One of the most important areas of tourism is transportation to take the tourists to their summer destinations (i.e. the beach). Transport by air, road and rail is rising steadily because of the increasing number of tourists. One consequence of this is that tourism is responsible for a large amount of air pollutions. These emissions, as well as those from the production of electricity (another important tourist need) are linked to acid rain, chemical pollution and global warming.
And when tourists are not going anywhere, they are probably on the beach, littering both the beach with their rubbish or polluting the water with noisy jet skis that leak oil into the water killing many plants and animals. Other thing that the tourists don't realize is, that their constant trampling on soil causes the plants to die and loosens the soil particles and also accelerates soil erosion in that area. They should have more bin facilities, and signs to make the people aware of this problem and minimize this problem.
But summer holidays are only beach holidays. Some people like to go out into the wild and camp, but even so they pollute the environment. Bushwalkers can damage small streams by walking through them too many times, causing them to be muddy which then makes it difficult for small fish to feed. Sometimes less experienced bushwalkers do something dumb like washing their hair in small streams, which greatly pollutes the water because of the harmful chemicals in shampoo and conditioner, then when the animals or plants take in the water, they die. Even there, the less experienced bushwalkers litter or leave their camping equipment behind, decreasing the natural physical appearance of these fragile environments and once again causing death to many native animals.
During winter vacations, tourists usually visit snowy mountains like the famous Swiss Alps. Sometimes when there is a high concentration of tourist activity on the slopes, the rate of soil erosion increases and sometimes may even lead to avalanches. Unfortunately there is not real way to stop this from happening, because by stopping the tourists to go to the slopes, the fun is automatically taken out and tourists may stop visiting that area, which would mean that local people who depend on the tourists for their basic income will suffer and so will all the other tourist facilities in the area. Sometimes a lot of air pollution is created, for example tour buses often leave their motors running while the tourists go out to enjoy the facilities so that the bus is at a comfortable temperature when they return. While this happens a lot of fuel is burned and contribute greenhouse gases to the environment.
Under my opinion, it is mostly doing summer holidays that people like to go visit places, so it obvious that it is during that time when they will harm the environment the most, because people usually like to go sightseeing when the weather is warm and sunny outside, and not when it’s 15oC- 25oC below zero. Besides it is mostly during the summer when most of the tourist facilities are open for the tourists to enjoy, take an ice-cream stand for example. Since there's a lot less people got out during the winter, emission level will be low compared to level of emission during the summer, so air and noise pollution levels are less.
Nowadays tourism has many destructive environmental effects. However, maybe in the future people will realize the importance of environmental protection and will be aware awareness of environmental values. Tourists might start going to a destination because of its quality and purity
and work hard to keep it that because in the future there might not be many natural environments to appreciate. Or everything will be going the same way as today, only that the government will take more precautions to keep their environment clean. They might start hiring the local people clean up beaches, mountains, and forests. This will make the environment appeal to both the tourists and the local people will have nothing to complain about with their extra money and clean environment.
(871words)
