Is mass tourism in poor countries good or bad?

Subject: Is mass tourism in poor countries good or bad?

The tourism industry is world’s largest growth sector, indeed from 1955 to 2002 the number of tourist has been multiplied by28, going from 25 to 715 millions. But Pope John Paul II has branded mass tourism as the new form of exploitation and dismissed tourist villages as places where visitors lack « any realcontact with the culture of the place ».
These two aspects, on one side the jobs and incomes badly needed brought by the tourism and on the other the negative impact on local cultureand environment oppose themselves.

We can’t ignore that tourism is a very important sector in developing countries’ economy, representing in some of these States up to 80% of theGDP. Tourism also creates a lot of local jobs, inputs foreign cash and encourages development in places where maybe all they have is natural beauty or history. In fact mass tourism bringsgrowth to poor countries and allows it be more international.

But mass tourism is a doubled edged sword, and can also provide negative aspects. Indeed if we consider the ecologicaspect, Nepal which benefits financially of tourism but at the cost of shocking environmental destruction. Indeed big and luxury hotels or liners produce a lot of waste that is rejected inthe nature ( river, sea desert, … ) but more dramatic spoil huge volumes of non-Salty water and energy to the detriment of the local populations.
The local culture is also threatenedby group tourism because people travel with others of the same country and want to keep their traditional habits (food, clothing, sport …) instead of discovering the local practices.Mass tourism is an effect of globalisation which brings a lot of money and jobs to the local government, but on the other side doesn’t respect the environment or even the local culture.