available at:
https://www.bmz.de/en/issues/tourism#:~:text=Tourism%20offers%20great%20opportunities%20for
[Accessed 30 Nov. 2022].

Sees, S. (2021). The Disadvantages of Tourism - What Happens When Travel is not Sustainable.
[online] Sally Sees. Available at: https://sallysees.com/the-disadvantages-of-tourism/ [Accessed 2 Nov.
2022]

StudFiles. (n.d.). Tourism: a blessing or a curse? [online] Available at:

https://studfile.net/preview/7076093/page:17/ [Accessed 3 Nov. 2022].

www.latlong.net. (n.d.). Where is Grand Baie, Mauritius on Map Lat Long Coordinates. [online]
Available at: https://www.latlong.net/place/grand-baie-mauritius-24809.html [Accessed 8 Nov. 2022].

WTTC Travel Hub. (n.d.). 8 ways Responsible Tourism benefits local communities. [online] Available
at: https://travelhub.wttc.org/blog/8-ways-responsible-tourism-benefits-local-communities [Accessed 29
Nov. 2022].

Yehia, Y. (2019). The Importance of Tourism on Economies and Businesses. [online]

globaledge.msu.edu. Available at: https://globaledge.msu.edu/blog/post/55748/the-importance-of-
tourism-on-economies-a [Accessed 2 Nov. 2022]

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Appendix:
Environmental Quality of the 5 places that was visited.

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Pedestrian count.

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