Tourism is a modern form of colonialism. It distorts local economies, causes environmental damage and ruins the places it exploits. To what extent would you support or reject this idea?

The notion that stated tourism as a new age colonialism is quite harsh considering that it has provided more advantages to the destination countries than it is its disadvantage. The positive impacts of tourism to mention a few are providing new source of income and job vacancies for the people around the tourist attraction, raising more awareness regarding the ecological issues and environmental preservation, and opening up the local to a more globalized society and way of thinking. New job vacancies and new source of income are both positive impacts of tourism especially to a place with limited choice of work for the local. Adding new field of work will have a domino effect to other fields. , Ffor example, when a local opens up a bed and breakfast business for tourists, another local can improve their skill in foreign languages and able to provide interpreting service. Another instance is when a local provide a surfing equipment to rent, a skillful local who are excellent in surfing can provide a training service. Environmental issues also have become a problem far before tourism exist, therefore the problem is not caused by the tourists alone, but by ignorant people which can both be the tourists and the locals. Tourism only highlighted the problem and in turn creates more awareness regarding environmental causes and a strong movement to preserve the environment. The third positive impact is tourism can expose the local with globalization in real time. It does not mean that traditional way of thinking and way of life are not good, but globalization have a good way of introducing pluralism and diversity. Exposing these will help combating negative stereotype among locals towards other people who are different than them in ideology, physical appearance, religious belief, etc. To sum up, tourism may have its negative impact, but in the long run it has much more positive advantages to the destination cities and to the locals. These positive impacts will hopefully able to combat the negative ones until eventually the concrete solution can be found.