Positive and negative impacts of 
tourism on environment 
• Positive impacts of tourism activity:
 o support of conservation efforts through income for parks and reserves
 o protection and management of wildlife habitats
 • Negative impacts of tourism:
 o Pollution of the atmosphere and waterways, and vegetation damage 
and injury, disease, distress and disruption of wildlife natural 
behaviours (Buckley, 2012; Ballantyne et al., 2011b
 )
 o Erosion through high visitor numbers to some sites and coastline 
damage from the construction of hotels and other facilities
 o Loss of cultural heritage in sites due to the adoption of ‘external’ 
cultures (Lansing & De 
Vries, 2007)
 o Other issues include the unintended spreading of weeds through 
seeds dropped from tourist clothing