Tourism's negative effects

Travel and tourism is one of the world's largest industries. There are 1 billion tourist arrivals in the world every year. This industry generates one out of ten jobs worldwide. In 2015, travel and tourism constituted 9.8% ($7.2 trillion) of the world’s GDP. Tourism is usually regarded as a boon to a region’s economy. Tourism brings prosperity to the region and provides employment to the locals of the region. When tourism becomes unsustainable, it can have disastrous consequences on the environment. Tourism can cause all kinds of environmental issues from roadside garbage to polluted water to ugly beaches covered in flotsam and jetsam. It might be the locals doing the littering but they are only a part of the problem. 

• Tourism brings jobs, investment and economic benefits to destinations. But overtourism occurs when tourism expansion fails to acknowledge that there are limits. 
• Tourism is a fascinating, invisible export industry. Tourism inevitably brings with it environmental and cultural degradation. Tourism can disrupt or destroy ecosystems and environments.
• Tourism adversely impacts the environment by producing massive amounts of pollution. Increased movement of people across the globe (1186 million international tourist arrivals in 2015 up from 25 million in 1950), means that transport by plane, car, and train is continuously expanding. Air travel for tourism is responsible for a substantial part of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. A single transatlantic return flight emits almost half the CO2 emissions produced by all other sources consumed by an average person yearly. 
• Extreme differences of wealth and lifestyle between locals and tourists in some areas can cause resentment.
• Tourists often, out of ignorance or carelessness, fail to respect local customs and moral values causing irritation and stereotyping.
• Drug and alcohol abuse is one of the biggest problems facing the tourist’s hot spots around the world. Prostitution is rampant in places where the tourists arrive in hordes.
• The commercial sexual exploitation of children and young women has paralleled the growth of tourism in many parts of the world. Though tourism is not the cause of sexual exploitation, it provides easy access to it.
• Tourism leads to loss of traditional jobs when workers move from farming, fishery, mining etc to service jobs in tourism.
• Tourism often leads to overuse of water. Golf courses require a lot of water daily and an average golf course in a tropical country such as Thailand needs 1500 kg of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides per year and uses as much water as 60,000 rural villagers.
• Tourism contributes to more than 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Tourists as a group consume a tremendous amount of natural resources and produce an equally tremendous amount of waste.  
• The 'mega resort'  has been one of the most economically successful and environmentally destructive additions to the tourism industry.  Large corporate owned resorts rarely give back to the local communities on which they depend and thrive.  Only lower level positions such as maids, cooks, waiters, and bellhops are available to the local residents while upper level and management positions are reserved for corporate immigrants. 
• Large resorts are very rarely environmentally friendly, and in turn do not normally attract an environmentally conscious clientele. 
• Overtourism is defined as the excessive growth of visitors leading to overcrowding in areas where residents suffer the consequences of temporary and seasonal tourism peaks, which have enforced permanent changes to their lifestyles, access to amenities and general well-being. 
• Overtourism is a symptom of the present era of unprecedented affluence and hyper mobility, a consequence of late capitalism.
• Overtourism harms the landscape, damages beaches, puts infrastructure under enormous strain, and pricing residents out of the property market. 
• If tourist arrivals to a destination decline suddenly and dramatically it would likely have considerable economic repercussions for those who rely on them. Prioritising the welfare of local residents above the needs of the global tourism supply chain is vital.

Walking is a virtue, tourism is a deadly sin - Bruce Chatwin

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Jobless growth of India's GDP

• Today, India is facing a peculiar situation of 'jobless growth' and 'growthless jobs' as well, mainly due to defective economic policies and gross fiscal mismanagement.
• During the past three years, public sector, government’s headcount remained stagnant. State-run banks registered a job growth of just 0.5%. Private corporations have no better figures.
• Every year, 10-12 million young Indians join the labour force, 5 million people leave agriculture to join the non-agriculture sectors. In contrast job creation is few lakhs only during the past three years which are mostly replacement recruitment.
• India's GDP growth and new jobs creation in India have not been growing at the same rate. The creation of more and better jobs and livelihoods is imperative for policymakers. Focusing only on GDP growth is a wrong approach.
• About 550 jobs are disappearing everyday, an alarmist declaration of loss of one million jobs during past five years.
• The lack of lending by the banks may very well be one contributing factor. 
• Rise in unemployment is due to agriculture and SMEs, which contributes most employment in India, are the worst affected. The organised sector contributes only 1% of jobs.
• Big multinationals in India are highly capital-intensive, while the SMEs are four times more labour intensive than the large firms. But they are one of the least productive sectors and their real wages are very low. 
• India needs to protect sectors like farming, unorganized retail, micro and small enterprises. These sectors need support from the government not regulation. 
• The agricultural sector in India does absorb more than half the workforce, but a lot of it is disguised unemployment. 
• The view of Indian villages as the economic backbone of India is flawed and will never lead to the kind of mass employment that is desired in India. At best it minimizes agriculture labour migration to urban areas.
• Urbanization creates lots of jobs in developing economies.
• 92% of enterprises that created jobs were from the informal sector, and the biggest stumbling block for these was lack of formal credit. 
• India needs to free up its labour laws which are archaic, restrictive, and convoluted which incentivizes firms to stay small and remain in the informal sector. Firms, which can achieve economies of scale, are the need of the hour to create jobs for the masses in India.
• India needs to focus on primary and secondary education and skills development. A skilled worker has a better chance at finding higher paying employment.
• At present, the business environment is the toughest for small to medium enterprises. Improvement of 'ease of doing business' to firms of all sizes, to be set up and facilitate its smooth running. 
• Focus on infrastructure and tourism, on sustainable basis, will help creation of jobs at the unorganized level. 

My View:

Modi administration, in the name of reforms is actually destroying 'informal sector' which are mostly operated by less educated people employing semi skilled people. Modi's failed demonetization and hurriedly rolled out mangled GST have destroyed informal sector, agriculture, construction and tiny industries, while achieving nothing. Winning elections is all about hammering of selective narratives rather than sound public policies. Aside improving 'ease of doing business', promoting manufacturing, preserving agriculture at profitable levels, encouraging small businesses & industries, services, infrastructure, tourism are the keys for providing employment to masses. Banks must be financially healthy and support informal sector so that our economy grows and provide employment to our aspiring youth. Trophy projects, white  elephants and icons are not the indicators of development. It is all round life style improvement of poorest people, which is called 'development'.