Environmental Impacts of Tourism

While many tourist sites become attractions because visitors want to enjoy the natural beauty, tourism to such natural places can result in the damage, degradation, and destruction of the very landscapes tourists wish to visit. Further, the impact of services created for tourists, such as airports, transportation routes, and resorts or golf courses surrounding the visited area, extend well beyond the actual site visited, and can result in severe impacts to the environment and ecosystems that once flourished there.

For every natural resource that exists, there are multiple impacts created by tourism. Impacts may take the form of breaking down or breaking apart a natural area, or the overuse of an area. Environmental destruction or changes in the environment as a result of tourism and the ...