Writing Feedback / Discussion essay about the effect of tourism over culture [5]

Hi, I'm Quynh Trang and I'm a newbie to this site. This is my first post here so I really want to hear your opinions about it. Thanks in advance. I hope you will enjoy it :)

Some people believe that culture will be ruined if it is used to earn tourism revenue, but others consider that tourism is the only way of protecting culture. Discuss both sides and give your own opinion.

As the globalization is developing fast and dragging serious cultural issues along, there is no doubt that the effect of tourism over culture has been a matter of debate. Many people claim that tourism is the only way of protecting culture. This viewpoint, however, is refuted by many who think that culture will be ruined if it is used to earn tourism revenue. These two points of view should be analyzed with thoughts in this order.

It is undeniable that tourism brings a lot of positive impact on culture. When tourists visit a place, they will study about the history, discover specialties and especially enjoy sightseeing. Once they get home, they will share their experience and feeling about it, which also helps to promote that culture and attract more potential visitors. It can be argued that the best way to prevent culture from fading away is to spread it worldwide. Therefore, culture can be protected and passed on to the younger generations. Moreover from the host side, tourism can help create more investment opportunities, offer more jobs, improve facilities and better living standard of locals. Money earned from tourism can be used in activities to preserve culture such as repairing historical places, advertising and raising awareness of protecting culture, etc. Thus, it is understandable why many gravitate towards this point of view.

However, there is also a strong argument that tourism is destroying culture for profit. Taking underdeveloped and developing countries as an exam, it is a fact that environmental problems are getting worse in famous destinations. When locals realize that they can get a lot of profit from tourism, some of them will be capable of doing everything to get as much money as they could from the tourists, even when the price for that is damaging the environment and the background. In addition, some locals may have to repeat doing something everyday which is supposed to be done only on special days like a performance of unique musical instruments, and then it will make these activities lost it meanings. It may also bring other negative impacts such as the local economy might be unstable, costs of living for the locals is increasing... Hence, it is reasonable why many express approval for this point of view.

By way of conclusion, it is probably difficult to decide whether tourism brings more positive or negative impacts over culture issue. From what has been discussed above, I think that with the effort of government, the benefits of tourism can outweigh all those negative impacts.

Quynh Trang