Tourism Cambridge IGCSE Geography revision

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In plain words

Tourism is one of the world's biggest industries. For some small countries it is nearly the whole economy. It brings money and jobs, and it can also wear out the very thing the tourists came to see.

6 things to know

  1. Tourism has grown because people have higher incomes and more paid holiday; air travel is cheaper and faster; the internet makes booking easy; advertising and television show people new places; and people live longer, active lives after retiring.
  2. The Butler model describes the life cycle of a tourist resort in stages: exploration, involvement, development, consolidation and stagnation. After that the resort either declines or is rejuvenated by new investment.
  3. Strengths of the model: it helps planners to see where a resort is heading and to act in time. Limitations: not every resort follows it, it gives no timescale, and it ignores sudden events such as disasters or conflict.
  4. Benefits of tourism: jobs, income and foreign currency; better roads, airports and services; a market for local farmers and craftspeople; and a reason to protect wildlife and heritage.
  5. Problems: jobs are often seasonal and low paid; much of the profit goes to foreign companies; water and land are taken from local people; there is pollution, litter and damage to habitats; and local culture can be changed or cheapened.
  6. Sustainable tourism limits the damage and makes sure local people benefit: limits on visitor numbers, entry fees that pay for conservation, local ownership and jobs, small-scale ecotourism, and education of visitors.

Worked example

A coral island wants more tourists but fears damage to its reef. Suggest how tourism could be managed sustainably.

  1. Limit the number of visitors and divers on the reef each day.
  2. Charge an entry fee, and spend it on protecting the reef.
  3. Require hotels to treat their sewage, and train local people as guides, so the community earns from keeping the reef healthy.

Tips and tricks

  • Give impacts at more than one scale: local (jobs, water shortages) and national (foreign currency, new airports).
  • "Leakage" is tourist money that leaves the country, for example to foreign-owned hotels and airlines.
6 questions, about 2 minutes.

It lands in your notebook with its questions as flashcards.

Tourism: 6 questions and answers

These are the quiz’s questions. Do the quiz first, then come back here for the ones that got you.

  1. Which is a reason for the growth of tourism?
    • lower incomes
    • cheaper air travel (the answer)
    • less leisure time
    • fewer airports

    More people can afford to travel further.

  2. What does the Butler model show?
    • the growth of cities
    • the life cycle of a tourist resort (the answer)
    • the stages of population change
    • the flow of a river

    From exploration to stagnation, then decline or rejuvenation.

  3. What is leakage in tourism?
    • water lost from hotel pipes
    • tourist money that leaves the host country (the answer)
    • tourists leaving early
    • pollution of the sea

    For example, profits of foreign-owned hotels.

  4. Which is a problem caused by tourism?
    • new jobs
    • foreign currency
    • seasonal unemployment (the answer)
    • improved roads

    Jobs disappear outside the tourist season.

  5. Which is a feature of sustainable tourism?
    • unlimited visitor numbers
    • local people owning businesses and benefiting (the answer)
    • large foreign-owned resorts
    • no rules for visitors

    The community has a reason to protect the place.

  6. What follows stagnation in the Butler model?
    • exploration
    • involvement
    • decline or rejuvenation (the answer)
    • development

    The resort either loses visitors or reinvents itself.

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