Advantages, Disadvantages & Problems of Tourism

Advantages of Tourism:

1. It is a Source of Income: Tourism is a major source of business transactions. The government generates tax revenue from tourism.

2. Generation of Foreign Exchange Earning: Tourists coming to a country spend foreign currency. This forms a major revenue source for countries blessed with tourist centres.

3. Infrastructural Development: Infrastructural facilities such as roads, water, and electricity are well developed due to the presence of tourist centres.

4. Environmental Protection: Tourism helps to preserve nature, conserve wildlife, and ensure urban cleanliness and neatness.

5. Provision of Employment Opportunity: It provides employment opportunities for small-scale business enterprises located around tourist centres, hotels, restaurants, and other recreational centres that employ people.

6. Educational and Economic Growth: People are allowed the opportunity for economic and educational growth. New things are learned when a person visits tourist centres and important sites.

Disadvantages of Tourism:  

1. Environmental Damage: It poses a threat to a region’s natural and cultural resources such as beaches, and heritage sites which may be overused by tourists.

2. Cultural Destruction: Once a tourist centre is commercialized, the customs normsA norm is a rule, standard, or pattern for action. Social norm refers to shared standards of acceptable behaviour by a group of people. The norms in any society are based... More and beliefs of the people are undermined.

3. Lead to Seasonal Unemployment: It creates seasonal employment in most cases e.g trade fairs, Olympic games, etc where casual workers are thrown back to the market as soon as the program is over.

4. Development of Destructive Economic Activities: The behaviour of some tourists may not be acceptable or dangerous to other people’s life. Also, drug abuse is common during such events.

5. Marginal Employment: low skilled workers are usually employed during events such as the Olympic games.

Problems of Tourism:

Some of the major problems facing tourism development in Nigeria include the following:

1. Inadequate Funding: In Nigeria, the tourism industry is poorly funded.

2. Lack of Access Road: There is basically a lack of access roads to most resort centres.

3. Poor Publicity: Lack of effective publicity or communication system for publicizing the scenery, wildlife and cultural attractions to visitors is a big problem in the country.

4. Inadequate Personnel: One of the problems of developing tourism attractions in Nigeria is the inadequacy of competent and trained tourism personnel.

5. Lack of Private Investment: In Nigeria, tourism development is left in the hand of the government. Government alone cannot develop tourism in Nigeria.

6. Inadequate Infrastructure: Basic Infrastructures like electricity, pipe-borne water, etc. are inadequate and in some areas lacking and this tends to reduce the development of tourism in Nigeria.