The Negative Impacts of Tourism on Egyptian Culture - Research Paper Example

The Negative Impacts of Tourism on Egyptian Culture There has been a substantial growth of the tourism sector in Egypt due to massive tourists visiting the country. Despite the numerous benefits brought about by the tourism sector, there are also several challenges. Particularly, tourism in Egypt negatively affects the Egyptian culture. The introduction of a foreign culture in Egypt degrades the local culture and causes the embracing of this foreign culture. Due to this, there is need for restriction of Tourism in the country. This paper will evaluate the impacts of tourism on Egyptian culture. It presents a brief introduction of the state of tourism in the country, discuses some benefits brought about by the sector, as well as the need to curtail tourism in Egypt, especially because of the negative impacts it is having on Egyptian culture. Introduction For the last two hundred years, tourism has been an important component in Egypt’s economy. In addition, tourism for the last generation has become an important part of the economy, which contributes about 45 percent of the country’s yearly foreign currency earnings. To improve the infrastructure to the required standards, there has been a very significant investment by both the public and by the private sectors in addition to all the budgetary planning by the Egyptian government. This is because of the assumption that there is need for this infrastructure to hold an ever-growing number of tourists. As a result, there is an annual expenditure of millions of dollars to encourage and promote tourism especially in the neighboring Arab countries, which now represent a growing segment of the Egyptian tourist market (Icomos, 71). Because of the thriving roads, trade, and economy in general, there was massive expansion of the travel industry. For instance, there was a rise in the number of transit customers through Egypt from 275 in 1844 to 3,000 in 1847. To cater for the outstanding increase in the number of travelers between the years 1848 – 1879, the government began to issue regulations and organize the services given to the travelers, who spent about ?60-?80 during three months stay in Egypt. Tour guide (TG) was among the first services to emerge immediately because of the expansion of the travelling industry. The tour guide became the intermediary between the region and the visitors (El-Sharkawy, 78). The Egyptians have been able to carry out easy market promotion for a long time because of the Egypt famous historical heritage sites. However, when the marine resort tourism became the main tourism product in the 1990s there was change in conditions. Consequently, Egypt has to compete with its competitor countries in many features, for example service level and price, in the marine resort market. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a suitable market promotion plan (Rady, 2). Impacts of Tourism in Egypt Tourism has an important effect to the society. Among the direct economic gains of tourism are augment of foreign exchange earnings, contribution to government revenues, income generation and generation of employment. In addition, tourism offers indirect effects on the economic sectors, for instance fisheries, agriculture, construction and handicraft manufacturing, which provide the goods and services for the tourism sector. Moreover, tourism offers other facilities and services that promote the economic and cultural development of the community in the region for example the improvement of transportation and other infrastructure (Rady, 26). Tourism in Egypt is peculiar on the types of travel and cross-cultural transactions including religious and intellectual pilgrimages, colonialism and imperialism, archaeology, anthropology, and more, which for centuries have been important components in building Egyptian national subjectivities and identities. The basis of the Western tourism is an imagination of an ancient Egypt scattered with the excavated monuments of a pharaonic past. On the other hand, the West’s colonial fascination with ancient Egypt has played a role to the elaboration of Egyptian national identity as pharaonic and ancient. Other ways of Western tourism incorporate "sun-sea-and-sand" tourism in the Sinai and along the Red Sea and Mediterranean coasts and desert safaris (Wynn, 1). Despite the above benefits of tourism in the country, there are also negative impacts on the local culture. It was not until recently that there was a feel of negative effects imposed on the Egypt’s cultural heritage resource. While there was acceptance of tourism as an essential component of the country’s development strategy, it was regarded a non-consumable industry. In fact, it was considered as necessary to the success of Egypt’s economy. in retrospect, this came out to be true that tourism does use resources of the host nation, not just cultural and natural resources, but human-made ones too. Since cultural resources are limited, they should be managed like any other scarce resource. The Egyptian authorities are now dealing with this new reality. The previous administrations on the archaeological heritage aimed at maximizing revenue by a duel approach of promoting visits through advertising, high profile overseas tours of ancient times and opening more sites to visitors (Icomos, 71). Tourism in Egypt has a strong influence on the cultural built tradition and the conservation activities. In this case, there is a direct connection where there is marketing and rampant conservation for a certain aspect of culture due to its resourceful usefulness in tourism. On the other hand, when a cultural aspect is not important and marketable to the tourists, there is often the tendency of neglecting it and sometimes leaving it to decay. This means that tourists in Egypt highly affects and influences the cultural aspects that are important to them, hence their consequent maintenance and on the other hand the local populations might ignore or do away with the cultural aspects that the tourists do not embrace. These scenarios are very rampant in Egypt due to the strong cultural heritage of the country. When tourists arrive in many parts of Egypt, the lifestyles of the local people changes due to influence of the tourists. Rashed and Hanafi present valuable examples on the above scenarios. For instance, in the case where the tourists as well as the local people do not embrace the cultural heritage is the example of urban areas and traditional quarters with high population densities and large-scale problems such as the Fatimid Cairo. In such areas, the local people do not consider them tourism potentials. The resultant consequence is the abandonment of the cultural heritage dominant in such areas to give way for the ways and practices brought about by the tourists. Another example is the influence tourism has had on the Giza Pyramids region and the close village. Tourism has significantly affected both the cultural heritage and the physical structure. In these areas, the routs were dominantly by bus but after the tourists’ arrival, the activities of the area changed including camel riding and the presence of souvenir shops. A significant feature in this connection is the administrative structure under which this connection functions. In this case, tourism administrations become an extra establishment in the already existing conflict of interests among other establishments, for instance the Antiquity organisation. The coordination between the two conflicting establishments becomes very difficult. This is because the local people have their own indigenous knowledge of conservation of their cultural heritage while on the other hand; the tourists bring in their own institutions. Consequently, the interests of the tourists often overrides that of the antiquate beliefs, which causes the embracing a foreign culture (4). It is very likely that a new culture that tourists impose comes with new ways of life. Particularly considering the Europeans tourists, they bring with them new kinds of clothing, food and lifestyle. These kinds of clothing are sometimes very different from those worn by the local people of the destinations. In addition, their lifestyle poses danger of inflicting anti-social behaviors firmly condemned by the local Egyptian culture. This means that the presence of tourists in this country brings negative aspects of their culture and causes the local people to abandon their own culture while embracing this new culture. As a result, many young people start dressing in a provocative way and engage in other behaviors that are not acceptable in the local cultures. This is a very strong point that emphasizes the need of the control of rampant tourism in Egypt. In addition, there emerges another problem when the activities of the Tourists consume the local culture. For instance, there is a strong tendency of setting up of structures that suit the visitors from the developed countries. Consequently, this occurs at the expense of the local cultures. This is because they erect these buildings in a manner and style that disturbs the lifestyle of the local people and their culture. In this regard, there are numerous hotels, Nile cruisers and resort villages. In these structures, the tourist development has endeavored to form a total western atmosphere, which does not correspond with the local culture. This western atmosphere is sometimes against its fundamental religious beliefs and customs. This is evidence in the kinds of dancing areas, drinks, swimming pools and even restaurant meals offered there. Eventually, these elements offer a transferred environment within the local culture and leads local people to copy these westernized elements. In this case, it is evident that the local people would consider the visitor, particularly from the western countries as being superior and more civilized. As a result, these local people will take up such behaviors as they deem that the people practicing them are very intelligent and superior (Rashed & Hanafi, 4). Another grave negative effect of tourism in Egypt is the increase in promiscuity in various tourists’ attraction sites. For instance, Egyptian men have romantic relationships with Western and Asian visitors, particularly in the beach resorts of the Sinai. The reason that pushes the Egyptian men to marry Westerners is to evade the expenses associated with marrying an Egyptian woman. These expenses include paying the dowry and providing a good house for the newlyweds to live in. in light of the Egyptian culture, this behavior is very unacceptable as it degrades the local customs. When the Egyptian Men marry, these white women, they assure them of the provision of every need since these westerners are very wealthy. Consequently, the Egyptian men acquire the western Culture which is very different from the local culture and which, according to the Egyptians, compromises the local traditions and customs. Moreover, there is drug abuse that comes with this promiscuity. For example, the people of Egypt commonly associate the western sun-sea-and-sand tourism in the Sinai with sexual licentiousness for Egyptian men, in addition to drug use (Wynn, 1). Wynn adds that Arab tourists who come to Egypt also influence the local culture. He asserts that most of these Arab Tourists come to Egypt to practice things prohibited in their own countries. For instance, they visit Egyptian prostitutes, have sex parties, drink alcohol and gamble. Consequently, they highly pass this on to the local Egyptian populations who then practice the same. By this, they augment the issues of inflicting bad cultural behaviors, which are negative and not allowed in the local culture. For example, many youth from the Gulf spend their holiday in Egypt dating other compatriots. In other cases, some Saudi women, use their Egypt holiday as a chance to meet and date Saudi men, and then carry on these relationships after their vacation. The Egypt vacation generates an environment where there is relaxation of Saudi standards of gender isolation. As a Saudi cultural aspect that takes place outside the borders of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi summer holiday in Egypt is a surprising example of transnational culture (2). It is now very clear that mass tourism in Egypt actually causes the degradation of the local culture. This is because there is a lot of influence that the tourists bring with them to their destinations. The insinuation of promiscuity brought about by tourists in Egypt corrodes the local culture in a great way. In addition, the tourists’ activities cause degradation of morals among most of the Egyptian Young people. This is because they would often copy what other youth tourists were doing. It is particularly true that peer influence is very strong among the young people. As a result, there is a lot of peer influence when youths from Arab tourists come to Egypt. Rashed & Hanafi argues that the aspect of tourism and effect on local culture is a phenomenon of conservation and preservation of certain aspects of culture. a balance of sustainable tourism and cultural development fulfils the requirements of the current tourists and destinations while safeguarding and improving the opportunity for the future. this aspect of sustainable tourism ensures the envelopment of the tourism sector while at the same time protecting the cultural heritage of the host nation. This also ensures that there is no influence of negative aspects from tourists and that there is no degradation of the culture of the local people (9). Conclusion Tourism is a sector that brings about many benefits to the Egyptians. It is evident that it brings about growth in the country’s gross domestic product. However, despite the continued benefits of tourism, there are also negative effects. In particular, tourism affects the Egyptian culture negatively. It brings about the western and Asian cultures that in most cases are not acceptable in Egypt. These negative aspects include promiscuity, provocative dressing and drug abuse. These behaviors degrade the local customs and norms of the Egyptian people. Due to this, there is need for control of tourism in Egypt so that it can be sustainable. Moreover, it would also be good to restrict some of the behaviors practiced by tourists as well as controlling the services provided to these tourists. Works Cited El-Sharkawy, Omneya. “Exploring Knowledge and Skills for Tourist Guides: Evidence from Egypt.” International Multidisciplinary Journal of Tourism, l2.2 (2007): 77-94. Print. Icomos. Tourism in Egypt. 1999. Web. Rady, Adel. Tourism and Sustainable Development in Egypt. 2002. Web. Rashed, Ahmed & Hanafi, Mohamed. Originality and Replica: Luxor of Egypt? Las Vegas? N.d. Web. Wynn, Lisa. Women, Gender, and Tourism: Egypt. N.d. Web. Read More