REC280 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Local Economic Development, Advantageous, Acculturation

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Recreation and Leisure Studies
• Course: REC280
• Professor: Karla Boluk

Document Summary

Tourism is about people and how people as tourists interact with other locations and peoples, engaging in experiences that may influence their own or the host community attitudes, expectations, opinions and lifestyles. Murphy argued that tourism is a "sociocultural event for the traveler and the host" Sociocultural impacts relate to changes in societal value systems, individual behaviour, social relationships, lifestyles, modes of expression and community structures. The focus of sociocultural impacts tends to be the host community, i. e. the people who reside in tourist destinations, rather than the tourist-generating region. Mathieson and wall state that sociocultural impacts are "about the effects on the people of host communities, of their direct and indirect associations with tourists". First, that the interaction between host and guest could dilute or destroy traditional cultures. This reflects the literature that considers tourism primarily as a threat to culture and peoples.