Mass tourism causing Economic Leakage with damage to Flora and Fauna

Mass tourism is a prominent part of the tourism industry. Associated with the traditional package holiday, well-known holiday resorts and famous tourist attractions, many areas both benefit and suffer at the hands of mass tourism.

But what exactly is mass tourism and how does it impact the wider tourism industry? Well, the clue is in the title! Mass tourism is essentially tourism that involves ‘the masses’.

So, what is massive? Well, this is not exactly clear. But lets just say its usually a lot- like thousands or tens of thousands or more.

Mass tourism can occur in a variety of tourism situations. It could be a coastal resort, such as Benidorm. It could be an area that is home to a major tourist attractions, such as the Great Wall of China. It could be a picturesque village or remote island.

Wherever mass tourism occurs, it relies on the same concept- there are large amounts of tourists, often filling or exceeding capacity, in a given location at one time, causing wide spread pollution and environmental damage.

Hotel, Cruise & Tourist Taxes to Combat Mass Invasions

For decades, mass tourism as ‘an offspring of industrialization and so-called democracy, good student of consumption and globalization by occupation.

In today’s world, consumers are more independent than ever. We can find a cheaper deal online ourselves than what the travel agent is offering. We can plan our own itinerary using the information presented by travel blogs.

We don’t need a guide when we can download the information we need on our phones. But just because we are not part of a mass organized group, does not mean that we are not mass tourists.

Mass tourism can be defined as ‘extreme concentrations of tourists in any one place, resulting in saturation of the place’. Mass tourism cannot be characterized by specific numbers or values, because every destination has different carrying capacities.

Rather, mass tourism occurs when there are too many tourists for a destination to handle or comfortably accommodate, without disturbing the local culture, traditions and local habitat.

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               Negative Impacts of mass Tourism

Mass tourism has gained a pretty bad reputation in recent years. If you Google the term ‘mass tourism’ you will be largely greeted with articles that discuss the negative impacts on the environment and society.

Mass tourism creates intense environmental pressures due to the fact that such activity involves a large number of tourists in small areas.

The environmental impacts of tourism include aspects such as littering, erosion, displacement of animals, damage to flora and fauna and reduction in air quality, to name but a few.

Mass tourism can also cause significant social impacts. Gentrification, increases in crime, loss of culture and authenticity and cultural ignorance are just some of the ways that large amount of tourists in a given area can negatively effect the local society.

The other major problem is economic leakage. Whilst mass tourism creates significant revenue, not all of this money remains in the destination.

Sometimes like @ Curacao in the Dutch Caribbean, the taxpayers foot all the bills, while laundered money leads to currency changes.

Curacao Mass Tourism plot leading to deportation of local Population

In fact, because mass tourism is closely associated with all inclusive holidays and enclave tourism, it experiences more economic leakage than other areas of the tourism industry.

Economic leakage is when the money raised leaks out of the area. This is largely due to multinational chains operating within the tourism system.

If you eat McDonald’s, most of your money goes back to America. If you buy a can of Coke, most of your money goes back to America. If you stay in a Hilton Hotel, most of your money goes back to America. Get the picture?

Curacao builds extra Power Plant for the growing Migrant Population and Tourism

How we manage Mass Tourism in a Sustainable way

The key to managing mass tourism in a sustainable way is to minimise visitor numbers. OK, so that sounds counterintuitive, right? Wrong.

Yes, mass tourism is great because it brings in lots of money. BUT the problem is that it is not sustainable. Destinations cannot continue to exceed their capacity indefinitely, like in Curacao when its doubles the local population total every two months of the year.

As I explained above, there are generally more negative impacts associated with mass tourism than there are positive. But that doesn’t mean that mass tourism doesn’t have to stop altogether.

Mass tourism is big business, quite literally. Mass tourism isn’t new, but our awareness of many of the negative impacts that it causes is relatively new.

It is only in recent years that we have really started to understand the impacts of our actions and think in a more sustainable way.

As you can see, there are many mass tourism destinations all over the world. Are these destinations and the practices that they are adopting sustainable? Probably not. It is imperative that we plan and manage our tourism industries in order to keep them alive.

Tourism Teacher / ABC Flash Point News 2025.