The people who love to visit different places around the world or within their country for different purposes like adventure, business, relaxation, holiday, education and so on are called tourists.
And this whole process of tourists travelling, and supply-side providing these tourists with experience and services is known as tourism.
The Industry which is linked or established in order to facilitate tourists by providing good accommodation, entertainment, supplies, or services is called the tourism industry.
Mainly there are two types of tourists i.e. domestic tourists and international tourists. Those tourists who travel from one place to another place within their country arena are called domestic or Internal tourists.
Similarly, those foreigners who love to travel to other countries in order to study that particular country’s culture, custom, livelihood, literature, folk songs etc. are called international tourists.
The other purposes for international tourism can be adventure, games, sex, business and pilgrimage. And the area is ever-expanding.
The tourism industry can be the key factor for the economic growth and prosperity for any nation, UAE and Switzerland are the best examples to prove that. For a developing nation like Nepal, it is the major source of national GDP. If implemented and planned well, Tourism In Nepal can be a goose that will lay golden eggs.
However, tourism brings in some problems and might bring some undesirable changes.
Also Read: History of Tourism In Nepal
Following are the Negative Impacts of Tourism
1. Disturbs Locale Cultures and Traditions: Tourism can affect the lifestyle and livelihood of the native people. It also affects the normal life of local peoples. It means local residents are more likely to mimic tourists and follow their way of living. Nowadays people are blindly following western customs, cultures, languages, dress-ups, and festivals due to foreign influence. And it has threatened the local people’s beliefs, festivals, lifestyles, languages, etc.
2. Pollution & Heritage Deterioration: Tourism can pollute and destroy the natural as well as cultural heritage. The small numbers of tourists might not show the impacts but over-tourism might show negative impacts on the heritages and physical infrastructures.
Due to the flow of the huge crowd in cultural and natural heritage, It might damage the beauty and their importance. If it is not managed properly then it won’t be surprising to see such heritage being converted into dumping trash.
Tourists are likely to throw plastics and garbage in such heritage which will directly hamper in the quality of such places. Due to tourism, pollution and musty are likely to ruin such places. Similarly, traffic jams and congestions are other problems that tourism is likely to attract.
Also Read: Over Tourism In Nepal
3. Increment In social problems and crimes: People from different places come to visit culturally and naturally enriched places in order to get freshened and embolden themselves.
All the people coming from the globe might not be innocent. Such people visit places in order to spread violence, supply drugs and to cause other various problems. Many tourists travel to poach animals, rob idols from the temples and to do various illegal and unethical acts.
Girl trafficking, kidnapping, drugs abuse, poaching animals, terrorism, rape are some social problems that might happen in destined place due to tourism.
4. Scarcity of food and water: Tourists are given more preference by the government and other local bodies. In the name of their accommodation, they are given high qualities of foods and water. It doesn’t cause any side effects in urban and developed areas but it boosts problems in a rural and deserted area where people have difficulty joining their hands and mouth. Tourism will snatch food and water from the poor locales living in such deserted and undeveloped places.
5. Inflation: Tourist destinations are much expensive than the other ones. It means the overall price of living is more expensive in all aspects of such places. Due to tourism the price of land, houses, rent, goods and other stuff gets hiked which might be a problem to locales and students residing there.
6. Privacy issue: The inflow of tourist may create problems with the private and normal life of locales. Also, some important private messages may get viral to the foreign world.
7. Leakage: With the inflow of many tourists they may ask for international products that don’t get produced in Nepal. While catering their such special needs, the money of our country Nepal goes outside which is known as leakage.
For example, if a tourist asks for special wine that is produced in Japan then our Nepali money is directly going to Japan.
8. Sprawl Development: Tourism brings in scattered development. The area with a high number of tourists gets concentrated with infrastructures and services whereas the area far from the tourist region may get hampered.
Also Read: Aviation Scenario In Nepal
9. Seasonal Jobs: There are seasons in tourism. The popular seasons are high and low seasons. Tourists inflow in the high season is high and in the low season is low. So people get a sound job in high seasons but they remain jobless in the low seasons. This may lead such jobless people to do illegal and easy money jobs.
10. Loss Of Authenticity: With the rising tourism industry one can feel the loss of authenticity in cultures, traditions arts and more.
It is no doubt that tourism helps in promoting and preserving culture, tradition and arts but somehow it might also have a negative impact. With the inflow of foreign tourists in Nepal, Nepali people and their culture get impacted. There may be an influence of the western society and this may lead to a loss in the authenticity of local culture, arts and all.
11. The commodification of locale culture traditions and Arts: Tourism brings in the commodification of local arts, values, cultures, traditions and all. People start treating such things of value as a commodity which is obviously not a good thing.
12. Cultural clashes and cultural shocks: Another social problem that tourism brings in is cultural clashes and cultural shocks. There are differences in culture between tourists and local peoples. So, these differences may bring in cultural shocks and clashes resulting in low tourist satisfaction.
13. Dependency on tourism: Tourism can become a main source of income for a destination, which can make the local economy overly reliant on tourism. This can lead to a lack of economic diversity, which can make a community vulnerable to economic downturns or natural disasters.
Overall, tourism in Nepal must be managed responsibly and sustainably in order to avoid negative consequences and maximize benefits to the local people and the environment.
Also Read: Tourism Scenario In Nepal
