Is the world tourism orginasation overexaggerating the benefits of Essay

Is the world tourism orginasation overexaggerating the benefits of tourism and recreation - Essay Example The WTO has clearly delineated tourism and its possible benefits under the many classifications, such as : a factor of sustainable development, a cultural heritage promoter and enhancer, a beneficial activity for the host country and community, and ultimately as a vehicle for individual and collective fulfilment. With this agenda, the WTO has been promoting tourism across countries and zones. Tourism offers, an indirect way to balance the flow of money from the economically rich nations, whose people have plenty of money but are stressed due to lack of time and leisure, to the people of economically backward nations, but with relatively less stress factors and with backgrounds of more cultural heritage, historical monuments/preservations or rural wilderness. It conducts periodic research and guidelines as to what are the things that tourists should take note of, while embarking on tours and travelling across borders. Poverty alleviation program through tourism, has been vigorously ad vocated by the WTO. With WTO promoting the cause of tourism so largely, the world population at large, tend to believe more and more in the positive benefits of travel and tourism. On closer analysis, however, the question does arise, in one's mind, as to whether, the benefits of travel and tourism are really as great as portrayed by WTO, or is there some exaggeration. For this purpose, this research shall cite some case studies and citations to explore the cases in which the impact of tourism had indeed been beneficial and , how in some cases tourism has had some sort of negative impact on the people. Social Impact of Tourism Research findings of Hall et al, (1997), show us that the phenomenon of countryside tourism is found worldwide, and greatly encouraged to give a boost to the regional economies found in the area. The tourism movement itself, holds the potential to be diversified into as many ways as the following : Wilderness tourism, National parks, Recreation resorts, Second homes, Retirement market and Cultural-heritage tourism. As more and more people retire, they would like to move away from the hectic and timeless lifestyles that the developed economies offered, to more peace filled beach resorts or rural resorts or houses. Sometimes studies reveal that the very existence of farm lands and the pre-industrial development life-style is good enough to induce people to have a rural visitation. A case of Chemainus a town in British Colombia is cited as an example.( Murphy, 1981). How the nondescript