IELTS Writing Task 2

International tourism has brought enormous benefit to many places. At the same time, there is concern about its impact on local inhabitants and the environment.

Do the disadvantages of international tourism outweigh the advantages?

Essay Response:

During pre-COVID-19 pandemic period, international tourism was a sunshine industry but the health crisis has caused the industry to plunge. This year, however, travel restrictions had already been relaxed and demand for international tourism is slowly returning to normal. Although, many countries have benefited from this business, but tourism in general has numerous issues surrounds it. This essay will examine if the disadvantages of international tourism exceed the advantages.

Countries with beautiful beaches, landscapes, and abundant wildlife are often the destination of choice for many tourists. Tropical places such as Philippines in Southeast Asia, where summer weather is almost all year-round is one of the many reasons why visitors come. Tourist destinations like Philippines benefitted financially from every dollar that tourists spent. But, tourism also brought negative effect concerning environment and the local people. For example, the physical environments are turned into hotel accommodations which destroyed the natural landscape and the wildlife habitat. Consequently, prices of goods will accelerate if there is an increase of tourism activity, where local population are often being priced out. 

Contrastingly, tourism industry as a whole brings myriad benefits in every country. One of the benefits is employment, it can create direct and indirect employment for the local people and eventually become the regular source of income for inhabitants. Some of these companies will hire low skilled labors from that locality and will provide trainings to enhance local hospitality talent. Furthermore, today’s travelers are sophisticated and they can easily spot infrastructure inefficiencies. Therefore, local authorities will be forced to increase investments in local infrastructure like roads, communications and tourism facilities in order to become more competitive. 

In summary, the rising prices of goods in every tourist destinations is a clear unfavorable outcome to the local inhabitants. However, the negative effect of tourism in some countries are often ignored because tourism tend to bring more dollars to the local economy. Through the lens of my eyes, I have seen that the advantages of international tourism overshadow the disadvantages. 

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