Tourism is a popular industry to develop local economics in the world. Apart from the development of economy, tourism also can bring many advantages to local governments and residents. A large number of governments all want to develop tourism to get maximum benefits, even some governments spent much more energy and money on development of tourism. The development of tourism can drive economic growth and working unit increase, so tourism is a significant catalyst for economic growth and employment. ‘Tourism is worth almost £64bn p. a. to the national economy. It contributes 2. 8-3. 9% of total GDP and earns almost £16bn in foreign exchange each year. Tourism employs almost 1. 8m people, which is 7% of the employed workforce. One in five of all new jobs are created in the tourism industry’. (Liddell 2011).
Furthermore, developing tourism is beneficial to local education system. In fact, many tourists go to travel to some famous places, and tourists will point some useful advises to forest or facilities management system. ‘Tourists provide an endless supply of people from around the world that can be targeted and educated on everything from forest stewardship to local history and plans for the future’ (Stushnoff, 2009).
Moreover, tourism can help for fundraising, governments can raise money to build some public facilities or invest for poor children. It is good for the government’s credibility, and fundraising is also beneficial to improve the local economy. A tourist provides an easy target for fundraising. Tourists pay fees for everything from camping sites and park entry fees, to licenses for fishing and hunting. The more tourists in a controlled area, means the more money that can be collected for things like education, policing and maintenance of national wilderness areas (Stushnoff, 2009). And then, developing tourism is promoting culture exchange, and local residents can communicate with foreigners. A deep understanding other countries or national culture, it also consummate the local education and broadening residents’ horizons.
Meanwhile, developing tourism also brings many negative effects for local residents and the environment. Above all, pollution is the biggest negative factor concerning tourism. For example, people take transport to their destination, if they take cars or planes, it will cause some air pollution, and it is damage the local environment and affects local residents. Trips to distant conferences can have serious environmental impacts, especially if made by airplane. Because of the aggressive impact of greenhouse gas emissions in the upper atmosphere, their threat to the global climate is more serious than similar trips made at surface level. (Karl and Petter 2001).
Moreover, plastic pollution is also a very serious problem from tourism. Many people drop litter carelessly everywhere, especially, some drink’s plastics and plastic packets. It causes soil pollution and ruin the environment, this factor can affect local residents’ lives. Moreover, noise pollution also influences the local residents’ lives. May not seem like a big problem, but loud noises can scare animals out of the area and possibly even disrupt the local ecosystem (Stushnoff, 2009).
Furthermore, water pollution is the most important thing for local residents. People cannot live without water, Visitors often put rubbish into the tourist attractions the stream or sometimes spit into the water and nearby bushes, it causes many kinds of lives dead which live in the river because of pollution, and it influences the ecological balance in the rivers.
Regard to local natural resources, developing tourism is wasting many resources, and often behind the requirement. Basically tourism can produce great pressure on local resources like energy, food, and other raw materials that may already be in short supply. So the local governments suffer these pressures from tourism. ‘Greater extraction and transport of these resources depraves the physical impacts associated with their exploitation. Because of the seasonal character of the industry, a high demand is placed upon these resources to meet the high expectations tourists often have (proper heating, hot water, etc’.(UNEP, 2001).
Concerning Ecological destruction, the development of tourism is indirectly contact to ecological destruction. There are some examples; the first thing is Marine life, it is being wrecked by irresponsible and unregulated tourism by diving, water sports and coastal tourism. Secondly, skiing in Northern Europe has led to mass tourism development which has felled forests and large numbers of tourists have been introduced into fragile and remote destinations.
Currently many people worry about the problems of environment from tourism. So there are some solutions to solve the problems which are caused by tourism, first of all, improving the environment management and planning. In the most of countries, the local governments have not carry out good law or rules for improving the environment management and planning. So the local environment has become worse and worse, the local governments should carry out correct and effective environment management to better to develop tourism.
In the meantime, governments should also have a good awareness on protecting the environment even local residents. Basically, local governments should carry out some effective actions to make people have better environmental protection consciousness, and the government should play a leadership role to protect the environment. For example, government may require the local media to play some environmental protection advertisements; government officials should get correct points and measures. Then people will realize the serious problem about environment and have a correct awareness for protecting environment. Secondly, regulatory measures are very important for protecting the environment, if governments have not carried out some management measures to environmental protection, it will affect lots of things, even the tourism development. Regulatory measures help offset negative impacts; for instance, controls on the number of tourist activities and movement of visitors within protected areas can limit impacts on the ecosystem and help maintain the integrity and vitality of the site. (UNEP 2001).
Recently some governments aggravating the construction of ecological tourism, eco-tourism is a much more important and effective solution for protecting environment and biodiversity. It means increase the income from tourism with protecting environment and biodiversity. And eco-tourism offers countries new opportunities for small-enterprise investment and employment. In the meantime, it increases the national stake in protecting their biological resources. Besides benefits for economy and environmental protection, it also better to save resources. By recognizing the importance of protecting biological diversity, ecotourism is raising appreciation for biological resources and leading to better conservation practices by developing country populations.(Merg, 1999)
And many countries have trade agreements for protecting the environment. For example, governments limit the number of businessmen and commodities, especially some forest fires which may damage the environment. These measures are very important and effective to solve the environmental problems. Trade agreements and environmental treaties have also played a critical role in strengthening many national environmental practices (Vogel , 1997).
Next, investment is one of the most effective ways to protect or manage the environment. Governments get big business and benefits from the tourism, which they can invest to environment. On the one hand, the governments can make the environment better; on the other hand, the better environment can attract more customers to visit. So currently the majority of countries’ governments all spend a large number of money on managing the environment.
Moreover, addressing the impact of tourism transport is also one of the most important for protecting environment; so many local governments carry out some measures to solve this problem. For example, reducing the number of airports and limits some large displacement of transport. According to the needs of tourism development, transport should be used frequently, especially in some the height of tourism, for example, in the summer and public holidays, a large number of customers will go to famous places to travel, it will cause the big pressure for traffic, and it is very easy to cause the traffic jam, which cause traffic inconvenience and travel unhappy. ‘Streets free of traffic congestion, adequate approaches to main highways, enough parking space, usage of ITS for tracking and a more effective utilization of existing infrastructure and regulation of traffic flows, keeping trucks outside of settlements, closing city cores for road transport, creating pedestrian precincts in parts particularly interesting to visitors are main points for the integral organization of traffic in a city or a settlement-tourist destination.'(Mrnjavac, 2008).
In the future, tourism will be more popular and important in the world. it will brings bigger business and more employment opportunities. In the economic sphere, the WTTC anticipates that tourism will have a global value of US$10. 8trillion by 2018, and by 2020, the number of travelling tourists will approach 1. 6 billion. On development of employment, those directly employed by tourism worldwide will rise from 238 million this year to 296 million, or one in every 10. 8 jobs, by 2018(Rowe 2011).
Currently the environmental protection measures are not very effective. But in the future, maybe tourism have good management measures for protecting the environment, and local residents could have the comforts of life without considering the environmental problems from tourism. Many people expect that the environment will be better and the tourism development will be perfection in the future, so in next paragraphs, it will introduce tourism development and environmental changes in the future. In the first place, reducing damage to the environment from tourism, generally governments must carry out some measures and laws to reduce damage to the environment even now the majority of governments spend a large number of money and energy to manage these problem of environment. Thus the environmental problems will be fewer than before, many people believes that the environment will be better and wonderful. In the second place, with the progress of The Times and the technology is in constant updates, so in the future governments will invest more and more money for contributing to local tourism development. More and more different and advanced facilities will be built during the tourism development, which could attract more customers to travel.
Furthermore, addressing the impact of tourism transport, as we know, tourism’s transport brings a big problem to the environment¼šair pollution. So in the future the transport system will be more comprehensive and sustainable development, people can do not worry about much more traffic jams during their traveling in happy time, and make the people’s trip more suitable and effective.
Moreover, the development of ecological tourism will be more comprehensive in the future, it wills the better to manage the environment and reduce the damage from the tourism, and better to develop the local economy. Increasing local participation in the benefits of biodiversity conservation (through new sources of jobs and incomes), and generating revenues toward conservation of biologically rich areas(Merg 1999)
As a result, developing tourism is a very important industry in the world. It brings a big business and many employment opportunities, which are easing the current global employment crisis, and with tourism developing, the local education level and cultural communication skills and have substantially improved. But in the meantime, it also brings many negative effects and very serious problems to the environment and local residents’ lives. It affects the local resident’s normal lives with big noise and environmental pollution. And developing tourism is destructing the environment seriously, especially the ecological disruption and environmental pollution. Actually the problems of environmental management should be faced by the whole world, people should consider how to protect the environment and have a good awareness to environmental protection. As a consequence, governments should keep the balance between the environment and tourism revenue.