You're Killing Me

Traveling to the mountains, beach or theme park, whether it's all of these or one, vacations are for relaxing and taking a break from the daily grind. However, some of these excursions can be considered harmful or have negative affects on tourism, by experiencing a national park by car or touring historic sites alone. It's the cumulative effects of many enjoyable trips, more than 1.4 billion in the United States in 2001, that damage or disrupt many tourist destinations.The tourism industry does offer economic benefits. In 2008, Americans spent a total of $767 billion on tourism-related costs like hotels, air travel, food and shopping. This spending carried down into individual communities in the form of income for business owners and sales tax revenue for state and local governments. Tourism can either pose a threat to the natural or man made environment, or it can pose a threat to sometimes both the local culture and society. Vacation destinations are unique in that they must try to accommodate a large number of tourists without disrupting the setting the tourists are attracted to. The tourism industry also creates jobs, as it is well known. Hotel staff, airline pilots, transportation staff, souvenir vendors and other tourism-related jobs totaled 5.9 million in 2008. If tourism develops greatly in a hometown or general communities, citizens may start to criticize because of tourism development.

Already, parts of the Great Wall of China have been hurt by tourism.

 Pumphrey, Clint. "Can Tourism Kill a Destination?" HowStuffWorks. HowStuffWorks, 2011. Web. 10 May 2013.