Cultural tourism, where people travel in order to visit museums, monuments, and archeological sites among other things, is a growing industry. Having so many visitors may sometimes benefit a nation’s cultural heritage, but it can also cause problems.
To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Answer:
Cultural tourism are getting popular as a larger amount of people travel in search of meaning rather than recreation. Although having a positive impact, this type of tourism can also bring troubles; therefore I strongly agree with the statement.
One of the biggest beneficial features of cultural tourism is that it helps protect and preserve cultural resources. The economic opportunities it provides stimulate local communities to conserve their heritage in order to continually attract visitors. For example, Lijiang, an ancient town of China, expanded its budget for heritage maintaining from 1998 to 1999 since its total income had increased significantly due to the developing tourism industry. Traditions, customs, traditional art and techniques and other cultural inheritance are at a greater chance of being survived; there may even be a revival of them because local people can make money from their cultural resources. Another significant positive impact is that cultural tourism promotes local culture. Whereby tourists get an opportunity to know about the traditions, values and lifestyle of indigenous communities.
On the negative side, as tourists coming to the place, cultural tourism causes pollution, congestions, increased costs for public services(e.g police service) and infrastructures, and destruction of cultural resources. There is an example that the profit of cultural tourism excited the government to build roads which resulted in the siltation of the lake nearby. Also, when people from outside of the local community come to the place, cultural interaction, which is local people and foreigners exchange their beliefs and values as well as other things, occurs. This can broaden the limits of local culture, yet can damage its authentic identity. Such as Sauraha of Nepal, a popular tourist attraction by the reason of its cultural amazements and natural resources. Due to tourism, hotels were built there and the price of land was very high. Many local people sold their land to non-local groups for money. Now Sauraha is a place of diverse population, therefore, its cultural identity is at a risk of being lost, and the culture and society has been altering on account of external influences.
All things considered, I strongly agree with the statement, that cultural tourism is a double-edged sword; there are challenges and benefits. Ensuring sustainability and strict policy on monitoring tourist behavior and heritage are very important.
TOEFL listening discussions: A conversation between two university students (1)