The Social Impacts of Tourism

Abstract

AbstractTourism is not exclusively an economic phenomenon, it also involves social, cultural, political and environmental aspects. It is therefore, important to realize that any assessment of tourism impacts should not only be concerned with the tangible economic effects such as revenue and foreign exchange earnings, but also with non-economic and intangible effects, such as social and cultural ones.Social and cultural impacts of tourism are the ways in which tourism is contributing to changes in value systems, individual behaviour, family relationships, collective life styles, moral conduct, creative e expressions, traditional ceremonies and community organization. In other words they are the effects on the people of host communities of their direct and indirect associations with tourists.The socio-cultural effects of tourism are difficult to measure, and to a large extent are indirect, or even unknown. The majority of the studies undertaken until now in this area, were mainly concerned with understanding the social impacts on the host societies rather than the impacts on the tourists themselves. In general, attitudes and perceptions of the host population vary on a continuous scale between negative, through no impact at all to positive1_6.