Tourism
Revise Tourism for Geography 0460 (O Level) — revision notes and instant AI marking. Free to start.
Tourism
Tourism is a booming global industry that brings money, jobs and connection — but if it isn't carefully managed, it can wreck the very environments and cultures that make a place worth visiting.
Summary — The Whole Chapter in One Look
- Tourism = travelling somewhere for 24 hours to 1 year, for leisure, work, medical or educational reasons. Split into domestic (own country) and international (abroad).
- Tourism is a form of circular migration — people move and then return, unlike permanent migration.
- Global tourism has grown massively over 50 years (≈900 million international tourists a year pre-pandemic), driven by more pay, more leisure time, cheaper transport, technology, and marketing.
- Tourism has social, economic and environmental impacts — each can be positive or negative, and exam answers need to cover both sides.
- Tourism creates a multiplier effect that ripples through primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary jobs.
- Sustainable tourism and ecotourism try to balance economic benefit with protecting the environment and local culture — Bhutan and Cyprus are the two named case studies.
- Tourism is managed through protected areas, tourist hubs and quotas — each has strengths and weaknesses.
1. Growth of Tourism
Let's start with the basics. A leisure activity is anything you do for enjoyment in your free time — going to the cinema, playing football, scrolling your phone. Tourism is a specific type of leisure: it's when you travel away from home to another destination for more than 24 hours but less than a year. Go for less than a day and you're just "visiting." Move somewhere permanently and that's migration, not tourism.
Domestic vs International
This distinction is simple but easy to mix up in an exam:
- Domestic tourism — travelling within your own country (a Londoner visiting Cornwall).
- International tourism — travelling to another country (a Londoner visiting Cyprus).
Why is tourism a form of "circular migration"?
Migration normally implies a permanent move. Tourism doesn't — you go, and you come back. That's the "circular" bit: it's a loop, not a one-way trip. The chapter gives you four types of circular migrant worth remembering, because examiners like specific examples:
- Seasonal workers — e.g. someone who works a ski season in the Alps, then goes home when it ends.
- Students — travel to university, then return home at the end of term.
- Medical tourists — travel abroad temporarily for treatment (often cheaper or higher-quality care elsewhere).
- Sports tourists — travelling to compete in or watch international competitions (the Olympics, World Cup).
Why has tourism grown so much?
This is one of the most commonly examined lists in the whole chapter — you should be able to explain why each factor matters, not just list it:
- Better pay & leave benefits — most people now work under 40 hours a week and get paid annual leave, so they actually have time and money to travel.
- Increased disposable income — with more dual-income households, families have more spare cash left over after essentials, which often goes toward holidays.
- Easier border crossings — international agreements (like the EU's freedom of movement) mean fewer visa headaches.
- Faster, cheaper transport — budget airlines and high-speed rail have made travel accessible to far more people, not just the wealthy.
- The internet & social media — Instagram, TikTok and travel apps constantly advertise destinations and make last-minute booking effortless.
- More "built attractions" — theme parks, water parks and man-made resorts create demand that didn't exist before (nobody "needed" to visit Disneyland — it was built to attract tourists).
- Events — music festivals, the Olympics, and World Cups pull in tourists for a fixed window of time.
- Growing environmental & cultural awareness — as people appreciate natural beauty and other cultures more, they're motivated to go see it for themselves.
Practice Question [3 marks]
State three different types of job that are likely to be created by tourism in a resort development.
Practice Question [2 marks]
Explain why tourism can be considered a form of circular migration.
2. Impacts of Tourism
This is the heart of the chapter, and it's where most exam marks live. Tourism affects three areas — social, economic, and environmental — and each one has a positive and a negative side. Examiners specifically warn against only writing the negatives, so train yourself to think in balanced pairs.
🧑🤝🧑 Social Impacts
Positive
- Revives local crafts and traditions
- Cultural heritage becomes valued (cultural tourism)
- Brings people together from all over the world
- Expands local social services
- Major events (e.g. Olympics) boost national/local infrastructure
- Develops foreign language skills
- Ancient sites gain global attention and appreciation
Negative
- Loss of locally owned land
- Tourist behaviour can offend locals (e.g. drinking)
- Can encourage crime and prostitution
- Displacement of local people
- Abuse of human rights
- Erosion of local language and traditional values
- Loss of local access to beaches/forests
- Congestion at popular sites
💰 Economic Impacts
Before the positives and negatives, you need to understand the multiplier effect — this is a key concept examiners love to test.
Notice how one tourist dollar touches four different levels of the economy — that's the multiplier effect in action.
Positive
- Brings money into the national economy
- Creates jobs for local people
- Brings new infrastructure to the region
- Provides tax revenue for the government
- Provides employment in poorer rural areas
- Opens opportunities for small businesses & informal jobs
Negative
- Money often goes to big businesses, not locals
- Jobs are often low-paid, menial and seasonal
- Congestion & pollution hurt local businesses
- Economic leakage is high (profits leave the country)
- Borrowing to fund tourism can raise national debt
- All-inclusive resorts keep tourist spending inside the hotel
🌍 Environmental Impacts
Positive
- Raises awareness of conservation areas
- Tourism money funds environmental protection (e.g. water supply repair)
- Funds conservation activities & national parks
- Can help protect key species from illegal trade/exploitation
Negative
- Environments bulldozed/concreted for development
- Pollution from waste and littering
- Damage to habitats/wildlife (water skiing, coral reef damage, poaching)
- Greenhouse gas emissions from flying
Practice Question [5 marks]
Explain how the local natural environment may be at risk from tourist resort developments.
Practice Question [4 marks]
Using examples, explain what is meant by "economic leakage" in tourism.
3. Management of Tourism
Because tourism is now so widespread, and because natural resources are finite, popular destinations need to actively manage it — otherwise the very thing tourists came to see gets destroyed. This section covers sustainable tourism, ecotourism, protected areas, tourist hubs, and quotas, plus two named case studies: Bhutan and Cyprus.
Sustainable Tourism
Sustainable tourism is designed to protect environmental, social and economic standards without damaging the region for future generations. It's the "big picture" goal — everything else in this section is a strategy to achieve it.
People and environmental groups are increasingly aware of their "destination footprint" — the environmental cost of getting somewhere and staying there — and are urged to:
- Fly less and stay longer (fewer, longer trips rather than lots of short ones)
- Consider slow travel (trains/boats instead of flights)
- Stay local (supporting local guesthouses, not international chains)
- Avoid international chain hotels and all-inclusive holidays (which increase leakage)
- Carbon-offset their flights
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is the most recognisable form of sustainable tourism. It takes small groups to fragile, special environments — coral reefs, rainforests, remote mountains, Antarctica, protected areas — where the aim is to minimise the visitor's impact. Community-based tourism (where profits go directly to the local community) is a growing form of this, especially in fragile LEDCs.
- Opened to tourists in 1974, after 300 years of isolation.
- Strategy: "high value, but low volume" — fewer tourists, but each one contributes a lot financially. This creates exclusivity while limiting environmental damage.
- Hotels originally built for the King's coronation were repurposed to house paying guests — a smart, low-cost way to generate foreign exchange.
- Initial visits were limited to just 2,500 people; numbers have since increased, but exclusivity is maintained.
- All tourists must travel with approved tour companies in groups, to specific approved locations.
- A $200 (£167) daily "Sustainable Development Fee" is required from every tourist.
- This fee offsets tourists' carbon footprint, upskills local workers, and protects Bhutan's cultural heritage and mountain environment.
- Criticism: some argue it only attracts wealthy tourists, turning Bhutan into a "speciality" destination that ordinary travellers can't access. Supporters argue this is exactly the point — it deliberately controls tourist volume and impact.
Protected Areas
This strategy protects large areas from development entirely.
- National Parks — Yellowstone (USA) was the first ever, established in 1872. There are now over 4,000 worldwide.
- Other protected categories include National Forests, Country Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and World Heritage Sites.
Conservation allows some development to happen, as long as it doesn't damage the character of the area. Most "protected area" management in tourism is actually conservation, not preservation — this is a very common exam mix-up.
Tourist Hubs
This is about concentrating tourism into one particular area of a country or region, so the impacts (pollution, congestion, cultural disruption) stay contained to that zone rather than spreading everywhere.
Strength
- Impacts are kept concentrated to one place, protecting the rest of the country
Weakness
- Hard to keep tourism strictly within boundaries — overspill happens
- Benefits stay in that one area and don't spread through the wider community
- Can create division between the "tourist zone" and everywhere else
Quotas
A quota sets a maximum number of tourists allowed, so numbers never exceed a sustainable level. This is often run through a lottery system for the limited spaces available. Conservation areas often use permits to control access to unique or fragile sites — coral reefs, mountain gorilla treks, and the Galápagos Islands are classic named examples.
Practice Question [6 marks]
Explain how Bhutan's approach to tourism helps to make it sustainable.
Case Study: Importance of Tourism to Cyprus
Cyprus is your second named case study, and it's tested differently to Bhutan — here the focus is on the tension between water/environmental limits and tourism demand, and on a specific sustainability initiative rather than a national government policy.
- Tourism is hugely important to Cyprus: it provides thousands of jobs and contributes an average of 20% of the country's GDP.
- Cyprus is partitioned — split into Turkish Northern Cyprus and the Greek Cypriot Republic of Cyprus. This case study focuses on the southern Greek area.
- Climate: Mediterranean — hot, dry summers (average 28°C) and rainy winters (10°C). Great for tourists, but tough for water supply.
- Annual water demand exceeds supply, making Cyprus "water poor."
- Desalination plants are increasingly used to convert seawater into fresh water, but this only meets 45% of demand and uses a lot of energy, harming the environment.
Cyprus Sustainable Tourism Initiative (CSTI) — founded 2006
Its goals are to:
- Help tourism-disadvantaged communities live better
- Conserve and safeguard the environment while still using natural resources sustainably
- Reduce tourism-related carbon emissions
- Promote sustainability education and research
Key CSTI projects
| Focus Area | Actions |
|---|---|
| Water & landscaping | Hotels use up to 22% of their water on gardens/landscaping. CSTI encourages less grass and fewer exotic plants (which need heavy watering), using native flora suited to low rainfall, and fewer swimming pools. |
| Renewable energy | Cyprus relies on solar power; hotels and public spaces are adopting energy-saving technologies. |
| Plastic & waste | Reducing plastic use, working with the tourism industry to cut single-use plastics in resorts like Ayia Napa. |
| Beaches & wildlife | Coordinated beach-cleaning events; turtle watches during hatching season, to make sure hatchlings reach the sea rather than being disorientated by hotel lights. |
| Rural communities | Encouraging rural tourism (art, history, accommodation, local events) so disadvantaged inland areas benefit too, not just the coast. |
Practice Question [6 marks]
Assess how successful the Cyprus Sustainable Tourism Initiative has been in managing the environmental impacts of tourism.
What to Memorise
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Tourism | Travel to another destination for >24hrs but <1 year, for leisure, work, medical or educational reasons, with intent to return. |
| Domestic tourism | Travelling within one's own country. |
| International tourism | Travelling to another country. |
| Circular migration | Temporary movement away and back — no permanent relocation (e.g. seasonal workers, students, medical tourists, sports tourists). |
| Multiplier effect | Tourist spending ripples outward, creating jobs across primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sectors. |
| Economic leakage | Tourism revenue that leaves the local/national economy (e.g. profits to foreign-owned hotels, money spent on imports). |
| Sustainable tourism | Tourism designed to sustain environmental, social and economic standards without damaging the region. |
| Destination footprint | The environmental cost of travelling to and staying at a destination. |
| Ecotourism | Small-group, low-impact tourism to fragile/protected natural environments; often community-based. |
| Preservation | Keeping something exactly as it is — no development allowed. |
| Conservation | Allowing some development, as long as it doesn't damage the character of the area. |
| Tourist hub | Concentrating tourism into one area to contain its impacts. |
| Quota | A cap on visitor numbers to prevent tourism from exceeding a sustainable level. |
Case Study Facts to Have Ready
Concepts Checklist
Exam Tips
Always balance your answer. If a question asks about "impacts," examiners actively look for both positive and negative points across social, economic and environmental categories — one-sided answers lose marks even if what you wrote is correct.
Don't confuse preservation and conservation. This is a classic trap. Preservation = zero development allowed. Conservation = controlled development that doesn't damage the area's character. Most real-world "protected area" management is conservation.
Use precise sector language for economic questions. If asked about the multiplier effect, name the actual sectors (primary/secondary/tertiary/quaternary) with a concrete tourism example for each — don't just say "it creates jobs."
Have your named case studies exam-ready. Bhutan and Cyprus are specifically named in this chapter. Learn at least 4-5 concrete facts/figures per case study (e.g. $200 fee, 1974, 20% of GDP, 45% desalination) — generic answers without named places or figures score fewer marks.
For "explain" questions, always link cause to effect. Don't just list impacts — build a chain: e.g. "Deforestation for resort building → loss of habitat → wildlife displacement → disruption to local food chains." This kind of developed reasoning is what separates a 2-mark answer from a 5-mark answer.
Watch for management strategies with real trade-offs. Quotas and tourist hubs both have genuine weaknesses (tension over unfair allocation; overspill and unequal benefit-sharing) — a strong answer acknowledges these limitations rather than presenting every strategy as a perfect solution.
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