ABSTRACT
A fourth area of concern centres on tourism impacts upon the resource base. Whilst tourism may be an agency for the promotion of resource conservation measures, it will exert negative effects associated with depletion or diversion of key resources. The attraction of hot, dry climates for many forms of tourism creates particular demands for local water supplies, which may become depleted through excessive tourist consumption or be diverted to meet tourist needs for swimming pools or well-watered golf courses. In parts of the Mediterranean, tourist consumption of water is as much as six times the levels demanded by local people. Tourism may also be responsible for depletion of local supplies of fuel or perhaps building materials. Paradoxically, the removal of sand (for concrete) from beaches is not uncommon. The final area of environmental impact concerns visual and structural changes, and it is here that there is perhaps the clearest balance between negative and positive impacts of tourism. The physical development of tourism will inevitably produce a series of environmental impacts. The natural and non-natural environment may be exposed to forms of ‘visual’ pollution prompted by new forms of architecture or styles of development. Land may be transferred from one sector (for example farming) to meet demands for hotel construction, new transport facilities, car parks or other elements of infrastructure. The built environment of tourism will also expand physically, whether in the form of accretions of growth on existing urban resorts, new centres of attraction or second homes in the countryside.
