Cultural tourism is an important way of bringing people and money into an area. In Australia 23 million people visit it’s cultural and heritage locations, making up 70% of all international visitors and 27 % of domestic visitors. Heritage and cultural tourism is a growing market, and is contributing to 37% of world travel and roughly growing by 15% per year. However large influxes of people may have serious implications on the local population and the natural environment.
Cultural tourism has influenced the rise in crime as more people are likely to be squeezed into smaller residential areas to cater for tourist resorts, increasing the population density. The crime rate is more likely to escalate as people in these areas desire to climb out and obtain the lifestyles of the tourists who appear more prosperous. The level of pollution also is likely to increase when an area becomes popular to travel to, for example, tourists are more likely to hire cars, when possible, and so more fumes and toxic gases are being released into the atmosphere.
Sustainable tourism is now becoming an important part of the tourism industry, it can be defined as
"Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities"
Sustainable tourism has three main aims it needs to achieve to prevent problems such as those mentioned above:
1) Making optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity.
2) Respecting the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserving their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contributing to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.
3) Ensuring viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.
As well as sustainable tourism, responsible tourism is being promoted. There are many factors responsible tourism is trying to encourage:
"Providing a more enjoyable experience for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues"And
" culturally sensitive tourism, which encourages respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence"
(Cape Town Declaration, 2002).
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