An Evaluation of the Social Impact of Tourism Development in Manchester - Essay Example

AN EVALUATION OF THE SOCIAL IMPACT OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN MANCHESTER 2 INTRODUCTION This chapter is being designed to explore all the background variables that can affect and be used for conducting the study further. Literature review provides a connection among various variables of tourism that can impact a country in terms of social, economic, cultural and perceptions of the residents of the country. This chapter considers the affect tourism has on the countries and what perceptions the residents hold about the rising level of tourism development and what social impact and tourism means. 2.2 Tourism affect on Host Communities Tourism cannot be taken as independent because the host communities or the destination plays a very vital role. The attractiveness of a place and the variables attached to it which makes a place much more tempting gets somehow affected by the tourists. Communities also work hard to analyze what factors are more likely to get affected due to tourism and work upon the betterment and eliminating the ones not desirable for the purpose. 2.2.1 Host Perceptions of Socio-cultural Impacts Brunt & Courtney (1999) conducted a study with the purpose of finding whether a link exists between what the academic writers said about the socio-cultural impacts of tourism and can these perceptions be applied to the people living in a British coastal tourist resort relatively smaller than other resorts. According to the authors there are communities in many rural and urban destinations at Britain that are found to be affected by tourism. Looking at the academic writers a detailed literature can be found on the social impact tourism places but mostly developing nations are selected for a sample survey. Tourism has lead to changes in the structure of the society along with getting more developed in different areas and countries. Some were appreciated like education, employment opportunities and infrastructural development (Lankford 1994; McCool and Martin 1994; Ross 1992). But on the other hand there were negative effects on family and social values getting challenged; some new economic groups emerging and most of all the cultural practices of the host countries were adapting new rules to suit the needs of the tourists (Ap and Crompton 1993; Johnson, Snepenger and Akis 1994). According to literature this expansion in the tourism industry has lead to a creation of a contact between and among different societies and cultures. Some looks at this picture as somewhat threatening as this expansion can destroy their traditional cultures and societies and for the others they look at this as an opportunity for building peace and greater knowledge among different societies and nations. These social impacts can be seen as ones that have a thorough and immediate effect on both the tourists and host countries in terms of their quality of life (Sharpley 1994). In this article the authors explained that the degree to which the tourist countries get influenced by the socio-cultural aspects depends upon a number of factors that includes the nature of tourism developed in specified areas, type of tourists and the speed at which the development is taking place at the host community with respect to tourism. 2.2.2 The Impact of Tourism Development on Residents’ Perceptions of Community Life Allen, Long, Perdue and Kieselbach (1988) conducted a study to determine whether the resident’s perceptions of the community life get affected with the development in the tourism area in their community. A questionnaire was designed and 20 rural communities were selected for the purpose of study. There were mainly seven dimensions that were taken into account for the purpose of this study. These dimensions include public services, economics, medical sciences, environment, citizen involvement, formal education, economics, and recreation services. In order to analyze what dimensions were the most likely to be changing with the rising level of tourism development a canonical analysis was conducted. The result showed that there exists a very prominent relationship between the satisfaction level of the community and the level of development in tourism, getting affected by citizen involvement, public services and environment is found to be the most likely dimension that’s sensitive to the development in tourism. As the population increases, there are more chances that the surrounding environment gets deteriorated. Pappas (2008) studied the impact of tourism on the people of Rhodes. Rhodes is known as one of the famous and major tourism destinations in Greece. The author states that tourism is placing a great impact on the development in the island which is intense for the locals and the visitors. This article states that the quality of the tourists products is being reducing to a great extent, there are environmental problems being created by tourism development, the behaviours and the life’s of the local residents are getting affected and being altered. There is a strong need to make policies and strategies in order to overcome the falling tourism levels at Rhodes. The result of the study shows that the locals of Rhodes understand that even though there are many economic benefits that come along with tourism that includes the financial prosperity, occupational opportunities and improve condition of the quality of life; the residents also understand the social and environmental problems that were brought by tourism in their society. Considering all this they are still in favour of enforcing tourism development. They considered that the need is to build the infrastructure and a master plan is required related to the developmental process, a marketing strategy along with education and training in tourism is to be created. 2.3 Social Impacts and Tourism Social Impact According to Murphy (1985) social impact caters to the idea of more immediate and instant changes that take place in the social structure of a community and adjustments that are made in the economy and industry of the destination while on the other hand cultural impact places relevance on the changes that take place for longer periods as in society’s norms and standards and these norms will be reflected in the community’s social relationships and the artefacts. Milman & Pizam (1988) conducted a study with a purpose to investigate the perception of residents of Central Florida; about the social consequences and the impact tourism has on the residents. The article states that apart from the damage environment faces due to tourism many other important factors are present that gets affected by tourism and creates problem in host country. These problems include the changes in the value system of them host country, individual behaviours, the lifestyles, their tradition values and ceremonies and the community organization. Although it’s difficult to find a direct social impact of tourism but it exists. The author conducted a telephonic survey in 230 households located at Central Florida. The results showed that around 78% respondents were in favour of tourism being present in Central Florida. Tourism had a positive impact on employment opportunities, income, standards of living, and quality of life was greatly improved due to the rising level of tourism in Central Florida. But on the other side traffic conditions, individual and organized crimes and alcohol consumptions were the negative impacts due to tourism. The study shows that traffic condition is the variable being most significantly getting affected due to tourism. Haralambopoulos & Pizam (1996) conducted a study to investigate the impact of tourism as how the residents of a very established place located on the Greek Island of Samos named Pythagorion thinks about it. For this reason interviews were conducted from a sample of about 116 household that was 20% population of the area and these selected heads of households were from cluster sampling method. Overall the results showed that the respondents had a very positive attitude towards tourism. The respondents had very affirmative views about tourism and economic related issues getting affected by it. They considered that tourism brings forward many employment opportunities, improving town’s overall tax revenue, personal income gets affected , the standard of living improving , the attitudes towards their works and the most important being hospitality towards the strangers was perceived to get better as a result of high tourism levels. On the other hand the respondents believed that there is an increase in individual crimes, brawls, vandalism, sexual harassment and drug abuse; and the reason behind all this worsened situations was tourism. The study also shows that tourism has found to have no impact on various issues that takes into account morality, honesty, confidence between the people, prostitution and gambling. 2.4 Tourism Development Binns and Nel (2002) worked upon the main concern that is tourism development and identified promotion of tourism as one of the key strategy that can be of maximum advantage. This strategy can provide an economic boom, lead to community development and can also act in the benefit for poverty relief in many developing countries of the work. For this reason the author has observed that in the previous year, tourism emerged significantly and got developed in the parts of South Africa. In South Africa, the country is committing itself with ‘developmental local governments’ that with a purpose to look for innovative growth option, so that the employment gap can be minimized. Rogerson (2000) indentified that in South Africa tourism can be known as a Local economic development (LED) strategy in South Africa. Two of the main tourist destinations in South Africa include a small coastal resort of Still Bay which is located on the southern coast of Western Caper province and the other one where initiatives were taken to promote tourism was in town of Utrecht in KwaZulu-Natal province. In South Africa a large number of local authorities are placing emphasis on national LED fund, as they want them to support different ventures related to tourism like constructing cultural villages and craft centres. This fund serves like a poverty alleviation fund and along with this fund the country now have many explicit developmental programs each dedicated to tourism. They realise that tourism based local economic development serve as a catalyst for the economic and social development in South Africa. The result shows that this development has lead to many employment opportunities in Utrecht and in the town of Still Bay, there came a paradigm shift which transformed the place; which was in economic despair and hopelessness to a town where now there is a range of employment opportunities catered by many new developed activities. Overall tourism places a great deal of social impact and the development of this service is influencing the perceptions of the local residents of the destination. More of the positive aspects are known to be part of this development and developing countries can even take advantage by promoting tourism to get economically and socially developed. The factors that can be taken into consideration to evaluate social impact are the perception local residents hold related to tourism like on the basis of tax revenues, environmental concerns, and employment opportunities and all the related factors mentioned in literature review. References Paul Brunt & Paul Courtney (1999). Host Perceptions of Socio-cultural Impacts. Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 493- 515. Lawrence R. Allen, Patrick T. Long, Richard R. Perdue & Scott Kieselbach (1988). The Impact of Tourism Development On Residents Perceptions Of Community Life. Journal of Travel Research,Vol. 27, pg.16. Ady Milman & Abraham Pizam (1988). Social impacts of tourism on Central Florida. Annals of Tburism Research, Vol. 15, pp. 191-204. McCool, S. F. & S. R. Martin (1994). Community Attachment and Attitudes toward Tourism Development. Journal of Travel Research, Vol.32, No.3 pp.29-34. Lankford, S. V. (1994). Attitudes and Perceptions toward Tourism and Rural Regional Development. Journal of Travel Research, Vol.32, No. 4, pp.35-43. Nicholas Haralambopoulos & Abraham Pizam (1996). Perceived Impacts Of Tourism-The Case Of Samos. Annah of Tourism Research, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 503-526. Murphy, P. E. (1985). Tourism: A Community Approach. London: Routledge. Nikolaos V Pappas (2008). City of Rhodes: Resident’s attitude towards tourism impacts and development. An international journal of tourism and hospitality Research, Vol. 19, No. 1 pp51-70. Tony Binns &Etienne Nel (2002). Tourism as a Local Development Strategy in South Africa. The Geographical Journal, Vol. 168, No. 3 pp. 235-247. Rogerson C M (2000). Local economic development in an era of globalisation: the case of South African cities. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 91, pp.397-411 Read More