Curriculum Portal

neurologyYou need to know

• Tourism is travel and temporary stay outside a person’s usual environment for leisure, business or other purposes, typically for less than one year.
• Domestic tourism is travel within a person’s own country, inbound tourism is international visitors arriving in a country, and outbound tourism is residents travelling to other countries.
• Leisure tourism is travel for holidays and recreation (such as beaches, sightseeing and sport), and common leisure motives include relaxation, climate, culture, visiting friends and relatives, and seeking novelty or adventure.
• Mass tourism involves large numbers of tourists visiting the same destination, often using package holidays and standardised facilities, which can create high pressure on local infrastructure and environments.
• Sustainable tourism aims to meet the needs of tourists and host communities while protecting environmental, social and cultural resources so the destination can be used long-term.
• Global tourism operates at very large scale: before the pandemic there were about 1.5 billion international tourist arrivals per year (2019), and by 2023 international arrivals had recovered to roughly 1.3 billion.
• Tourism is a major global employer: travel and tourism supports roughly 1 in 10 jobs worldwide when direct, indirect and induced employment are included.
• Tourism contributes to national income through GDP via direct spending (hotels, attractions, transport) and indirect supply-chain spending (food, construction, energy), which is often explained using the economic multiplier effect.
• Tourism income can be reduced by leakage when profits are repatriated by foreign-owned companies or when goods and services are imported rather than sourced locally.
• Tourism can create employment at different skill levels (e.g., guiding, hospitality, transport, construction), but jobs may be seasonal, low-paid and insecure in some destinations.
• Overtourism occurs when visitor numbers exceed what a place can cope with, leading to crowding, strain on services, loss of local housing, and reduced quality of life for residents.
• In Venice, high visitor numbers have been linked to congestion, pressure on public services and housing, and the decline of resident communities as properties shift towards short-term tourist accommodation.
• Tourism can cause social and cultural change, including commodification of culture (traditions adapted or performed for tourists), changes in local values, and tensions between residents and visitors.
• In Bali, tourism demand can encourage cultural performances and ceremonies to be adapted for visitors, which can provide income and preserve interest but may also reduce authenticity and increase cultural pressure.
• Tourism can harm environments through carbon emissions from transport, waste and sewage, high water demand, damage to habitats, and disturbance to wildlife.
• Sensitive environments (e.g., coral reefs) are vulnerable because small increases in pressure can cause long-lasting damage, so sustainability often depends on strict management such as zoning, permits and visitor caps.
• The Great Barrier Reef has experienced coral bleaching when sea temperatures rise for prolonged periods, causing corals to expel symbiotic algae and potentially die if heat stress continues.
• Alternative tourism includes forms such as ecotourism, adventure tourism, cultural tourism and community-based tourism, which are usually smaller-scale and aim to increase local benefits and reduce environmental damage.
• Bhutan is an example of controlled tourism where visitor numbers and behaviour are managed using high-value, low-volume policies (including a daily sustainable development fee) to reduce impacts and protect culture and environment.
• Costa Rica is widely used as an ecotourism example where ecolodges and protected areas support conservation and local income, though impacts still need managing to avoid habitat disturbance and resource overuse.

• Classify a tourism example as domestic, inbound or outbound, and as leisure or business, using clear reasons linked to who is travelling and where they are travelling.
• Interpret tourism statistics (e.g., arrivals, revenue, employment, GDP share) by describing trends over time and comparing locations using appropriate units and proportional language.
• Explain the tourism multiplier effect using a simple spending chain, distinguishing between direct, indirect and induced impacts and identifying where leakage occurs.
• Use a named case study to assess tourism's contribution to employment and GDP by selecting relevant evidence, explaining causal links, and reaching a supported conclusion.
• Analyse social and cultural impacts of tourism on local communities by separating positives and negatives and linking each impact to a mechanism (e.g., housing pressure, commodification, crowding).
• Analyse environmental impacts of tourism in a destination by linking specific tourist activities to specific consequences (e.g., cruise ships to air pollution and waste; diving to reef damage).
• Evaluate whether tourism is sustainable in a sensitive environment using environmental, economic and social criteria, and justify a judgement with evidence and management strategies.
• Apply the Great Barrier Reef case study to explain how coral bleaching happens, how tourism can both threaten and fund protection, and what management reduces damage.
• Compare mass tourism with sustainable tourism using named examples (e.g., Bhutan visitor controls, Costa Rica ecolodges) and explain how each approach changes impacts.
• Construct a balanced argument on whether tourism is more beneficial or harmful by weighing evidence from at least two case studies of destinations at contrasting income levels and stating a justified overall judgement.