Do you think tourism helps poor countries? How?

I am inclined to divide the tourism in two categories, Fake and True tourism. In my view, people who keep tourism as a side purpose on their business affair trip or the people who do it just to add another country in their "visited countries list" to gossip about, come under the category of fake tourism. Fake might be a strong word but I categorize it as such to differentiate. These tourists usually limit themselves to staying in big cities and international hotels. Though, it still adds to the economy of the country in terms of selling goods, services and creating small jobs but it makes the life of the local residents imitative, strained and mechanized. Culture of these cities become polluted and hardly represents true color of the original culture. Thus you will find many native residents of these cities complaining about higher inflation, higher traveling costs, higher rental costs, higher pollution and loss of originality and culture. Some of these native residents are forced to abandon their cities due to any of the above problems. True tourism, on the other hand, is about celebrating diversity of culture, peoples, places and environment. The tourists under this category don't limit themselves to big cities. In addition to these cities, they go out t country side, villages, rural areas, exploring diversity and original culture, to cherish. They stay in local hotels, eat at local restaurants, use local transport, walk around in native people, buy local goods and services to have full insight about the particular country. These are the tourists, who not only adds to the economy of the country more but also they don't harm the culture and originality, as such. In addition to benefits to the country, these tourists themselves benefit from much lower accommodation costs, unadulterated/original cultural stuff, lesser overall spending and last but not the least, true love and hospitality of the native populace, which is seldom found in jam packed bigger cities

I think it is a good thing for a poor country to develop its tourism, there will be a postive effect in long term. Tourism will atttract more people from foreign countries and more money will be spent in the local countries which in turn improve the gross domestic income of the citizens there,also it will improve the employment opportunities in that country. A good example is Dubai which its torurism indusry is geting better and better and the general livign standard of people there have been improved alot.

Tourism does help the local economy directly or indirectly. Like everything else, there are the positive as well as the negative side to it. The positive includes more jobs for locals be it tourism related or not. Tourists need accomodation, food, transfers, activities, local culture, attractions, etc.. Thus, they will inject money into the economy of that particular country. One of the negative aspect of tourism is when a country gets too commercialised. For example, developing roads, hotels, attractions just so that the tourist keeps coming back for more. This development might dilute the beauty or the uniqueness of a country which tourists normally seek for.

Actually tourism is way of helping poor countries to improve.

Tourism definitely help poor countries. It will bring foreign money into the country when the tourists spend on hotels, tours, souvenirs, food and many other stuffs. If a poor country has lots of attractive tourism spots, it would not stay poor for long.

i think so, am from a poor country and having foreign people coming in the country is really helpful. they contribute to the economy everytime they buy products from our country. they help local businesses because they need a place to stay and they pay for that.. but depite this, their are also disadvantages having them in our country. they tend to make us feel that they are superior even if they are just visitors because they are rich and they have the money, so they tend to boss around even if they are not in their homeland.. and when there are already many of their kind in a country, that country tend to lose it's identity.. :(

if or not tourism helps poor countries depends largly upon the tourists themselves. Package tourists who fly in on their home airline and stay at American or European owned hotels do no good at all and are to be discouraged. However, another brand of tourist who stays at locally owned accomodation and eats in locally owned outlets not only have a much better holiday but also contribute to the local economy in a very real way blessed be

I think tourism can help some parts of a poor country, but not all. For example, if a tourist flies into a large city of that country and only spends their holiday in that city, it does nothing for the smaller outer laying communities. However, if a tourist ventures out to a smaller village, then that town could reap largely from that benefit. There are always risks involved in tourism. Not every tourist will behave as they should, unfortunatly. But I think the benifits will outway the riskss.

Any activity that provides job opportunities and for the local people is beneficial to an economy. Add the earning of scarce foreign exchange and the patronage of local goods and services by foreign tourists, then you realize why tourism is good for a developing country. Furthermore, it affords the local people an opportunity to establish friendship and business links with foreign tourists.

Tourism does have a great impact in a country's economy. It's the same principle everywhere in the world, you invite tourists, you get good business. Most tourist spots in other countries charge $ rate that would be too expensive for locals but are very cheap to tourists. In the Philippines, locals flock to the beach during summertime, but are scarce during the months of NoV-Feb because that's considered as the cold months. This becomes the time for international tourists because because it's considerably less cold compared to where they came from. Without them, the business for these establishments will be close to zero.