Влияние туризма на экономику и социально-культурную сферу
1. Introduction.
Tourism is the world’s
largest and fastest growing industry. In recent years there have been
increases in international tourism for the purpose of experiencing
another culture. There is a wide-spread opinion that the economic
impact of tourism is always positive while the social and
environmental impact is always negative. Indeed, increasing incomes
to regions due to tourists are easy to see as well as numerous
host-tourist conflicts and destruction of the environment and local
cultures. However, tourism can have both positive and negative
outcomes for residents in communities when sharing and preserving
their culture and nature could be seen as conflicting goals.
(Besculides, Lee, McCormick, 2002:303) In this paper I will consider
impacts of tourism with reference to the Lofoten Islands. This is a
popular tourist destination in Northern Norway. The area is unique
because of its nature and variety of sea activities, e.g. fishing,
boat trips, sailing etc. It is also known in Norway as a traditional
fishing community, where the fishing industry dominates the economy
and the social life of the local people. Today those resources which
used to be source of living for the local community have become very
attractive for tourists. It is a challenge to get most profits of the
situation and avoid possible conflicts.
2. Economic impacts of tourism
According to recent statistics, tourism provides
10 percent of the world’s income and employs almost one tenth
of the world’s workforce (www.investigate.html). By the year
2010 these numbers will double. All considered, tourism’s
actual and potential economic impact is astounding. Many people
emphasise positive aspects of tourism as a source of foreign
exchange, a way to balance foreign trade, an “industry without
chimney” – in short, manna from heaven.(L.van den Berghe,
source unknown) But there are also negative sides of tourism’s
economic boom for local communities:
Economic impacts to the local community
depend on how much of the incomes generated by tourists go to the
host communities. In most all-inclusive package tours more than 80
percent of travellers’ fees go to the airlines, hotels and
other international companies, not to local businessmen and workers
(www.ecotourism).
Large hotel chain restaurants often import food to satisfy foreign
visitors and rarely employ local staff for senior management
positions, preventing local farmers and workers from reaping the
benefit of their presence.
Resorts and hotels often over-consume natural resources like water
and power, forcing utility prices up and causing blackouts and water
shortages for locals.
Many tourists never leave the hotel grounds or
cruise ship, reducing the possibility of tourist income for local
businesses. “Rug sack tourists” have little effect on
host communities as they consume very little during the trip.
Faced with limited economic prospects, locals lose the incentive to
preserve and conserve their natural and cultural resources.
Sometimes the costs connected with tourism
overcome the incomes that tourists generate. For example, in
all-inclusive packages, as I have said, most of the expenditures go
to the airlines, hotel chains and touroperators, while the local
communities have to work with pollution and destruction in their
region caused by tourists. As a result, it costs a lot for the local
communities to preserve the nature and the cultural monuments in the
region while a good deal of incomes flow out of the host-region.
With reference to the Lofoten Islands the question
is how the fishing society can get the most of the tourism industry,
and whether the local people can get positive economic effects out of
the developing tourism in their region.
Here is a figure showing relationship between tourism and local
community based on economic impacts.
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How much income does tourism give to the
local community?
|
|
How much resource does tourism use in the area?
|
A lot of
|
Little
|
A lot of
|
Acceptable tourism
|
Undesirable tourism
|
Little
|
Desirable tourism
|
“Invisible” tourism
|
Fig.1 “ A general model of the local communities’
opinion about tourism” Rшnningen 1996
Kilde: Kulturturisme. Lofoten som
reiselivsattraksjon. Hovedfag.PDF,
www.nhh.no/geo/prosjekt/kbl/r200rapport.pdf
The figure shows 4 types
of economic impacts of tourism, based on the coming incomes and the
use of resources. No community would want tourism that uses a lot of
resources in the area but leaves little money to the local
population. Such tourism can be called undesirable. Communities can
put up with tourism that gives tem a lot of incomes but also uses a
lot of resources. It is the so-called acceptable tourism. In case
when the use of resources is little and the incomes to the region are
also little, the effect of tourism is almost not seen. This is the
so-called “invisible” tourism. So the economic impact
will be considered as positive even if the resources are used to
great extent, in case if tourism gives large incomes to the local
people as a result. Hovland (source unknown) divided economic impacts
of tourism into direct and indirect. Direct effects are most visible
and easy to measure. These are contacts between a visitor and local
actors, such as the tourist industry, other industries, municipality
and other local actors. Indirect effects of tourism appear when local
businesses, population, municipalities and other actors are
influenced by tourism through other actors. I shall now discuss these
relations between tourism and fishery industry on the Lofoten
Islands. As I have emphasised Lofoten is an international destination
with coast life culture as a primary tourism resource. From1960 there
have been problems in fishing industry and the number of employees
has decreased. So increasing development of tourism compensates
decreasing development of fishery industry. If we take direct impacts
of tourism, they are following here: people have a possibility to get
jobs in tourism industry and tourists spend lots of money in
local-owned restaurants, hotels, museums. Tourism industry uses some
resources that are not used by fishermen today. Old fishing
houses-rorbuer1-
may have disappeared from the local landscapes if they were not used
today as hotels. Here are some numbers to show the development of
tourism in the region. In 1964 there were just 200 beds in local
hotels and guesthouses and 150 beds in rorbuer in the whole Lofoten.
In 1997 there were about 1360 beds just in Vеgan district. The
total amount of overnight stays in Lofoten has increased from 25000
in 1965 to 230000 in 1997. (Puijk 1996, SSB 1997) As we can see there
is a flow of incomes to the region and this is a direct economic
impact of tourism.
Still there are negative economic impacts of
tourism as well caused by common resources
for tourism and fishery industries on the Lofoten islands. That’s
why in spite of co-existing side by side these two industries compete
with each other. Many fishermen in Lofoten think that tourists
prevent successful development of the fishing industry as before.
First of all, the problem is common area. The number of quays in the
fishing villages is limited. And what was used by fishing boats is
now to be shared with tourists. Fishermen are afraid that tourism
organisations will take over a lot of fishing bays, buildings, even
boats. Here is an opinion of a local fisherman written in a local
newspaper “Lofotposten” (9/2-98) “Svolvжr bay
is reserved for guestboats. There is almost no harbour left for local
people to place their boats or build a warehouse.” This effect
can be considered as indirect. Tourism organisations in Lofoten
trying to get more benefits from tourists, interfere into the fishing
industry and force them some changes.
The same concerns the
fish itself. Many tourists come to Lofoten to fish. And at this
moment there are no fishing quotes for tourists. So what happens is
that “people come, fish freely and actively, make fish filets,
freeze them, take them with them to Europe without any permission
that are required from the local fishermen. Tourists can in fact take
with them up to 200 kg fish in the fridge, sell it later, come back
and fish again.” (www.nhh.no/geo/prosjekt) Thus, tourists
decrease the fishermen’s incomes in a direct way. So we see
how the tourism can ehave direct negative effects on the fishing
industry, decreasing their resources. Although tourists leave money
in the region as well, this effect becomes less visible because the
local people see first of all decrease of their main incomes.
Here is another example of indirect economic
impact. Tourism organisations often want to
change the traditional way of fishing by the local fishermen so that
coming tourists would consider their work to be more esthetical. For
example, fishing wastes have always been thrown back into the sea.
Now suddenly there are tourists to think about, and they find the
fishing wastes smell bad. That’s why some tourist organisations
ask the fishermen to install dump systems in order to clean the
harbours. This brings extra costs for the community.
The tourism industry on the Lofoten Islands makes
use of the resources to a great extent. The incomes the local
community gets are big enough but they come partly at the cost of
fishing incomes. There is a certain lack of regulations about the use
of common resources. Obviously, to escape conflicts the tourism
industry should not take over the most important for the fishermen
areas. There are surely lots of areas not suitable for the fishing
industry (due to low amount of fish or small capacity of the harbour)
but which would suit tourists. Still, the problem lies deeper because
of social conflicts in the area.
3. Social and environmental impacts of tourism.
Socially tourism has a great influence on the host
societies. Tourism can be both a source of international amity, peace
and understanding and a destroyer and corrupter of indigenous
cultures, a source of ecological destruction, an assault of people’s
privacy, dignity and authenticity. (L.van den Berghe, source unknown)
Here are possible positive effects of tourism,
according to Reisinger (source unknown)
Developing positive attitudes towards each other
Learning about each other’s culture and customs
Reducing negative perceptions and stereotypes
Developing friendships
Developing pride, appreciation, understanding, respect and tolerance
for each other’s culture
Increasing self-esteem of hosts and tourists
Psychological satisfaction with interaction
So, social contacts between tourists and local
people may result in mutual appreciation, understanding, tolerance,
awareness, learning, family bonding respect, and liking. Residents
are educated about the outside world without leaving their homes,
while their visitors significantly learn about a distinctive culture.
Besides, if local culture is the base for attracting tourists to the
region, it helps to preserve the local tradition, handicrafts which
maybe were on the link of the extinction. Benefits include also
reciprocity, community pride, and a stronger sense of ethnic
identity.
On the other side tourism can increase tension,
hostility, suspicion. Claims of tourism as a vital force for peace
are exaggerated. Indeed there is little evidence that tourism
is drawing the world together (Robinson,1999:22). While the tourist
is engaged in leisure, the host is engaged in work. While the
tourists arrive with loads of expectations, many of the local
stakeholders have no idea of what to expect.
Negative effects can be the following, according
to Reisinger (source unknown)
Developing negative attitudes towards each other
Tension, hostility, suspicion and misunderstanding
Clashes of values
Difficulties in forming friendships
Feeling of inferiority and superiority
Communication problems
Ethnocentrism
Culture shock
Dissatisfaction with mutual interaction.
Tourism has the power to affect cultural change.
Successful development of a resource can lead to numerous negative
impacts. Among these are over-development, assimilation, conflict and
artificial reconstruction. While presenting a culture to tourists may
help preserve the culture, it can also dilute or even destroy it.
Tourism often leads to non-authentic forms of cultural traditions, an
example being festivals or dances staged entirely for tourists, or
production of handicraft clearly distinctive from traditional ones.
We can take example of saami culture. Saami duodji is sold both with
and without a quality mark. A lot of things known and promoted as
saami things is just a “trash”, produced far from saami
regions. Some tourist organisations present saami people as
drunkards, out of their mind, dirty and uneducated. The point is to
promote a region so that it would both give incomes and create
respect for the local culture (Gustavsen, 1998).
When it comes to ecology, it is again easier to
see negative impact than positive. Tourism often grows into
masstourism. It leads to the over-consumption, pollution and lack of
resources. But in some regions alternative industries are even more
harmful to the environment than tourism industry. Nature will manage
fine without tourists, but in many places tourism is the only source
of income or the friendliest to the environment. It is at least
better than chopping down the forests or destroying the corral reefs.
(Munch-Petersen,1998 (from lecturenotes))
On the Lofoten Islands the conflict between the
host community and the tourists is more of cultural origin,
e.g. in Svolvжr or Vеgan. The fishermen can see that one
harbour after another is being reconstructed for a cafй, a
rorbucamp, a quay hotel. For the fishermen it is an expression that
their traditional industry is getting less and less important. Even
if it does not happen at the cost of the fishery industry it is
mostly a psychological problem. The