Is tourism beneficial to developing countries?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Is tourism beneficial to developing countries?
Position‹2 of 2: No, tourism is detrimental to developing countries
Argument1 of 4›: The biodiversity of the area is affected

Tourists may destroy the valuable ecosystem that the country is reliant on.

The argument

The environment is fragile - any major changes created by humans could negatively impact the natural order in developing countries. What makes the risk particular to these countries is that a large share of their inhabitants depend directly on the surrounding ecosystem rather than on systems that could buffer its loss. An increase in tourism may cause the creation of more buildings, attractions, and airports. While this may be good for economic income, it is bad for the natural environment, and the two effects are not separable: the construction that generates the income is the construction that clears and fragments the habitat. Food supply and medicine is threatened, because both are drawn from the environment being built over. The productivity of the ecosystems decreases, lessening sources on which the locals may rely, so the loss falls first on those with the least capacity to replace what is lost. The area may also, as a result, not be as well-equipped to deal with natural disasters. A degraded ecosystem has lost the features that absorb shocks, so the same storm or flood does more damage than it would have done before. Non-native plants and animals brought in by tourists can have a lasting negative result as well, not to mention the introduction of germs and diseases. These harms differ from construction in being self-sustaining: an introduced species or pathogen goes on spreading long after the visitor who carried it has left, so the damage is not bounded by the scale of the tourism that caused it. The development of a country relies more on the ecosystem than people may realize. Without it, a country cannot advance, which is why tourism that erodes the biodiversity of an area is detrimental to developing countries.

Premises

[P1]Tourism drives construction of buildings, attractions, and airports that damage a fragile environment, reducing ecosystem productivity and threatening the food and medicine locals rely on. [P2] Non-native plants, animals, germs, and diseases brought in by tourists cause lasting harm, and since development depends on a healthy ecosystem, degrading it holds a country back. [C] Because tourism damages the biodiversity of the area, tourism is detrimental to developing countries.

Counter-arguments

While this may be true, there are also measures that can be taken to protect the natural world in the area. Many developing countries are visited purely for nature, so destruction of the ecosystem is not always the result of tourism.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Measures can be taken to prevent this.