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are often positive and the environmental and social
impacts are less desirable.
There is a wealth of studies of the impacts of
tourism on a wide range of topics including
employment, incomes, taxes and foreign exchange,
soils, vegetation, water, wildlife and
landscape, and crime, language, music, arts
and crafts, and celebrations. Most of these
investigations are case studies, and a careful review
would indicate that impacts are more complex
than is indicated by the preceding generalisation
with both positive and negative impacts being
recorded in all three major impact categories. For
example, while some authors laud the benefits of
employment, incomes and foreign exchange resulting
from tourism development, others point to
inflation, high leakages, seasonality and low
status of associated jobs. Some document the
environmental ills whereas others suggest that the
industry can provide a rationale for and resources
to promote environmental preservation and even
enhancement. Furthermore, while it has been
argued frequently that tourism destroys culture, it
has also been suggested that it can revive cultures
and can give added value, both intellectually and
economically, to cultural expressions such as music,
dance and other arts and crafts. If such contradictions
are to be avoided and the case studies are
to contribute more effectively to the generation of
cumulative knowledge, much more attention must
be given in the future to the precise contexts in
which specific impacts occur.
While some of the changes associated with
tourism may be commonly observed, for example
those in the degree of local control over the
industry and in resident attitudes towards the
industry as it moves through the seasonal cycle, the
specific consequences of this business will vary with
the circumstances and this makes generalisation
difficult. The particular nature of impacts will be
influenced by such factors as the type and scale of
development, the specific activities undertaken,
the characteristics of the destination area, the stage
of development, the involvement of culture brokers
and other intermediaries, the policy context in
which tourism occurs, and the implementation and
degree of success of strategies to mitigate negative
impacts.
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Three approaches are commonly adopted in
analyses of the impacts of tourism: after-the-fact
analyses, monitoring and simulation. Most academic
studies of the consequences of tourism have
adopted the first approach and have documented
its impacts in a place after they have occurred. The
advantages of this approach are that results can be
derived expeditiously, but it is often not possible to
determine the number of tourists and the exact
nature of the activities which resulted in the
impact, nor is it possible to avoid the undesirable
impacts since they have already occurred. Monitoring
involves undertaking repeated measurements
in a place from the time of the onset of
tourism. This potentially allows the recording of
both the agents of change �such as the number of
tourists and their activities), as well as their
consequences; but it is an approach which is costly
in terms of both time and money and it is
frequently not possible to initiate investigations
before the onset of tourism to establish a base level
against which changes can be compared. Simulation
is an approach employed in some ecological
studies which impose test plots to known stresses,
such as a specific number of passes of a
snowmobile, following which the consequences
are recorded. This approach permits the establishment
of relationships between agents of change
and their impacts, but it is not amenable for use in
economic and social studies.
Measurements of the various types of impacts of
tourism are undertaken using very different
methods and indicators. Thus, for example,
economists may record money and jobs using
economic multiplier effects, environmentalists
may measure such attributes as species diversity
and coliform counts, and social impacts may be
examined through questionnaire surveys. This
makes it difficult, if not impossible, to combine the
results of such studies to ascertain if the benefits
exceed the costs. However, this may not be as
critical a problem as it may at first seem, for
regardless of whether the development proceeds, a
decision which is often as much political as it is
based on thorough impact analyses, the detailed
information is still needed for management
purposes.
In many jurisdictions, the completion of an
environmental impact assessment is required in