Literature Review on Environmental Impacts of Tourism

Tourism is one of the biggest and fastest growing sectors in the global economy and has significant environmental, cultural, social and economic effects, both positive and negative. The unfavorable impact that tourism can have on the environment both undermines the basic resource for tourism in coastal areas and heavily affects other non-tourist economic activities. To avoid these impacts tourism needs to be planned, managed and undertaken in a way that is environmentally sustainable, socially beneficial and economically feasible. Sustainable tourism development always needs to respect the environment and refer to accepted principles of sustainability. It must be planned to make balanced use of the resources of any site, thus avoiding negative effects, reducing visitor pleasure, or harmfully impacting the local society, economy and culture. The negative impacts of tourism development can gradually destroy environmental resources on which it depends. The objectives were to see the positive and negative impact of tourism on environment and to determine the direct impact of tourist activities in the respective tourism areas. Tourism has the potential to create beneficial effects on the environment by causal to environmental protection and conservation. It is a way to raise knowledge of environmental values and it can serve as a tool to finance protection of natural areas and increase their economic importance. The quality of the environment, both natural and man-made, is essential to tourism. The relationship of tourism with the environment is complex. It involves many activities that can have unpleasant environmental effects. The purpose of this paper is to review environmental impacts of tourism, the effects of tourism on natural resources, environmental pollution and physical environment.

کلیدواژه ها:

Tourism ، Environmental Impacts ، Sustainability